3:AM Magazine

» Sticking It To The Man: An Interview With Henry Rollins

To be an awake American, you realize the confrontational battlfield you live in. Everything is political here. Money is your last line of defense between you and the street. Do drugs? Bad battle strategy to me. Overweight, too slow, you will lose. Take your eye off the ball, someone will take your lunch and eat in front of you. That’s America. You want to tell the truth? You will learn confrontation. For me, art was always a vehicle for all of that. It has never been for art’s sake. I throw out insults like chum. I want the clash.

Aline Duriaud speaks to former Black Flag frontman Henry Rollins.

» Daren King Mob

I don’t think my writing is erotic at all. Whether or not you write about sex is beside the point. Erotic fiction is fiction that attempts to create sexual arousal in the reader. That’s a scientific definition, by the way. My fiction never attempts to do that. Usually when I write about sex, really I’m writing about something else, perhaps a certain concept or emotion.

Andrew Stevens and Daren King are finally sober enough to talk literature.

» Train Noir

When Robin finally returned to London after his lengthy foreign journeys in 1989, he contacted me. He had fallen out with his previous agent and wanted someone to represent him with whom he had a better rapport. Though I was not technically an agent, I had all the publishing contacts and took the job on out of friendship for him. Though I must sympathise with my predecessors as Robin was not the most disciplined of authors when it came to signing contracts or dealing with paperwork or contractual terms; but he never did miss a deadline I would add.

Andrew Stevens talks to Maxim Jakubowski about the late Derek Raymond.

» The Pub Closes With A Crash

Gathering a reputation as a difficult writer amongst many potentially influential sources, Julian MacLaren-Ross was uncompromising to say the least, and was quick to set out his own terms with prospective employers. While his manner may have appeared to be rude and rather tiresome, on closer inspection it is possible to see that he was exceptionally passionate about what he wrote, and would protect his carefully considered work from slap-dashers at all costs. In his reviews and articles, he was also quick to praise others he deemed worthy, while not being afraid to voice his criticisms at those he did not.

Paul Ewen on the Selected Letters of The Last of the Sohemians Julian Maclaren-Ross.

» Disney Matters

Irvine Welsh is the new Patricia Cornwell (okay, that’s a bit harsh, I know). He might not agree with this himself; I should hope he vehemently disagrees… he can’t agree? Can he? But I would put my last penny on the fact that not one person in the marketing/design/sales team responsible for the production of this clumsy book would disagree. In fact, they’ve probably played a part in subliminally making me think/write this myself. It doesn’t take a genius to figure the market that Welsh’s publishers are now aiming for.

Lee Rourke thinks Irvine Welsh’s latest Florida-meets-Leith jaunt isn’t much cop.

» Chameleon Of The Counterculture

Williams grapples with the chameleon-like character of Michael X, neither entranced by his subject nor appalled by him. Michael is at once pimp, revolutionary, black man, white man, Muslim, Christian, Jew, gangster, prayer leader, poet, and enforcer. Williams sees all sides of him, never straying into condemnation or applause. With impressive research and compulsive prose, Williams fleshes out a character who is equally beguiling, repulsive, scary, and ridiculous.

3:AM’s new recruit Steve Finbow reviews John Williams‘ new biography of Michael X.

» Sohoitis VIII: Alternative Miss World

I was the youngest at 17 and meant to be studying for my A levels but I wisely thought being in Andrew Logan’s groundbreaking competition was a better education and a higher qualification for life than any ordinary exam could give me. I was right in all senses, and Rebecca was too drunk for the steps and fell down half of them.

3:AM’s very own alternative miss world Sophie Parkin previews An Evening Of Alternative Miss World at the Portobello Film Festival.

» Sohoitis VII: Tell Me A Tale Of Tears

Was it fathers or mothers that made all those grown men cry in that back street in a Borough pub The Gladstone, the other week? Or, was it the fact that it was an old man croakily singing, forcing them to watch their own mortality rocking before them? None of those songs came near to triggering a liquid response from me, maybe because I never felt betrayed: his songs may have contained clichés of dime-a-fuck girls and drunken feckless men but they were full of truth and the small-town Southern ways of scratching at life through dirt.

Sophie Parkin explains why Larry Jon Wilson didn’t make her cry.

» rexroth, bukowski & the politics of literature

“Rexroth is a faker. Ask him what he thinks about [Robinson] Jeffers.”

“Do you ever see Bukowski?” Rexroth asked.

I told him I saw him all the time.

“Well, tell him this: If I ever meet him around anywhere, I’ll come after him with a telephone pole and beat him till he can’t walk. Will you tell him that personally for me? Promise?”

Ben Pleasants on Rexroth, Bukowski, Ezra Pound and the poetry wars.

» Bad Faith X

One of the creeping, unanalysed myths of our time is that it is somehow wrong to dislike Islam, or any part thereof, and wrong to take a dim view of its tenets and demands, and wrong to take a still dimmer view of the figure who founded it. I can practically hear the distant tutting and grunts of disapproval. Poor Islam. Poor Muslims. Their beliefs are being mocked. How hurtful. How “racist”. How terribly unfair.

David Thompson’s final column for 3:AM.

» Bad Faith IX

Freberg’s story is among the film’s more disturbing revelations, in that it shows how the most innocuous of details can identify someone as incompatible with orthodoxy and a target for punishment. Freberg explains how despite her excellent performance she was labelled a “problem” by her colleagues and subjected to a campaign of harassment until finally, and successfully, she sought legal remedy. Freberg’s students later admitted they’d known she was a “closet Republican” precisely because she didn’t use the classroom to air her political views.

David Thompson’s regular column for 3:AM returns.

» A Sad, Sad Day

Because of the rather cruel nature of his TV shows, he had a rather love-hate relationship with the public. It’s strange, not only did he have a baby hand to contend with but he looked liked the kind of guy who would steal your grandma and sell her for camels or something. But it is said that he raised over 100m pounds for leukaemia and other charities and that, in person, he was a top bloke.

James Daly pays tribute to the late Jeremy Beadle.

» Overwhelmingly Bearded

Autechre live are technically inscrutable but sonically fluid, cutting and snipping events together almost seamlessly, quite unlike the new album’s discrete pieces. The performers are lit, but barely; the main focus of the crowd’s rapture appears to be two Apple laptops, not the heads bobbing around behind them.

Andrew Fleming on Autechre live.

» We Need to Talk About Kevin

I am standing at the back of The Roundhouse, but during “When You Wake You’re Still In A Dream” I am starting to shake from the floor. And by the time they hit the twenty-three minute version of “You Made Me Realise”, this is the equivalent of standing under a jet plane taking off. The sound is so loud that I want to vomit, but somehow I start to wonder if Kevin Shields planned this all along? Purification via noise terrorism. I can feel every vein in my body. From the spleen outwards my head pounds, and fingers shake.

Adelle Stripe reviews My Bloody Valentine live in London.

» Are You Ready For U.S. Ghost Punk Psych Jams?

Such is my obsession with music, a trip to NYC simply would not have been even half complete or as much fun without seeking out some live underground sounds, and this I found at local promoter Todd P’s Death by Audio night in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. In contrast to the kind-of-in-a-similar-vein Hoxton scene in London, there are less skinny jeans but more checked shirts and beards, the outfit that is almost tradition for the learned and serious underground music fan. This is totally DIY and a far cry from the usual mainstream venues.

Kate Picard pays a visit to Williamsburg’s Death By Audio.

» 3:AM Brasil: Prayer

The real reason for those travels, I learned later on in life, was to escape my dad’s cheating and boozing ways. It was already pretty bad at that time, and she couldn’t admit it. I guess she just decided to escape to there, in the middle of nowhere, away from the shame of the neighbors peeking through the half-opened windows and seeing dad spread out on the sidewalk after some cab driver had dropped him off unconscious.

By Patrick Brock.

» Put All Your Money In The Bag I Have A Gun

It’s nearly closing time. People are looking at me, thinking what the hell is HE doing in here? People go to the bank to set up IRAs, to invest in mutual funds, to get approved for mortgages and stuff like that. I am not the kind of person who looks like he is going to be doing any of these things. It feels like everyone is looking at me, wondering if I’m here to rob the fucking place. Well the joke’s on them. I am here to rob the fucking place. Just not today. I wad up the deposit slip and shove it deep into the front pocket of my jeans. I need a little time to think this over.

By Lawrence Clayton.

» Johnny, Remember Me

It was a seething song of unrequited lust. ‘All Shook Down’ was mine and I gotta admit, it was my attempt to get that voodoo beat from Gene Vincent’s ‘Cat Man’ nailed down, while Johnny spun around it a list of physical afflictions that assailed him once he’d spotted a swell looking dame. He shivered and shaked, shimmied and quaked, and the girls all screamed their lungs out with approval when he did it.

By Cathi Unsworth.

» He Didn’t Pull the Weeds Out, Tenderoni, Mazurka and Blink (four flash stories)

I was feverish, my head like bricks, and I drank refrigerated coffee. His note talked about his wetsuit, how he took pictures of his shadows. His mother, planes, the sea. His hands, he said they needed my massages. I was swollen. He didn’t mention the affair, how I spied and emptied out his wallet.

By Kim Chinquee.

» Morton Bonsey

I put Morton in a diner because I’ve never been in a diner. It’s silver and has a jukebox at each table. It’s called Wolfie’s. Their specialty is Boston Cream Pie. Morton drinks the half and half containers. Morton wants his own desires and I’m lactose intolerant. He orders the pie with ice cream. He orders milkshakes. He gets tiny containers of Lucky Charms and puts half and half on them.

By Randall Brown.

» 15 dollars & 61 cents

Julia sits down at her kitchen table with a bowl of pasta. She has been googling the word ‘tutu’ all day. She is still wearing the green polyester slip she wore to bed the night before. She has been alone. It is now evening. Her eyes look a little milky.

It’s on craigslist that Julia sees an ad for a sugar daddy. Julia reads it over and over again. She has been out of work for nearly three months and at this point has only 15 dollars in her wallett and 61 cents in her bank account.

By Kendra Grant Malone.

» Three Poems

We went into the amusement arcade
where the videos addle the brain,
and we looked at the little harbour
of Ramsgate, in the rain.

By Charles Thomson.

» Three Poems

I look around me. Despite the happy outburst, you can tell these people come from the Medway Towns, thanks to their general downtrodden and depressed demeanours. Every one of them looks like they are ill – diabetes aside – and they all have greasy hair. Maybe it’s due to inbreeding, or the amount of alcohol consumed by their pregnant mothers. Perhaps it’s not their fault at all and these towns were built on some ancient site of violence and carnage, later cursed by a witch or the devil himself. Or could it be nothing more than the high levels of pollution to be found in the Medway air?

By Wolf Howard.

» A View From Santorini

I hurl myself off 100 ft cliffs
To a place where it’s hard to tell good luck from
Bad

And where we don’t always recognise the
Doors
That close even as we miss those that open

Offering a chance to lose substance, to become
Transparent
To defy gravity

By Richard Cabut.