3:AM Magazine

Alternative Ulster. * Robinson in Ruins. * The Brixton riots, 1981. * America’s thriving literary journals. * “The Substitute” — a short story by Lynne Tillman. * Lynne Tillman animated. * Jean-Michel Basquiat‘s Gray. * In search of David Foster Wallace‘s The Pale King. * DFW’s collection of self-help books. * More on The Pale King. * Artist Karen Green on her late husband DFW. * Jennifer Egan wins the Tournament of Books. * A documentary about Maurice Blanchot from 1998. * The official Jesus and Mary Chain tumblr. * Finnegans Wake. * DBC Pierre: “Reality has overtaken it, to a degree. The form of the novel is too quaint, too fabulous. You can’t resonate off a core set of values now in the way you once could”. * The significance of The Mob. * Blake Butler interviewed in Bookslut (new story here). Another interview there. * Beautiful rebels. * Punk in London. * The history of the Chelsea Boot. * David Shields: “These writers are nostalgia merchants. We need to call total bullshit on it and say — this is not literature”. * John Ashberry on translating Rimbaud. * George Condo documentary with Burroughs and Ginsberg. * The William Burroughs scarf. * God save Poly Styrene. * An interview with Desmond Hogan, “probably the most famous Irish writer you’ve never heard of”. * Ian McKellen and the Fleshtones at Warhol‘s Factory, 1987. * Autism on film. * Another kind of blues. * Famous authors and their typewriters. * Dennis Hopper and Iggy Pop get their tits out. * Who enjoys shopping in IKEA? * Woody Allen. * Top 10 deranged characters. * Abandoned American theatres. * Neuroscience fiction. * Adam Ant and Boy George perform “Young Parisians”. * A forthcoming Adam Ant documentary. * Hauntology. * An interview with Death. * The ever flamboyant Philip Sallon. * What’s on Don Quixote’s iPod? * Women in cages. * Already a year ago: Malcolm McLaren. * Alain Badiou‘s response to Jean-Luc Nancy. * Fluxus anthology. * The Trafalgar Square street protests. * Part 6 of Mick Middles‘s Manchester punk diaries. * French philosophy since 1960. * Lene Lovich live at Studio 54 in 1981. * Marcel Duchamp on “The Creative Act”. * 200 years of police surveillance of French writers. * Gavin James Bower on his favourite books. * Lewis Carroll‘s photographs. * Lars Iyer interviewed.

“We accept every rejection within the tight slope of ideas,” says Matthew Wascovich, 3:AM editor and frontman of Cleveland-based music group, Scarcity Of Tanks. Wascovich founded SOT during the summer of 2004 after stints in a bunch of unheard-of Cleveland bands. Scarcity Of Tanks have toured throughout the U.S. and released two acclaimed records for Total Life Society (Cleveland, USA) and Textile (Paris, FR).

They claim to be “anti-heroes with no message”. “We exist so that you don’t have to. We create rock music playing the form as we play the form — and that’s by our own rules. Distortion. Bass and drums that make you move. Guitars that make you feel sick or alive. Vocals that you cannot relate to most of the time. This would partially describe the SOT experience; a living response,” says Wascovich. The current line-up features top notch Clevelanders: Andrew Klimeyk, Jeff Deasy, Theodore Wiggs, Null Flynn The Younger, and Brent Gemmill.

Their new album, Sensational Grade, is out on May 1st.

[Pic Scarcity Of Tanks live in Cleveland, Ohio by Bryon Miller.]

Chris McCabe & Donatas Petrošius
Tim Atkins & Tomas S. Butkus
Jeremy Reed & Gabriele Labanauskaite

Collaborative, ebullient and eminently unique, we present a poetry event featuring some of the most exciting writers emerging in Europe. Challenging the linear notions of poetry as a closed medium, Donatas Petrošius, Gabriele Labanauskaite (pictured) and Tomas S. Butkus from Lithuania will read and write in tandem with three of the UK’s most vibrant poets, Chris McCabe, Tim Atkins and Jeremy Reed. This evening will evidence the depth and imagination of contemporary European poetics, declassifying notions of poetry as anything but a remarkable performance art.

This event is part of declassified a Lithuanian festival exploring graphic art, moving image and live performance.

Rich Mix (Venue 2)
35 – 47 Bethnal Green Road
London
E1 6LA
Saturday 9th April, 7pm
Free admission

By Mick Habeshaw Robinson.

The early 80’s, west London…

Accent were a Jam style band practicing away in west London, loving punk, enjoying the post punk bands around at the time and getting into soul, through Jam singles b-sides and bits of Electro and Disco. Saturday was spent at the game, not much glamour at the football back then but tons of passion and a smattering of fashion — Pringle jumpers, Tacchini, Fila tracksuits, Lacoste t’s and deerstalker hats, desert boots, Kickers are all around.

The singer, Brian Rydell and myself (it was our band) saw an angle, we were getting into the clobber and saw a parallel with Mod, it was all about being smart and dressing better than the next person, with a constant hunt for new labels.

We knew Garry Bushell (then at Sounds) had championed the second wave of Mod bands — Chords, Purple Hearts and we were pretty sure we could get him interested. We produced a fanzine about ourselves and casuals called In The Crowd and we started giving them out, Bushell was hooked immediately, he reviewed a gig then put us on the cover, much to the disgust of the average music paper reader of the time.

On a roll, we needed a Svengali Mclaren type figure with a clothes shop, West London’s only one choice was Stuarts on the Uxbridge Rd. So we talked the owner into becoming our manager, although this just meant he gave us free clothes, that was all that was required really.

We were gigging round West London, Fulham Greyhound, upstairs at the Kings Head and we created the Casual Beat club where the crowd was more punky rabble than casual, but a few were passing by, most casuals were soul boys at the time.

Chelsea had just been promoted from the old second division in ’84 and they were having a party at the ground before the last home game to celebrate, so we chanced it — ‘there’s no harm in popping in to see Ken Bates’ (chairman at the time). We walked in to the offices which were at the entrance back then, no security!, opened the door and there’s Ken’s secretary and Ken, handed him a fanzine said can we play, he said ‘Yes, sort it with my secretary’, all within five minutes. Can you believe that? As if you could ever get a soul inside the offices like that now.

The following Saturday we’re setting our equipment up on the pitch in front of the then main (east) stand, ground starts to fill up, probably about 15 –20,000 in at this point (about 2pm). We run through five songs to a good response, polite round of applause and no abuse! Pat Nevin the only indie footballer of the day wrote about us, some major labels invited us in for demos, our hype was better than the sound of the band, we released an indie single and faded away, that was that.

At least we can always say we started at stadiums and worked our way down.

(Text lifted from Heavenly blog)