In Stereo Press

by:  Daniel Dissinger

There is something to be said of the poet who grabs hold of intangibility with such a firm grasp, enough to grind it into solid matter.  Words have become the shapes, sounds, tastes, textures, and smells that they seem to be attracted to, and with the technological hurdles that keep challenging today’s young wordsmiths, exploring new and exciting venues to exhibit poetry has become essential to the medium.  James Kerley stretches and pushes the boundaries of what could be considered tangible and/or intangible with his work The Archivist.  His work defines an erasure of traditional cover-to-cover books, while maintaining the integrity of fine poetic craftsmanship through careful web development.  His words and ideas are excavations of historic fact that have been filtered through a fine mesh of surrealism interactively working within an ever evolving landscape.  But the question is, who is the archivist-its creator or its reader?

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Brendan Hamilton

I’ve long admired Jeffrey Lewis for his raw, confessional approach to the craft of songwriting. I feel like I owe him the same level of earnestness in reviewing his latest album, ‘Em Are I. So I must begin with a confession of my own: the first song on this album terrified me. I felt like Pete Seeger hearing Dylan go electric at the Newport Folk Festival.

That’s a terrible analogy.

I’m not reaching for an axe. It’s just that whenever I first listen to a new album by a band or performer I love, I’m always irrationally afraid of what might happen. What if it sucks? What if they’ve lost it? Or given it up? Can I bear witnessing yet another talented artist selling out? Then, when my expectations are broken, I start to freak out a little. In this case, I was suddenly thinking, “What are all these instruments? This sounds too produced. This tune is too catchy. What’s happening here?!” I had expected Lewis’s usual lo-fi, acoustic “anti-folk” approach. This was different. Continue Reading »

by:  Daniel Dissinger

The main objective of language is to present an idea in a clear and concise fashion.  It is thought to be the poet and/or the novelist that uses language to confuse, warp, and play with the realities of everyday life.  Yet, language can also be used to deceive and manipulate situations-to verbally imperialize certain groups of people.  A quote from Lisa Birman’s debut book of poems, for that return passage:  a Valentine for the United States of America, can be used to best explain the beautiful disaster language has come to be, “Being both the thing/ and the threat of the thing/ an act and an instrument.”  In Lisa Birman‘s book, it is America who is the devious wordsmith-hiding its true intentions under much garbled jargon and double-talk, leaving many of its “lovers” asking–why?

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by:  Daniel Dissinger

The cover of Raza Ali Hasan’s book of poetry, 67 Mogul Miniatures, exhibits one of the emperor Sha-Jahan’s first decade of rule over the Indian subcontinent.  These hugely populated artistic scenes were restricted to thirteen by nine inch frames, yet articulated complex themes such as classism and religion.  Just like these paintings, Raza Ali Hasan’s poetic worlds erupt inside their tri-couplet form.  With his use of violent imagery, mixed with sheer poetic artistry, Raza Ali Hasan constructs a sprawling world that fits in the palm of your hand.

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by: Daniel Dissinger

The Burnt Toast has become the center for all local art, music, and poetry since the closing of Albums on Hill Bistro. On August 1st, The Burnt Toast restaurant was proud to present the music of Pete Laffin and Tim Haufe. Pete and Tim are from New York, Poughkeepsie to be exact. They’ve been playing together for some time now, which made this performance extra special.

In 2007, Pete Laffin released his album The Still Point of the Turning World. To quote from Brendan Hamilton’s review, “The Still Point of the Turning World captures a perfect blend of sound and space, of rawness and harmony; it is, quite simply, a profoundly human work”. It seems that some of today’s contemporary songwriters–once stripped of all the glitz and electronic illusion– become nothing but another space in a room. Pete Laffin is that exception. His live performance complements the albums quiet and subtle playfulness with desire and melancholy. There is an honesty one can capture from Pete Laffin as he sings, not to you but for you. Pete Laffin is a humble artist, which allows him the space he requires to be, at full volume, enormous. Continue Reading »

 

 Patience: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

If I may first, quote from their entire bio for support,

“Serena and Dan are Colorado natives, born and raised in the ‘burbs. Once they escaped, they fell madly in love with things that make little sense. Dan eventually became the high ruler of a small island, where Serena stationed her troops during an impending takeover of Daniel and his servants. After battling it out for two decades, the two realized they both liked flamingos and fairs, and the rest is the history created in their first chapbook, Fantastic Flamingo Fair. There is currently little animosity between the two, although Daniel often misses tyranny, and Serena, hostile takeover. Both are currently students of many schools, love love love art (of all kinds and genres), and are always looking for others to collaborate with.”

When I first engaged with this package, which includes a chapbook by Serena Chopra entitled, The Land of Many Uses, and an untitled CD with music by Daniel McDonald, I was taken aback by the beautiful details that they had put into the presentation. It’s amazing when someone can go to an open mic and get their hands on a FREE chapbook and CD. It’s even better when you get to hear both the music and poetry performed in the same night.

The Land of Many Uses is, at first, a beautiful book just to look at. This is not your plain old Times New Roman, recycled paper chapbook. The entire book is illustrated by Serena and Daniel. The colors jump off the page and create spaces of clarity and harmonious confusion. The opening page gets the reader ready with a picture a girl staring into a darkness, a portal perhaps. There is no telling where this will take you, or if this is even the beginning. The first poem is titled VI, so are we somewhere in the middle of a journey? According to the page prior to this poem, where the reader is asked to turn the book upside down then back again, our world, our perspective, even our senses won’t be the same. Throughout the book Serena showcases her attention to the lyric voice and her attention to detailed, though abstract, images. One of my

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 holy smokes: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Poets and musicians both rely upon sound to convey meaning, sensation, wit, emotion, or whatever it is they’re “trying to say.” Yet one key element in the art of poetry that is often lacking in today’s music is space. Emptiness. That thing between and around sound. Many current artists try to cram as many layers of sound as they can into a recording, all smoothed out, arranged, and harmonized by some master producer. Of course, sometimes this can result in unique work. More often than not, however, the resulting product seems nauseatingly inhuman. It furthers the sense of separation between artist and audience that major record companies and MTV love to perpetuate, placing the artist upon a plastic pedestal. It does to music what airbrushing does to Playboy models.

By contrast, Pete Laffin’s debut album, “The Still Point of the Turning World,” captures a perfect blend of sound and space, of rawness and harmony; it is, quite simply, a profoundly human work. His songs, mostly all acoustic, seem delicate, stripped almost to the bone. Laffin’s beautiful, crooning vocals at times belie his more humorous lyrics–which makes them even funnier: “I just smoked a joint with Jesus, / and he’s one fucking awesome guy. / He said sometimes his dad’s a dick, / but so is yours when you cross the line.” Laffin’s unique sense of wit is as striking in his sentimental moments as it is in his humorous ones. “When I Was Gone” is a real tear-jerker, great songwriting made all the more striking by the deft guitar work and back up vocals of Gabrielle Grilli.

This album signals an auspicious start to Laffin’s musical career. With the formation of The Pete Laffin Band, we can expect to be hearing more great music in the days to come. Check them out on MySpace:

http://www.myspace.com/petelaffin

It’s Saturday, March 15, and the South by Southwest Musical Festival is happening in Austin, Texas at this very moment. I’m not there. I’m in Boulder, Colorado. And that’s okay. Motherfuckers, I’m telling you, IT IS OKAY. Mother Earth still rotates on her wobbly old axis. The grass still twinkles in the morning dew. Penguins are still nature’s lovable faggots. And, according to my calculations, all over the world, at this very instant, there are at least two thousand people having sex in animal costumes. Seriously. I heard all about it last night. It’s called furversion, but that’s a whole other story. More to the point: all over America, people are picking up musical instruments AND PLAYING THEM. Really. They are playing shit like guitars and drums—in basements, living rooms, garages, dive bars, bar mitzvahs from sea to shining sea. They are playing on the beaches, they are playing on the landing grounds, they are playing in the fields and in the streets, they are playing in the hills; they shall never surrender. Some of them are even worth listening to! And you, my brothers and sisters, don’t have to shell out hundreds of dollars, travel to Texas, and wade through a sea of hipsters to hear them.

Last night I had the privilege of witnessing a divine specimen of wholesome, homegrown American music. Now don’t get me wrong—the Happy Jawbone Family Band IS NOT your uncle’s Beatles-inspired garage band. Its living room performance was everything God and the Fugs intended rock n’ roll to be: loud, raucous, raw, participatory, sloppy, fun, and no less than slightly disturbing. The whole thing couldn’t have lasted more than fifteen/twenty minutes, but it was hilariously intense. Like getting face-fucked by Napoleon. That’s a compliment.

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