In Stereo Press

Three years ago today comedian Mitch Hedberg died. Originally this news was announced on The Howard Sern website April 1st. I had just seen him at Caroline’s in New York City a week prior to his death. He was amazing. I don’t remember a single joke he told, all I remember from the show was laughter at all angles.

I first saw Mitch Hedberg on David Letterman. His casual stage-fright-smile and mannerisms were just as inviting and vulnerable as his delivery. I was instantly hooked. I got my hands on his first CD recording before it officially came out. The recording is one continuous track, an hour or more of Hedberg jokes leaning on a walking bass line. I fell in love with his playful attitude towards language, “I haven’t slept for ten days, cause that would be too long”. His observations are whimsically childlike and sophisticated, “I’ve seen a human pyramid before, it was very unnecessary”. Some of my favorite moments in his act are when a joke would go down in flames. Mitch knew how to keep his cool and turn a moment of silence into yet another punchline, “If you lost your wallet it’s hard to dance; Hey, I just lost my wallet, this song is funky; Fuck it! That shit’s no good boy, This is a CD called Hit and Miss”. I was, I am, addicted to his diction and syntax, his semi dark shades and long hair. He was more than a comedian, essentially he was a poet, “I drank some boiling water because I wanted to whistle”. My friends and I memorized his jokes like our favorite songs. Much of the day I would look like I was talking to myself, just laughing out of nowhere; at anytime anything could remind me of a Mitch Hedberg joke.

Mitch Hedberg, this generations Lord Buckley.

When the news spread about his death, my friends called me all day to pay their respects. It was as if he was apart of our everyday lives, hanging out at parties, lounging lazily around the house till noon, taking long drives, and in a sense he was, and in a sense he still is. Today we remember the genius that is Mitch Hedberg.

by:  Travis Cebula

 

 Turn Metropolitan Page by Page: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

even now I feel

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by:  IDeology

 

 We've Got the Power: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Bio:  “IDeology was created in the Summer of 2003 in Boulder, Colorado. Our mission is to bring the important issues of our time such as global awareness, human rights, middle-east conflicts, climate change, etc. to the forefront of contemporary consciousness in the form of hip hop music. We strive to be optimistic, hopeful, and yet grounded in our message for hope in the world and positive change within ourselves.”

by:  Jessica Rose Floeh

 

 Practical Dreamers: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

To compose this song Jessica used open source files creating a kind of found-sound-art.  Check it out!

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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by: Aimee Herman

 

 The Importance of Condoms and Handwashing: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

someone fucked America and gave her HPV
diagnosed one day, bent over
state lines straddling hitchhiking fingers
attached to bloated SUV
offering over forty different varieties
six, eleven, sixteen, eighteen
all depending upon availability, accessibility, instability

she may have been lured by the southern man whispering,
in. god. we. trust.
she may have been lured by the promise of
freedom and liberation
thrusted by red-stained elephant trunk

someone plunged fuming missiles into her most
populated New York City
sucked on her Los Angeles
took her Chicago from behind
penetrated her Houston without any protection
forced hydrogen bombs inside her Phoenix
and never even called the next morning

America,
sweet land of violated liberty
sex staining sheets from nails digging against discomfort
burning and bleeding from both coasts,
cervical lining removed for further inspection
needing a prescription, but
cannot afford medication.

someone fucked America, while chanting the star spangled banner
red-white-and-blue rhythm of
oh say can you see/by her skin’s burning plight/what?!—so startled she hailed/she is damaged and tender/who could ever prepare/guess this isn’t so rare/one of six-million people diagnosed every year/oh say, does that mean she will never get better/in the land of the free/and the home of the mis informed

someone fucked America and revised her DNA,
extended her texture to feel more like dilated plaster
mailed her a pamphlet full of perpetual warning signs,
climbed inside her cave, gave her cancer, and left.

Jack Kerouac would have been 86 years old today. What would he have to say about the world as it is I wonder? What would he have to say about writing or music for that matter? Kerouac was influenced by the jazz musicians of his day. Just to name a few of those artists, Charley Parker, Thelonious Monk, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holiday. He also collaborated with famed musician and composer David Amram, who wrote in 1969 for the Evergreen Review a piece called David Amram Remembers,

I used to see Jack often at the old Five Spot in the beginning of 1957, when I was working there. I knew he was a writer, and all musicians knew that he loved music. You could tell by the way he sat and listened. He never tried to seem hip. He was too interested in life around him to ever think of how he appeared. Musicians understood this and were always glad to see him, because we knew that meant at least one person would be I listening. Jack was on the same wave-length as we were, so it was never necessary to talk.
http://www.davidamram.com/kerouac.html

In the summer of 2007 The School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa celebrated the 50th anniversary of the publishing of On the Road and I was lucky enough to listen and watch David Amram perform during the marathon reading of this great novel. People came and went all day, some never to return, new faces emerging in the middle and final moments of the book, while others, like myself, stayed for every last drop. In the afternoon I was lying in the dewy grass listening to Steven Taylor read from the middle section of the book, and I was enjoying some ice cream and the view of long summer legs.

By the final paragraph of the novel I had felt as if I had been on all these road trips. I could feel the hunger in my belly, the thirst on my lips, the dirt under my fingernails and the matted hair on my head. I could taste the wind that would be brushing from the plains into the opened window across my skin. At no time did it feel lonely. We were all in it together. And as Anne Waldman choked back her tears as the remaining few in the crowd choked back their tears, she read the last paragraph and you could feel the trip coming to an end.

Today we remember a great writer, poet, and artist Jack Kerouac.

track 2    by: Daniel Dissinger

 

 Beckett: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

I enjoy the moisture more…I…

                         but he enjoys the daylight-lick on his belly

or a laugh…

              …it’s that shake he misses her momentous occasion on top…

…

…

       …I only deal in sensitive inches around sweat and sidewalks…

                                             …

                                         …     …

                                            …

these days     that wasted paper     and detergent …

                                         fortunately he can make up for that…

…

…bleach stain and taste of peroxide in his mouth…

                      …her eyes have stopped stinging

            ever since they talked about his new love for beckett

track one    by: Daniel Dissinger

 

 White Space: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 the tear in my eye    my poetry my work my words   

                                                          the worth the question

                     the fun the feat

                                   that I write    something    everyday

the fact that I write at all…

                       …

                                mad at all

                                             talk and laugh and cry and…get    angry with myself

the food I don’t eat

                                 the milk that goes sour…

                                                                  …

                                                            …

I don’t use        I prefer ink…    the mixed up reasons of any prose

                                      the simplicity of my work

                                                         it’s not at all confusing…

…

it’s a mind        that’s all        just that take…

                    …                    …

a mind    nothing else    nothing fancy    nothing really new   

but it is raw

the eclipse the space

                                    a line break    but    more like

                            an inhale

                                     an exhale…

                                                                                                    …

                                                           a place to wander in white

space