All items in our Music section are 50% off until Midnight Pacific Time, April 21/22, 2012 in celebration of Record Store Day. Discount applied when items are added to your cart.

82 year old American teenager poised for holographic comeback. The original fanboy who leant his likeness to brilliantly packaged nostalgia injections – as pictured above – has joined the aether. His tortured gravely voiced accompaniment to recent annual roll overs in the city that never sleeps served to underline the terminal subtext of such celebrations. We are lesser for his loss.. Lien bearers to an infinitude of continued nostalgias without frontier. Witnesses to an infinity of gloved cartoon feet pressing against our sinuses with the urgency of a bear tainted by the taste for the fruits of the city.

About the BBC has shared a selection of photographs charting the life of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, a department based at Maida Vale Studios in Delaware Road, West London dedicated to producing sound effects and new music set up in 1958 and closed down forty years later. They were freaking awesome. More reading on Sound on Sound. You are also required to watch the Alchemists of Sound. Part one is below.

For those who were without New York public access TV or forgot to steam this last night. It’s Jason Martin on the Chris Gethard Show. Apologies to our Philly friends. The Jason action starts around 21 minutes in with “Alpha Dog”. They return at 45:30 with Mariah Moriah. After that you’re on your own. It’s pretty much an Evolution Revolution reunion with Aaron Smith, Troy Pohl and Jesse Pellerin. Chris knows his history, and he gives a little love to Brown Cuts Neighbors:

On top of all THAT, we will be joined by the fine musical stylings of Jason Martin. Not ONLY will he be bringing his danceable, experimental, crazy cool pop music to our fine show from the northern wilds of Albany, NY, Jason is ALSO an old school public access hero who was one of the masterminds behind a show that is clearly a kindred spirit to our own, Brown Cuts Neighbors. I am excited and flattered to welcome a musician of his caliber to our crappy little public access stage.

In other Jason news, there are some astounding photos up on Brooklyn Vegan of the Andrew W. K. show from a few nights ago which featured Jason’s Power Animals with Aleister X.

Get Jason’s songs on his SoundCloud page.
Jason’s most recent release is the Harmonic Time Cycles & Scary Guitar Man Cassette on Yeay! Tapes

The show is also available as a podcast on iTunes It’s episode #41.

Sarah, as Mike Kirsch, has been one of the most distinctive voices in punk for many bands you may know (Fuel, Sawhorse, Pinhead Gunpowder, John Henry West, Torches To Rome, Bread And Circuits, Please Inform The Captain This Is A Hijack, Baader Brains, Mothercountry Motherfuckers, etc.). She not too long ago came out as a proud trans-woman, and almost immediately was confronted with these terrible health problems. Money is badly needed.

Details:

Our good friend Sarah Kirsch was diagnosed over summer with Fanconi anemia, a rare genetic disorder that causes leukemia and other cancers. Despite being put through the f’n ringer by chemotherapy, a bone marrow transplant and very long hospital stays, Sarah is staying strong and fighting hard, finally out of the hospital and at home with her amazing partner Jess and loving full-time caregivers and friends, Paul and Ilya.??

Aside from the unconditional emotional and physical support Sarah has received from her devoted extended family and friends, donations to date have been enormously helpful in lightening the financial burden of this kind of illness. The demand for supplies not covered by insurance is, however, unending and deepening — from food to cleaning supplies to lotion to kleenex to parking at the hospital… and this is to say nothing of larger caregiving expenses.

It is all adding up and multiple life savings have already been depleted. ??If you’re able and would like to contribute in this way, please check out our WePay account below. There is no donation too small, every $ helps.??

Sarah was bandmates with our own Joshua Baker in Sawhorse. I was going to use some more recent video, but couldn’t resist this classic clip of the mighty Fuel. Most of this post was lifted straight off of Maximum RockNRoll.

Happy Music Monday with this 1999 clip of Nick Cave talking about the mighty Pop Group. Sorry there was a bit of a blogging blackout here last week. It wasn’t intentional, just slightly less than usual going on. Will try to get a thorough update of all the little bits happening up here on Tuesday.

New song. 2012. Radio Friendly. Jason Martin Website

Three of my all-time favorite songs from when I first heard them to forever.

Erin is my hero. Go listen to her awesome Life During Wartime radio show, which she’s been co-hosting for over 15 years. The shows used to be released on cassette back in the ’90s. This is the video of the week over on Maximum RockNRoll, where Erin and I are both fairly lazy contributors.

OMG, the cameraman is quite in love with Erick Lyle and Anandi in that concert video! Erin rocked the drums with our own Joshua Baker in Things I Hate and Chased and Smashed (as seen in the video, duh). The Chased and Smashed – 30 Seconds Over Hillsboro EP is still available right here.

Discovered via Brian Chippendale’s Twitter, Lightning Bolt shares a very recent 20-odd minute jam. Released today on BandCamp. Enjoy.

A 20 minute Jam recorded in the Hillarious Attic, Lair of the Lightning Bolt on 1.31.11. Straight to our trusty Tascam 420 cassette 4 track. No edits, No worries. The track might start a little discombobulated, but it congeals, soars. Swallows itself. Please download for free or send a little cash to help patch the leaks in the boat. thanks

One of my favorite jokes on the original Muppet Show series is a throw-away comment by one of the Statler and Waldorf duo about how the only papers he reads are the New York Times and the Manchester Guardian. It works on several levels, and seems to have been likely constructed thus. On the surface it’s the throwaway comment that indicates he has no clue what, exactly, the other has said. The content of the comment is inclusive with regards to the two primary english speaking audiences of the show – American and British (note: the show was produced in the UK, and the episodes broadcast there had a greater length, typically including a muppet version of an English music hall standard that was omitted in the US version); and, possibly most humorously, the Guardian had dropped ‘Manchester’ from it’s masthead many years earlier – in 1959 – thus playing on the aged dottiness of the character. I only bring this up, because, in my experience, the talented and well traveled cartoonist and musician Jeffrey Lewis has only ever received much press attention from the Guardian and, now, The New York Times. Good work if you can get it, as they say. Create hopelessly obscure personal work, get all but ignored by the underground but routinely receive notice(s) from the best of the mainstream press. So, in keeping with this (perceived) tradition, a nearly decade-old song of Jeffrey’s is given full play by the artist himself in both text and comic form in the New York Times. The NYT itself having recently come under some scrutiny for cartoonist hiring tactics. Although not any kind of clinician, physician, pediatrician, psycheotrician myself, this sounds more like good old-fashioned insomnia to me and not a proper anxiety attack being described in the song. As mentioned somewhere in there, Jeffrey also does the music for Jon Ronson’s series Esc and Ctrl, which is well worth a view anyways.

CASH Music Platform. You just need to go and read the whole pitch on this one. I imagine if you are not a music maker you might not care. I am very happy to see this happening. Some of the people involved are quite close to things you will be hearing about coming from Wow Cool quite soon, some others I have met and talked to and greatly respect their work, and the fact that they are behind this speaks volumes. Sorry if that’s a bit vague. Get behind this.

Live at The Brick House – Turners Falls, MA. Otherwise unreleased track. Release show for the Harmonic Time Cycles & Scary Guitar Man Cassette on Yeay!

If you can click on only one, please check out “The 20 Most Beautiful Bookstores in the World” by Emily Temple, on FlavorWire. The ultimate in shelf porn. I think I’ve been to only one of these, Shakespeare & Company in Paris.

As you may have heard, the artist Mike Kelley is dead. The above video of the unholy trinity of art hooligans Mike, Gary Panter and Matt Groening is a great romp to lift your spirits.

The Magic Band (as in Captain Beefheart’s) has been touring recently – with original members John “Drumbo” French, Mark “Rockette Morton” Boston and Denny “Feelers Rebo” Walley. This tour report from Drumbo is much more interesting than you might guess. His history of the band Beefheart: Through the Eyes of Magic is well worth tracking down.

Sold out of its first printing well before it actually goes on sale this Monday, the new comic book of Adventure Time looks like it might actually be ‘all that’. The many alternate covers of issue three – including one by Michael DeForge – are previewed on the Frederator site. Read Wow Cool’s roundup of the Artists of Adventure Time.

You may have heard of 24-Hour Comic Day, there appears to also be something called Hourly Comic Day – “On February first a bunch of people make a journal comic every hour they are awake. and then they show these journal comics to other people on the internet.” Bad Machinery‘s John Allison participated. I’m sure others did, but there are only so many hours in the day…

Apparently Too Much Coffee Man shows up as an NPC in some strange incarnation of Half-Life.

Frank Santoro is on tour preaching his comics gospel. I managed to miss him in the bay area (sick kid). Hey, Pacific North West! Don’t you pass up this opportunity! He’s been posting tour diaries too: Part One | Part Two

Lynda Barry delights in coloring book misuse and abuse and many other wondrous sights on her tumblr.

Didn’t hear much noise about this elsewhere, but it seems that the “Monty Python team set for film reunion with Absolutely Anything” It’s animated, yes.

I’m currently in the process of reading this interview with and exploring the sounds and software of Richard Devine. I’m a particular fan of Graincube. Richard’s DEVSND blog.

Wow Cool crucial guy Joshua Baker has recently returned to Portland after a long sojourn up in Maine. He and partner Eli have a blog of their trip up that you may enjoy. So… does this mean a chapter three in the God Hates Computers/Chased and Smashed Saga (or is that a chapter four in the Things I Hate/God Hates Computers/Chased and Smashed Saga? Or wait, are there more?… goddamn punk bands…)

Simon Gane draws cathedrals. Sure, mummies and Rodan are cool, but these big ass churchy things could probably kick your ass too!

Out on the Warp label this Tuesday, January 24 is Gonjasufi‘s MU.ZZ.LE. Although it’s just ten short tracks, this could well be the album of the year (hey, early days… but this is an incredible collection of music). You can preview the entire record on Fader. Audio CD and Vinyl release out on Tuesday. Digital presumably out then too (Gonjasufi iTunes page).

Hopefully you also checked out Ganjasufi’s interview and 20-minute guest mix on Tom Ravenscroft’s BBC 6Music show from January 13 (Friday the 13th!). Maybe it will turn up on Gonjasufi’s SoundCloud page.

In 1977, Ringo Starr did four commercials hawking Simple Life Leisure Suits for Japanese TV. They contained variations of the song, “I Love My Suit” – sung by Ringo, featuring background vocals by Harry Nilsson and Davy Jones of The Monkees.

I can’t begin to say how awesome I think this song and video are. Would love to see a higher quality copy of the commercial. Info here.

Download the song from backup singer Davy Jones.

UNREST Perfect Teeth / 7″ Box Set from Teen-Beat on Vimeo.

UNREST’s landmark indie-rock album, Perfect Teeth, has been out of print for 15 years. Their last, and widely considered their best album. Featuring M.T.V. hits “Make Out Club” and “Cath Carroll”, the other 8 songs, plus 6 non-LP tracks.

it is being re-released in it’s original 7″ vinyl box set format, revised with a 7″ 24-page booklet filled with photographs of the band by Erin Smith and recording session photos by Mark Robinson, six records all on color vinyl, full-color labels, replicas of the Unrest and Teen-Beat stickers, and a download coupon. Just like the original, the box will be printed by Independent Project Press, this time with metallic gold ink. Each box will be numbered.

You may pre-order it today at http://teenbeatrecords.com It will ship in Spring, 2012.

It is no secret that we at Wow Cool *heart* Unrest all over like a cheap suit.

Adam Arcuragi and The Lupine Chorale Society – with Andrew Gerhan on Bass – kicks off a one month US Tour on Wednesday, January 18th at Los Angeles’ Bootleg Bar. More local to Wow Cool HQ, they will be in San Francisco at The Hotel Utah on Thursday. They’ll be hitting 22 states, so there is a good chance they will be playing somewhere near you soon. Their album Like a fire that consumes all before it… will be released on January 31st on the Thirty Tigers label.

Andrew Gerhan is, of course, the chief audio mixer and general knob fiddler for Wow Cool. Two of the records he added massive polishing to will be released this spring. Stay tuned for more news…

This is a couple years old, but somehow I totally missed it. The Empire State’s favorite sons The Scientific Maps present a video loveletter to Albany, New York(!!!???). Starring ace designer Philip Pascuzzo as the bubblegum bandit. Makes a nice follow up to the Andy’s Chair 4 video zine posted here awhile ago – see the same settings virtually unchanged after over a decade and a half. Look for a special appearance by my Brown Cuts Neighbors “Make Room” poster featuring Frank Beam, towards the end of the video. Thanks to all the folks that shared this on facebook this week.

Yes, it is I. The irregular Wow Cool link dump. Usually posted on a Monday or Tuesday, often in two parts, often skipping many weeks. We are well back from the holidays, and therefore it is time to obliterate every open tab and share the good bits that emerge.

We open with the fight song from of the original St. Trinnian’s films. As you may have heard, St. Trinnian’s creator Ronald Searle passed away a few days ago. He has been remembered far and wide. I tried and failed to find what I thought would be the perfect image to present, so I went with the video instead. If you are going to read only one obituary of the late British cartoonist, you should read the one by Steven Heller in the New York Times. And, hey, I actually liked the newer St. Trinnian’s films.

If you have a couple days to spare you really should take the time to read this interview with amigo Steve Bissette – part of the Comics Reporter holiday interview series. I could list about half of the rest as must reads too, but I’ll let you pick your own favorites.

I was hit totally from left field to see that the Comics Journal had run this astoundingly comprehensive profile of the great Motorbooty zine assembled by Frank Santoro. Mark Dancey is the man and make no doubt.

Our late friend and inspiration Dylan Williams, of Sparkplug Comics, is being chronicled in bloggy fashion at the DYLAN WILLIAMS ARCHIVES – The life and work of Dylan F. Williams 1970 – 2011. “We are attempting to archive the life and work of Dylan Williams: Collected writings, comics, artwork, sketches, letters, stories, photos and tributes. This is an ongoing project compiled by Dylan’s friends and family. If you have something you would like to contribute, please write to tom (at) iwilldestroyyou (dot) com” If you knew Dylan, then the Amazon reviews will make you chuckle and miss him all the more. I lied a couple paragraphs ago, you also must read this Comics Reporter holiday interview with the current proprietors of Sparkplug.

I would be amiss to not give a shout-out to Sean T. Collins for giving us a Shout-out in this post-holiday roundup of amazing comics stuff. It’s part three of… how many? Does this guy ever sleep? So much goodness out there.

In related news, CBR’s Robot 6 has gone into overdrive the last few days (while most of us were relaxing) with great news, bits, previews and more. Seriously, too much to mention, just start digging.

And give special attention to this Robot 6 exclusive preview of titles coming from Koyama Press in 2012. We’ve just added a couple more Koyama titles to the shop here at Wow Cool. Snatch those up, because they are low in quantity and not likely to be reprinted.

OK… in more related news, just one more specific Robot 6 link, and another Koyama-related bit, even… you should really read their recent interview with Michael DeForge, who is also one of the featured artists at Wow Cool.

I’m not sure if Wednesday or Thursday is new comics day where you are. All I know is Paul Grist’s Mudman issue 2 is out from Image. Go get that!

I’m sure I could go on… but I refuse. Carry on… single file, begone with you!

Link dumpage composed while listening to Tom Ravenscroft sitting in for Gideon Coe on BBC 6Music.

Rites & Dust by scottsmallwood

Scott Smallwood of Evidence has shared a collection of his field recordings from Burning Man 2011 up on the SoundCloud. Share and enjoy. “A collection of field recordings from the 2011 Burning Man Festival, Rites of Passage, Black Rock City, NV.August, 2011. (download the mp3s for better quality!)”

Yup. Tapes… as in cassettes. New in the Wow Cool shop are two full length releases from former Brown Cuts Neighbors Jason Martin and Marc Arsenault. First up – on Yeay! – is Jason’s “Harmonic Time Cycles & Scary Guitar Man” and on Hollow Home Ministries is the debut release from Girls of Slender Means – the electronic music lab of nickname: Rebel – Marc Arsenault, Nick Carpenter and Michael Keegan, with special guests Pete Von Petrin and Andrew Sullivan. Break out your Walkmans and crank up the funk.

Pieces of Ralph E. White performing his original tunes “farewell to the river daughter” & “no stranger” live at the United States Art Authority. Video by Neil “Cloaca” Young of Yeay! Records and Fat Worm of Error. This is an astounding performance.

Kid Kameleon at SF MusicTech 2009 - photo by Marc Arsenault

It’s always really nice when a thing leads to another thing and you discover a whole other world of awesome music and art that you did not previously know existed. The art and science of discovery is something that drives the marketers wild and makes us passionate ones crazy. Today saw a series of intriguing finds spurred by the usual Friday afternoon listen at Wow Cool HQ of the excellent Tom Ravenscroft show on BBC 6Music. The guest mix on the show was by local favorite Kid Kameleon (Site, Twitter), who I’d photographed and seen perform at SF MusicTech a couple years ago.

Discoveries:
The Kid Kameleon Mix Archive – hours of listening
Next stop on that world opening up was this post: The King Deluxe label is one year old. This was my first exposure to Canadian-based collective King Deluxe and to the artist HR-FM. I need more! Many more discoveries are to be made in Kid Kameleon’s blog.

Be the next person to order any of these three items from the Wow Cool shop and you will receive a custom heavy duty canvas totebag at no additional charge:

Offset Needle Radius Vs. nickname: Rebel CD (this tote is also available to purchase separately)

These are 6 oz. cotton canvas totes. Size: 15″ x 16″. Natural color. Screenprinted. This offer will remain open until completed.

We also have a selection of lovely items that are on sale, including several graphic novels.

The new shop is forever growing, so keep watch on the new items page. Recent highlights include Bowman by Pat Aulisio, Ganges #4 by Kevin Huizenga, Never Learn Anything From History The first collection of Hark! A Vagrant by Kate Beaton, R.A.V. #5 by Mickey Z, the much acclaimed Pope Hats #2 by Ethan Rilly and the 30 page monster minicomic Stay Away From Other People by Lisa Hanawalt – a 2009 Ignatz Award Winner now back in print.

With music by Burial! Archangel from Untrue, even! Jason used to make fun of me for liking that kind of stuff! Hey!

I used to play the shit out of We Got Our Own Thang back in ’89. It was such an amazing time for music and this was a great bridge between hip hop and the emerging House music scene. Godspeed, brother.

LA Times: Heavy D dies at 44; singer who shaped rap music

And much else as well. At least seven titles by Kevin Huizenga and a few hundred other fairly awesome comics, zines and records. Many more on the way. Do come explore.

A few days ago Tom Spurgeon asked the comics world to name five cartoonists who were still in an ‘establishing themselves‘ phase of their career. I threw Jeffrey Lewis in my list, despite his many years of putting comic books out. I claimed he was virtually unknown in the comics community. This was based on a straw pole I took of people in comics I knew*. Today, I open up the front page of the Guardian; and, right there in the center column, right below Gaddafi, is, that’s right: Jeffrey Lewis. His new album A Turn In The Dream-Songs has just been released on the Rough Trade label. I think it’s been a little while since an issue of Fuff was released, but I think you’ll really enjoy what Jeffrey has done with ROM: Spaceknight.

*I asked Frank Santoro… and maybe one other guy.

Hmmm. Guardian video embed wouldn’t work, so, it’s been replaced with ROM. Enjoy.

Yeay! 033 | 10/11 | 60mins /cassette. color copy cover. | $6

This long-overdue Yeay! debut tape by spandex-wolf, mad-genius, Jason Martin features two long audio collage works – one radio play / lecture / sermon about the nature of time and the other, a grateful nod to our departed beefheart in puzzling words & sizzling strings. Martin is a particularly diabolical man of riddim & as an engineer, he carefully sculpts tone with recording details that sparkle especially in their dirtiest passages. Put this cookie in your fun salad. Get yours here.

Excerpt from Harmonic Time Cycles (broadcast 2008, cassette release 2011) by Jason Martin

Conspiracy in the standardization of time, started by the Romans continues to this very day. Harmonic Time Cycles is an experimental “radio play” piece, upon completion it was broadcast on a few upstate college radio stations in the spring of 2008. This particular track also used as sound track for single channel video piece “Psychotronic Entrapment” (2010). Released on YEAY! TAPES FULL 30 MIN. PROGRAM, 2011

http://www.gothicfuturism.com/

Tom Hart writes about spending some time with the talented Derek Ballard, and about about this whole fusion comics business. Many illustrations.

Sean T. Collins has coined the word “Hanawaltian” is his glowing in-depth review of Thickness #2.

Today is a second monday, which means that Michael DeForge has posted the fourth installment of Ant Comic.

Brian Ralph is interviewed by the National Post about the new hardcover collection of his brilliant Daybreak comic. Daybreak is now in stock at Wow Cool and available in the shop.

Box Brown spotted this one: Mars is a romantic comedy in space that counts James Kolchaka, Kinky Friedman and Cynthia Watros among it’s cast members and has a soundtrack that features Kristin Hersh and Neko Case. All you need to know is on the Swerve Pictures site.

And lastly, on my old on-air stomping grounds WSVA (Where I hosted Grunion Radio with Ben Jackson, Sam Henderson and many others back in 1988-89), Sam Weber is interviewing Lisa Hanawalt Wednesday, October 19, and they need your questions. We just got copies of a thick mini comic and a limited edition letterpress print by Lisa in the shop. You really should check those out.

Yes it’s true, Lady Starlight, my fellow Brown Cuts Neighbor, will be helping Judas Priest send it all off in style. The party kicks into high gear Wednesday in San Antonio, Texas.

Follow Starlight on Twitter | Like her on Facebook

Here’s all you need to know, direct from Judas Priest’s official tour page:

After storming the world for nearly 40 years and taking their very special brand of heavy metal to all four corners of the planet, JUDAS PRIEST – one of the most influential heavy metal bands of all time, have announced this will be their final world tour!!

However, the mighty PRIEST will certainly be going out strong as they rock the planet starting in 2011 on the massive EPITAPH tour – hitting all the major cities throughout the world they will be playing the songs that helped make the name JUDAS PRIEST synonymous with heavy metal!

With all guns blazing and amps cranked to eleven, the band will be giving all their fans one last chance to witness the ultimate metal experience that is JUDAS PRIEST!

Just received this dispatch from Kristin Hersh. Folks, if you are in the US, you’ve got just two chances to see the Muses this month. Western Europe, your prospects are much greater. 

Wow Cool has relaunched it’s comics, zines and music mail order shop. All the fun is at: http://wowcool.com/. There are still at least a hundred books in stock that have not yet been posted to the store, but will be very soon. That includes all the in-print issues of Zap, Weirdo and Hi-Fructose; a couple dozen Top Shelf titles and many more. A few things haven’t shown up yet that we’re very excited about, including recent issues of King Cat (and the nearly completed issue 72), Jason Martin’s latest record, and a book and CD set from Dale Flattum (AKA Tooth/Agent Nova) of Steel Pole Bath Tub and Milk Cult Fame.

Are you going to be at APE 2011 in San Francisco this weekend? If so I look forward to seeing you there. I’ll be wandering around, talking to people, buying books and generally promoting Wow Cool.

Make sure you stop by the Sparkplug Booth – #121 – to pay your respects and support the Dylan Williams Memorial Scholarship Fund at Portland’s Independent Publishing Resource Center by purchasing a copy of Skim Lizard #5. Dylan did the cover art. It’s a really great anthology. A box of classic Puppy Toss publications was unearthed last weekend and we’re selling them for a good cause. You can also buy three issues of Skim Lizard online from Wow Cool. All proceeds go straight to the IPRC.

Following the jump is the full text of our press release. Which is also viewable with logos, photos and in different formats elsewhere on this site.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wow Cool Returns to Comic Book And Zine Retailing

Veteran Indie Publisher And Record Label Resumes Mail Order
Business After Thirteen Year Hiatus

Cupertino, California; October 1, 2011: Once a premier destination for fans of many photocopied pamphlets, including Cometbus, Dishwasher and Optic Nerve, during the 1990’s Zine Explosion, Wow Cool faded from view for many years. Now, after over a year of preparation, and six months of development, the long-running DIY clearinghouse has once again thrown it’s hat into the ring of Small Press Bookselling. The new WowCool.com store is being officially launched at 11am Pacific Time on Saturday, October First, 2011, marking the start of San Francisco’s APE, the Alternative Press Expo.

This new web store offers hundreds of titles by nearly as many artists, from comic book legends Alan Moore and Steve Ditko to the fresh talents of Hellen Jo and Michael DeForge. Books from over 20 publishing houses are represented, and new product is added weekly. The site is built on the robust X-Cart e-commerce platform and features SSL – Secured Socket Layer – protection; and, full integration with USPS and PayPal for a smooth and secure shopping experience. Wow Cool is committed to following what founder Marc Arsenault describes as “A greatly improved set of best practices for marketing, stocking and shipping these unique works of art”.

Wow Cool was founded in January 1988 by Marc Arsenault and cartoonists Tom Hart and Sam Henderson, while still students at New York City’s School of Visual Arts. Starting out as the label under which their various solo publications and the anthology Tuna Casserole were published, Wow Cool quickly started adding works by many other artists. The sole constant person through Wow Cool’s over 23 year history has been Marc Arsenault. The label emerged as a proper company and the largest American distributor of self-published comics and zines for much of the 1990s after its move to the San Francisco Bay area in February 1993. After surviving the media attention given to the zine explosion, Arsenault chose to return Wow Cool to it’s East Coast home and focus on the core artists associated with the label. Wow Cool returned to California in May, 2009.

About Wow Cool

Wow Cool is a multiple media studio, record label, publisher and mail order house based in Cupertino, California. Wow Cool operates a full photography studio; audio recording and video production facilities; and, has a range of graphic design and publishing capabilities–from desktop publishing to screen printing and custom manufacture of buttons and guitar picks. Wow Cool has released work in various media by Steven Cerio, Simon Gane, Sam Henderson, Mark Martin, Brown Cuts Neighbors, Evidence, Offset Needle Radius, nickname: Rebel, and many other artists. WowCool.com offers printed and recorded media in a range of styles and formats by artists both obscure and renowned.

Logos, press photos and a copy of this release in RTF and PDF formats can be found at: https://wowcool.com/Press.html

A detailed company history is at: https://wowcool.com/history.html

More information about Wow Cool’s mail order practices can be found here: https://wowcool.com/FAQ.html

Contact:
Marc Arsenault
Wow Cool
6378 Blackwood Drive
Cupertino, CA 95014
(408) 813-5919
marc@wowcool.com

Songwriter/guitarist Gary Lucas was the featured guest for a recent installment of the GRAMMY Museum’s Great Guitars series. In an intimate interview setting, Lucas discussed his musical influences, meeting and collaborating with Captain Beefheart and his solo career, among other topics. Following the interview, Lucas performed a brief set, including “Rise Up To Be” and “Bra Joe From Kilimanjaro” from his 1999 EP Paradiso. Features a great rendition of Sure ’nuff ‘n’ Yes I Do. Go check that out. Also features a clip of Gary playing some of ‘Rise Up To Be’, the song that was the basis for Jeff Buckley’s ‘Grace’. It’s one of the most moving songs ever written for guitar.

Gary Lucas Home Site

And, here’s a nice long version of Rise Up To Be.

Having covered the one-off PiL reunion of Jah Wobble and Keith Levene – sans their well-known ginger-out-of-the-bottle singer last year – I’d be amiss to not point you to their much more official reunion on an upcoming release on Cherry Red Records and in the promo clip for the single ‘Tightrope’ from the new unit centered on Wobble and Julie Campbell called Psychic Life. More so than anyone else in Public Image Limited, Jah Wobble has regularly issued vital slabs of new tunes, from his collaborations with Bjork, Sinéad O’Connor, Pharoah Sanders, Bill Laswell, Adrian Sherwood, and members of CAN and Urban Dance Squad, to his more recent excursions like Damage Manual, The Chinese Dub Orchestra and last year’s ‘Welcome To My World’. Wobble has been a singular example of an artist who has balanced a long history of DIY releases (most recently and consistently on his 30 Hertz label) with major label outings. He continues to be a vital artist and an inspiration to anyone trying to make a go of it in the current Bizzaro World landscape of the music industry. So this new joint is certainly worth a listen. Psychic Life also have a very lovely website. I’m curious to see where they go with this clear nod to psychogeography. Hopefully something a bit deeper that what you get from a Will Self column.

Tightrope’ is released as part of a four track Psychic Life EP on 10th October. It features Keith Levene on guitar. ‘Tightrope’ is also on the Psychic Life album which will be released on the 7th November 2011. Both the EP and album will be released on Cherry Red Records. Keith Levene features on three tracks of the album.

From 1993. Never before seen! Punk zine goes video with live performances by Doc Hopper, Nuisance, Drop Dead, Slave State and Lumpen Proletariat (Ottawa)!

Pay a visit to Reconstruction Records with Peter Ventantonio of Sticks & Stones! Tour Albany, New York’s Tulip Fest with Andy, Paul and Jason! See the members of Huasipungo scowling in back of ABC No Rio! Special appearances by Sam Henderson and Human Lard Dog!

Sadly this version is not the best quality. The raw footage was shot on VHSC… I want to go back and capture from that or the VHS dump of it. I did this edit on a crappy system at the old Schenectady public access. It chewed up the video and jumped at every edit. grrr. I was so disappointed that I never released it, and it was only shown a couple times. The encoding to get it on the web didn’t do it any favors either.

Additional camera by Darryl Kahan. Believe it!

Andy’s Chair was a punk and comics and such zine created by Marc Arsenault. There were three regular print issues and a tour zine half issue called puppydoglove released between 1991-1995. The second issue included the Sounds of Suburban Dance compilation tape.

Poster for the Nuisance & Doc Hopper show that was taped for the episode.

Available digitally for the first time ever and re-released with wide distribution today on 180g vinyl is Steven Cerio’s Atlantic Drone LP “A Vivified Sugar Cube Explains the Universe” on Circadia Records.

Founded in upstate New York by Steven Cerio, ATLANTIC DRONE have achieved a synthesis of historical proportions with a cast that includes: Cerio (Railroad Jerk, Drunk Tank, Dee Dee Ramone’s Sproket as well as improvisations with Ron Asheton of The Stooges, William Parker and Jemeel Moondoc), Dave Rick (Yo La Tengo, Bongwater, King Missile, Phantom Tollbooth), Wm Berger (Love, Uncle Wiggily, Fly Ashtray), Michael Duane (Dustdevils), Laure Barges (Dragibus), Sal Canzonieri (Electric Frankenstein, The Thing), Jason Martin (Brown Cuts Neighbors, Bunny Brains, His Name is Alive) and Jim Gibson (Wicked King Wicker, Toothfairy, Unholy Swill).

Their music holds all of the sensations associated with true psychedelia: the meditative hypnotics of prog forefathers Can, the reckless propulsion of free jazz, the kinetic energy of early King Crimson, the soaring intensity of Soft Machine, the swirling throbs of early Butthole Surfers, the natural beauty of Brian Eno’s ambience and the schizophrenic scuttle of Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band. Far from creating a nostalgic tribute to a previous age, ATLANTIC DRONE contributes to a re-definition of the sonic trip a sound that is as uniquely their own as it is exhilarating and “Zenful”; serving up an atom to the melting molecular soup of Post Psychedelic Hypno Mantras that point more to the future than the past.

You can get it on iTunes (see below), from Circadia direct in various deluxe formats, at most of your favorite physical and digital purveyors of sonic goodness and, right here from Wow Cool.

In the meanwhile, we are holding a one week beta test of the shop. There are currently 157 items. More are being added every day. All your old favorites are in there from the likes of Steven Cerio, Brown Cuts Neighbors, God Hates Computers, Sam Henderson, Cometbus and many more. Yes, Wow Cool has basically gone and picked up where we left off when the old Berkeley warehouse closed way back at the end of 1998. But, you know, much better.

PLEASE NOTE: The shop will not be staying in it’s current location. This is a one week test that will end early on Tuesday, August 23. Please ignore the ugliness of the current layout. Most of the work on the site has been focussed on developing the product pages and making the integration with the post office and PayPal rock solid. The shop is also fully HTTPS/SSL secured and certified, as guaranteed by Comodo. The whole ordering process should work smoothly. Shipping is now based on size and weight. The old flat priority weight for everything is long gone; you may now select the shipping method that meets your needs. Any orders placed during this period will be shipped with as many extra goodies that will fit in the box.

Please enjoy The Wow Cool Shop.
Please send all problems, suggestions, bon mots, etc. through the contact page or use the comments function on this post.

OK, now some random interesting stuff out on the interwebs…

As has been reported just about everywhere else first, Hedi Slimane has posted photos of Frances Bean Cobain in which she is clearly sporting a lovely tattoo of Al Columbia’s Seymour Sunshine. I like to imagine that when she sleeps, Seymour leaps off her arm – Out of The Inkwell style – to go make out with Quentin Crisp on her right shoulder.

Gary Panter has been posting many great links and articles on the artists that influenced him through the Gary Panter Fans Facebook group and elsewhere. Two recent ones you will want to be sure to check out are the website of Bob Zoell and this article by Gary on Peter Saul on HiLowBrow.

This story by John ‘King Cat’ Porcellino, to celebrate 20 years of German small press Reprodukt, is pretty great. Via Tom Spurgeon, The Comics Reporter.

A whole slew of upcoming shows have been announced involving Joshua Baker/Offset Needle Radius and Jason Martin. If you are in the Northeast you should check some of these out.