Once, on my way to New York City, my father who was dropping me off at the airport, asked how much cash I was taking. Perpetually late, and perpetually putting off until tomorrow things I could and should do today, I replied, unashamedly unprepared, “None.” I planned to hit an ATM as soon as I got into the city. Simple enough. While I worried not a whit about traveling cashless, I wouldn’t dream of traveling without a good book, and more often than not, when traveling to New York City, I’d have a Jonathan Lethem book tucked into my carry-on. Lethem dabbles deftly in several genres. His novel, The Fortress of Solitude, one of my favorites, blends two styles of realism, gritty and magic, in a masterful coming of age tale of one young Brooklynite in the ’70s. His latest, You Don’t Love Me Yet, is his take on a romantic comedy set in Los Angeles among modern-day indie rockers. If you’ve been missing out on Lethem, you’ve been missing out on the last decade of American culture.
Wavves
Young Nathan Williams aka Wavves has been making a lot of…wait for it…no, I’m not going to do that to you…Williams has been making lots of friends (or enemies perhaps) over the weekend as out in Austin, Texas for SXSW as he just wrapped up ELEVEN appearances. He now makes his way out East and then back home to San Diego. Williams’ not-so-stealth appearance into the indie scene largely depends on his DIY ethic, both in production and publicity. He’s a one man bedroom band equipped with a multi-track recorder and enough instruments, harmonies and fuzz to fill said bedroom. I mentioned fuzz right? He’s full of it, but for those of you not trained to do so, be patient and listen deeper into the songs, past the noise, and you’ll be rewarded with this kid’s hooks! He’s full of them too. Plans are in the works to put out a proper studio album, but you’ll want to be able to tell your kids you were listening to Wavves “before he sold out.” It’ll be analogous to the “I was listening to Beck when he was on Bongload” conversations happening 17 years ago. Fat Possum just put out his album, Wavves, last week, but it was live on iTunes months before that. And previously Williams released a slew of cassettes and 7-inch singles on a handful of different labels. Wavves is stirring up a big tsunami in a little pond, jump on board and ride it in before the line-up gets overcrowded.
Mark Richard
If you’re an impatient Mark Richard fan like myself you’ve stopped waiting for his next fictional foray. After being crowned one of the kings of contemporary literary fiction (read: big fish in a really small pond), he left for Hollywood to write for television (Chicago Hope, Party of Five, Huff) and film (Stop-Loss and the adaptation of his story “The Ice at the Bottom of the World” due out next year). Outside of that bubble I highly doubt he’s made any new fans with his screenwritings. Mark Richard discoveries take place tete-a-tete, with loaner titles being passed mano-a-mano. I love digging up used copies to pass along as gifts and now, sharing with a wider audience. Take a deep breath before you dive into the first story. It’s two sentences long. One sentence slightly longer than the first and chock full of images you may want to consider before you move into that charming apartment after moving out or losing your house to this lovely market we’ve been experiencing of late.
(Note: If you’d like your fiction to be considered for review, please email us links to your work.)
Jon Hopkins
Patience. Give it a moment of your time. You need a break from your lightning paced life. Breath in. Hold it. Breath out. Repeat three times. Now that you’ve fed your brain a healthy dose of oxygen, feed your head a healthy dose of ambient beats courtesy of Jon Hopkins, pianist, composer, self-taught producer. At once his compositions soothe and haunt. Audio rorschach tests, you hear what you are, where you are, where you want to be. Hopkins merely holds a mirror up to your soul—you decide what it means. The break down at the end of this track signaling a break from tranquility, or a break for lunch. Me? I’m always up for the latter.
Mary Robison
Besides music rattling around in my head most of the day, words take up residence there too, sentences, stories, novels. I’ve wanted to add stories to our offerings at 3hive for a while now and it’s time to stop wanting. The arrival of Mary Robison’s novel One D.O.A., One on the Way has been looming for too long. It looks ready for reading finally. The curt and sardonic Eve Broussard narrates the story of her life in post-Katrina New Orleans in quick snapshots detailing the decline of her husband’s health and the pair’s relationship. It’s not unlike the fragmented and funny Why Did I Ever? the novel Robison scratched out on 3×5 cards, often while in her car waiting at stoplights. Both perfectly consumable novels for the clinically distracted. Tune in again next weekend for another edition of WordHive.
Men Without Pants
What can you expect from Dan the Automator and Russell Simins? Everything and more! After shelving the album last year in order to record material and bring it up to their collective high standards, the two are reportedly releasing Naturally next month. Dan’s manning the programming and electronics while Simins is once again ripping apart the drums, guitars and vocals. Of course this dynamic duo knows how to throw a party, so they’ve invited Sean Lennon, Cibo Matto (my best guest as to who’s singing on “My Balloon”), The Mooney Suzuki, and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs. The song title that best represents the sound on this album is “Rock Party,” because, well, that’s exactly what this album is. Overall the album is a gritty, rhythm and blues attack with the Automator’s beats and programming ratcheted up something fierce. Then there’s “My Balloon,” this airy, psychedelic treat in between the sound and fury. The album slowly mellows and concludes with a few reflective indie-rock slow jams. Fans of the Blues Explosion will probably dig this more than the Gorillaz gang, but all y’all should give it a spin!
Bishop Allen Video
Neil Halstead U.S. Tour
New Phoenix Single
I like Phoenix. And they like you. To prove it, they just released their new single “1901” as a free download. Gotta go here to get it. No email or log in necessary. The band will issue their full album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix on May 25th.