Thursday February 10th at 7 O’clock
at Spoonbill Books in Williamsburg
A star-studded gala event: Robert Lanham and Sam Lipsyte together on one stage at Spoonbill books in Williamsburg!
Robert Lanham, author of the bestselling and hilarious THE HIPSTER HANDBOOK, will start things off reading from and discussing his latest: FOOD COURT DRUIDS, CHEROHONKEES,and other creatures unique to the republic (Plume, 2004).
Sam Lipsyte, author of the classic short story collection VENUS DRIVE (Open City Books) and the criminally overlooked novel THE SUBJECT STEVE (Broadway Books), will be reading from his latest novel (and perhaps his magnum opus) HOMELAND. Written in the form of a high school alumni newsletter, HOMELAND manages to pretty much sum up the time we live in.
Spoonbill is located at 218 Bedford Avenue, between North 4th & 5th Streets, Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Phone 718-387-7322. Call for further info.
Take the L Train to Bedford Avenue, take a left on Bedford and walk 4 blocks. Store is on the left

Volvo wants them, but The Kills aren’t interested. They’re more concerned about being confused with The Thrills or The Killers than cashing in.
This minimalist indie duo are not here to resurrect Robert Johnson or Charlie Patton. There’s no agenda to save ROCK. No, the Kills are camped out in the Chelsea Hotel to promote their new record, chain smoke some cigarettes, and work on their other hobbies: writing in their diaries and taking photographs with their digital camera.
We found The Kills, Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince, ensconced around a table littered with cigarettes, water bottles, an iPod, and a worn copy of Gunther Grass’s The Tin Drum, a book about an “the eternal three-year-old drummer” that Jamie claims to have read dozens of times.
They were in New York doing interviews to promote their follow-up to 2003′s amazing Keep on Your Mean Side. Alison and Jamie graciously sat down with us to discuss their music, those nagging White Stripes comparisons, and touring with Franz Ferdinand. Jamie is unpretentious and outspoken. He smoked a lot. Alison is beautiful, articulate, and a bit shy. She smoked even more. Their platonic affection for one another was obvious and endearing. Their chemistry will delight fans on their fantastic new record, No Wow.
NOW WOW. OUT MARCH 8 ON ROUGH TRADE/RCA.
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FW: How long were you in the studio with No Wow?
Jamie:We did in two parts. We wrote it in Benton Harbor, Michigan. We were there for four weeks. We then took a week off and then recorded the album in three weeks in New York.

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From Time Magazine:
The Abu Ghraib Scandal You Don’t Know
“[At Abu Ghraib] there was also medical disarray at the prison: amputations performed by nondoctors, chest tubes recycled from the dead to the living, a medic ordered, by one account, to cover up a homicide. That in itself would have made Abu Ghraib a scandal even without the acts of torture inflicted on the inmates by their guards.”
Read the entire article

With the Superbowl coming up this weekend, the time has come to run our most popular story ever once again. A year later, we are still the internet’s number one Google search for Janet Jackson’s nipple! We still recieve thousands of visitors daily to this one story.
And for this we are proud.
The mystery lives on. The questions remain:
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE FACE ON JANET JACKSON’S NIPPLE

OK, OK. Bush is more composed than he was four years ago. He’s also scarier. In his State of the Union last night he reasserted his hatred of gays. Failed to mention Osama Bin Laden. Refused to talk about a timetable to depart Iraq. Used grieving parents who had lost a son in his war as a smokescreen. (The networks focused on them of course, instead of his inept policies and proposals). And hinted at the expansion of his crusade in Iran and Syria. Read this great article by Seymour Hirsch if you want to know what we are doing to expand our empire currently.
In case you missed Dubya’s diatribe about the ownership society, we’ll break it down for you.
Why Dubya’s Ownership Society is bullshit:
1. People will have to choose from a small menu of stocks and bonds to invest in. (Mainly companies that are his buddies, presumably since Bush is so adamant about passing this “reform”). If you are told by the government what to invest in, is this ownership?
2. You cannot withdraw any of your money before retirement. Again, is this ownership?
3. From NY Times: “When workers retired, most would be required to use at least part of their accounts to buy from the government lifetime annuities, financial instruments that provide a guaranteed monthly payment for life but that expire at death. Despite Mr. Bush’s declaration that money in the accounts could be passed on to children and grandchildren, the principal of an annuity cannot be inherited.” Again, is this ownership?
4. It will cost more than $754 billion to set up according to NY Times. That’s tax dollars out of your pocket, that you will not, um, own any more.
Bush’s plan is an investment plan, which is by definition, less stable than an insurance plan. I’m all for less government control, but when people blow their investments, we’re just going to have to reinstate a new incarnation of Social Security to bail them out.
–Robert Lanham

Music Review by Monte Holman
(Sub Pop Records)
Snore-core Startled From Slumber
Guitar solos. Feedback. Screeching distorted vocals. Hand claps? These rock staples hardly come to mind when we consider the collaborative effort from Alan Sparhawk, Mimi Parker, and Zak Sally. What happened to our wholesome quiet-types, the musicians who draw silent crowds of earnest indie concert-sitters? Has Low found the devil?
With The Great Destroyer, their debut Sub-Pop release, Low generously give us thirteen tracks of sonic exploration. This is seemingly new ground for Low, though they aren’t reinventing themselves completely. Fans will still find plenty of the old stuff in this album, the familiar instrumental sparseness, the velvet, marital harmonies (“Silver Rider,” “Death of a Salesman”). But the Duluth trio adds a keyed-up electro layer and some fresh production elements to these songs, generating a recording that’s nothing short of rock and roll.

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Being threatened with a lawsuit by The Muppets might not generate the typical rock star mystique most bands desire. Few heavy rockers want the image of Fozzy, Kermit, and Miss Piggy associated with their band. Nevertheless, New York rockers Brian Rayman, Danny Tieman, Lisa Cuomo, and Than Luu were asking for trouble when they named their band after the bald Muppet scientist, Bunsen Honeydew. You know, the puppet in the white coat who terrorizes Beeker. The copyright holders caught wind of the band and they dodged a lawsuit by renaming themselves Four Volts.

However, having The Village Voice blame them (in part) for the closing of Coney Island High may have added a little edge to their reputation. Reportedly, one of their shows was so loud and abrasive it brought in multiple complaints that led to the ill-fated club’s eventual demise.

Over the last couple of years, Four Volts have secured the reputation as one of New York’s best live bands. The buzz has expanded with a four star review in NME, a critics choice write-up in Time Out London, and air play by John Peel. The band has even released several tracks on Transcopic, Graham Coxon’s (Blur) label.

Four Volts are noisy enough to satisfy anyone longing for lively post-punk anthems. But it’s their hooks and pop sensibility that will keep their music ringing blissfully in your head after you press the stop button on your iPod. They’ve been compared to everyone from Jesus and Mary Chain, to Blur, to My Bloody Valentine but soon people will be comparing new bands to Four Volts.

Their just-released debut record, Triple Your Work Force, was produced by Martin Bisi (Sonic Youth, Cibo Matto, Boredoms) on Williamsburg’s newest label Kanine Records. It’s an impressive debut. You can see Four Volts live every Wednesday in February at Pianos. We interviewed Long Island natives Danny Tieman and Brian Rayman via email in late January 2005.

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Where did you meet? What’s your role in the band?
Brian Rayman: I went to high school with Danny. Been doing Four Volts for a year or two now.
Danny Tieman: I’m learning how to play guitar, how to contort my body on stage, and how to sing. I met Brian in High School. He was one of a whopping few friends I could count on. One of Django Reinhardt’s mutated hands. Lisa Cuomo plays bass and sings. Than Luu plays drums and sings.

Has your music ever gotten you laid?
BR: Never. It usually scares the ladies away!
DT: Ha ha -2/4 of Four Volts are virgins, but I’m not saying who.

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