Tagged books

Record Store Day!!

April 01, 2015 — by Erik

What’s almost as good as records falling from the sky? Record Store Day!!!

As one of our favorite days of the year spins closer and closer, we’ve decided to spotlight our music books in celebration! We’re offering a special deal for record stores:

We’ve got some new releases and some old staples:

New Releases

Crate Digger: An Obsession With Punk Records

Crate Digger: The record-obsessed Bob Suren (Sound Idea Distribution + Burrito Records) tells stories of a life framed by punk records in this popular new release,

Punk USA: The Rise and Fall of Lookout Records

Punk USA: Known best as the label that put Green Day on the map, Lookout Records has been the breeding ground for hundreds of fascinating records that inspired a generation. This book, an instant hit, documents the label’s rise and fall from 1987-2006.

Classic collections

Henry & Glenn Forever

The greatest love story ever told depicts punk and metalheads Henry Rollins and Glenn Danzig in their domestic life together. Together with their neighbors Hall & Oates they have myriad adventures and deal with each other’s issues as a pair!
First, there was the book that started it all:

Then came four issues of the 32-page comic, each filled with three short stories. Each issue also comes in two different covers, a regular and a variant.
#1 #1, #2, #3, and #4

If you get a combination of 40 or more total issues (including any of the other books on this page!), we can ship ‘em with a free display box.

henry and glenn forever and ever
Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever

Glenn couldn’t understand how complicated it was getting so we released a trade paperback that collects all four issues plus 100 additional new pages.

Punk in NYC’s Lower East Side 1981-1991

Scene Histories: Framed around Reagan Youth, the second generation of punk in New York’s Lower East Side that thrived while being ignored by the media and ended like all good things—with a riot in Tompkins Square.

The Rock & Roll of San Francisco’s East Bay, 1950-1980

Much is written about rock n roll in San Francisco, but not as much is documented about what was happening on the other side of the bay for the first thirty years. Cory M. Linstrum uncovers it all thirty years later.

Snake Pit: Ben Snakepit (Ghost Knife, J Church, and The Sword) has documented every single day of his life in three comic book panels since 2001, instantly becoming an underground classic.

Snakepit Gets Old.
Last year we reissued his first book for its 10 year anniversary: The Snakepit Book
Snakepit: My Life in a Jugular Vein covers his hardest rocking years and includes a CD of punk tracks that he listens to in the comics

We’ve got also copies of his collections from 2007 and 2008.

things are meaning less burn collector 14 burn collector 15

Burn Collector: You might remember Al Burian as punk’s wandering storyteller of humor and dark humor from when he played in Challenger or Milemarker or, if you’re old u’re old, Hellbender. Clearly we can’t shake the guy.

In 2003 we published his Black Flag- quoting graphic novel, Things Are Meaning Less. We’ve published two issues of his Burn Collector zine, first #14 then #15.

More underground punk classics

Beyond The Music: How Punks are Saving the World with DIY Ethics, Skills, & Values

Featuring interviews with leading figures of the DIY punk underground, this book outlines how punks are saving the world, despite contradictions, challenges, and having to overcome cultural and social norms, as well as punk’s spotty history.

Maps To The Other Side: The Adventures of a Bipolar Cartographer

Sascha Scatter (Choking Victim) spent his life adventuring all over the globe, playing in bands and starting seed libraries before founding The Icarus Project, the first member-run mental health advocacy organization. This is his story.

God, Forgive These Bastards

Rob Morton of Plan-it X Records’ The Taxpayers wrote this biography of a college baseball pitcher turned homeless street sage in a redemption tale of pain and forgiveness.

Bobby Joe Ebola: Longtime Bay Area band with a cult following, Bobby Joe Ebola has teamed up with Horrible Comics’ Jason Chandler to produce a parody of Little Golden Books (complete with a CD), Meal Deal with the Devil
We’ve also released their comprehensive lyric books / guide on how to march to the beat of your own (or no) drum, the Bobby Joe Ebola Songbook

Scam: The First Four Issues

Scam: Trainhopping, generator punk shows, stealing electricity from lamp posts, squatting, selling plasma, tagging trains, wheatpasting, and dumpstering as seen through the lens of a young punk. “Totally, totally essential for anyone with anything approaching a punk rock bone in their body.” —Boing Boing

Making Stuff and Doing Things: A Collection of DIY Guides to Just About Everything

“DIY guides to doing just about everything under the sun—from playing guitar to making toothpaste” —Last Hours Mag“If there is a book you get this year this is it…the Time-Life series for punks all in one volume, for one low-low price!” —Hanging Like a Hex

How and Why: A Do-it-yourself Guide

What do you do when you wake up from the dream? Get some blueprints for projects towards a better world! An all- grown-up do-it-yourself handbook with easy-to-use info on bicycles, home and garage, gardening, homeschooling your children, musical instruments, and more.

Punk Documentaries

If It Ain’t Cheap, It Ain’t Punk: D. un I. t Y.

Plan-it X Records has been a vision of hope and inspiration since 1994 and this is the label’s story of ups and downs as told through the 2006 festival in Bloomington, IN

Between Resistance & Community: The Long Island Do-it-yourself Punk Scene

“Punk’s not dead—it’s just cleaned up its act and living in mom’s basement. These well-spoken kids with creative haircuts describe their own basement-band scene as “building community-based movements.” A timely snapshot of contemporary punk’s new sincerity.” —Village Voice

X Ray Visions: A Look Inside Portland’s Legendary X-Ray Cafe

“Accepting of almost all cultural expression or character type that wasn’t mean-spirited, the X-Ray championed a kind of inspired amateurism and a participatory environment that’s unlikely to be equaled for audacity or fun. In the words of one former regular, ‘the X-Ray was the cat’s potato.’ And so is this film.” —The Oregonian

Punk Classics from PM Press

Dead Kennedys: Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, The Early Years

Using dozens of first-hand interviews, photos, and original artwork to offer a new perspective on a group who would become mired in controversy almost from the get-go. It applauds the band’s key role in transforming punk rhetoric, both polemical and musical, into something genuinely threatening—and enormously funny. The author offers context in terms of both the global and local trajectory of punk and, while not flinching from the wildly differing takes individual band members have on the evolution of the band, attempts to be celebratory—if not uncritical.

Stealing All Transmissions: A Secret History of The Clash

It’s the story of The Clash’s love affair with America that began began in 1977, when select rock journalists and deejays aided the band’s quest to depose the rock of indolence that dominated American airwaves. This history situates The Clash amid the cultural skirmishes of the 1970s and culminates with their September 1979 performance at the Palladium in New York City. This concert was broadcast live on WNEW, and it concluded with Paul Simonon treating his Fender bass like a woodcutter’s ax.

The Story of Crass

Crass was the anarcho-punk face of a revolutionary movement founded by radical thinkers and artists Penny Rimbaud, Gee Vaucher and Steve Ignorant. When punk ruled the waves, Crass waived the rules and took it further, putting out their own records, films and magazines and setting up a series of situationist pranks that were dutifully covered by the world’s press.

Barred For Life: How Black Flag’s Iconic Logo Became Punk Rock’s Secret Handshake

A photo documentary cataloging the legacy of Punk Rock pioneers Black Flag, through stories, interviews, and photographs of diehard fans who wear their iconic logo, The Bars, conspicuously tattooed upon their skin. An extensive tour of North America and Western Europe documents dedicated fans bearing Bars-on-skin and other Black Flag iconography. Nearly four hundred “Barred” fans lined up, smiled/frowned for the camera, and issued their stories for the permanent record.

The Primal Screamer

From Rudimentary Peni frontman, this is a gothic horror novel about severe mental distress and punk rock. A diary written by psychiatrist Dr. Rodney H. Dweller, concerning his patient, Nathaniel Snoxell, brought to him in 1979 because of several attempted suicides. Snoxell gets involved in the anarchist punk scene, and begins recording songs and playing gigs at anarchist centers. In 1985, the good doctor himself “goes insane” and disappears. This semi-autobiographical novel from Rudimentary Peni singer, guitarist, lyricist, and illustrator, Nick Blinko, plunges into the worlds of madness, suicide, and anarchist punk. H. P. Lovecraft meets Crass in the squats and psychiatric institutions of early 1980s England.

Left Of The Dial: Conversations with Punk Icons

Featuring interviews with leading figures of the punk underground: Ian MacKaye (Minor Threat/Fugazi), Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys), Dave Dictor (MDC), and many more. Ensminger probes the legacy of punk’s sometimes fuzzy political ideology, its ongoing DIY traditions, its rupture of cultural and social norms, its progressive media ecology, its transgenerational and transnational appeal, its pursuit of social justice, its hybrid musical nuances, and its sometimes ambivalent responses to queer identities, race relations, and its own history.

Pre-paid orders over $250 get a 50% discount on all the titles in this post!

Order fifteen or more books, get a free display box!
Just select “wholesale” when you order on our site (check out our terms here).

Now Kickstarting: The punk lore of Crate Digger!

February 11, 2015 — by Elly

george washington endorses crate digger We’re Kickstarting again! This time the project is Crate Digger: An Obsession With Punk Records.

The book is Bob Suren’s epic saga of punk culture and music in Florida and beyond. He goes as far as Texas, Costa Rica, and Brazil on tour with Failure Face and other bands. While at home in the Tampa area he ran iconic record shop Sound Idea and also Burrito Records, always staying a step ahead of the music industry. His story is told through the records he collected—and eventually sold all at once, when it all fell apart.

It’s the kind of book that kept our proofreaders grinning with bemused looks on their faces, so enthralled in the story that they didn’t hear us ask them what was so funny. We’re having ridiculous amounts of fun coming up with stickers to go with all the major endorsements that are rolling in (see right, and here). The reviewers so far love it. And we think you will too.

So we’re asking, with our hearts on our sleeves: Will you back our Kickstarter project and help Crate Digger come into being with the quiet fanfare it deserves?

Thank you.

Things are Meaning More—catching up with Al Burian

February 09, 2015 — by Elly Blue

Microcosm’s first paperback books came out back in 2002, and as I’ve been reading my way through them, I’ve been wondering—where are the authors now? I fired off a few emails with nosy questions, which were followed by a deafening silence… then at last, to my relief, Al Burian wrote back with thoughtful and generous answers. Thanks, Al.

1. Hi Al! What are you up to these days? Where in the world are you and what’s it like there today?

My last publication for Microcosm (Burn Collector #15) was about moving to Berlin, Germany, and in fact I’m still living there, even still living in the same apartment. But today I am not at home for a change; I am in Hamburg, a few hours away. I’m at a band practice in a basement room, filled with musical equipment, like so many similar rooms around the world: familiar, non-exotic territory. Outside, the day is a drizzling, oppressive dark grey. I imagine it is comparable to winter weather in Portland, OR. drawn al

2. Your first book with us was a comic book in 2003 (!), Things Are Meaning Less. Your work now is pretty different in format and also in tone—what changed and why?

I don’t really feel that my work has changed so drastically, but perhaps readers see that differently. My early stuff was informed by a younger persons’ sensibilities, of course. In my twenties I had the typical know-it-all attitude that comes with a liberal arts degree and an obscure record collection. After I finished college I began touring with punk bands and produced a lot of zines; I enjoyed writing in an academic, pseudo-literary style, even as I described dumpster-diving, visits to Waffle House, and other low-brow everyday behavior. The contrast struck me as funny. Other people might have found the affect annoying.

Now that I’m older and have had a few of the important traumatic adult experiences, my horizons have broadened, and I feel like I hardly know anything at all. I’m slower to produce and much more self-critical. I find myself talking about how it’s not all so black and white, weighing both sides of the issue, displaying all the wishy-washy attitudes that used to annoy me about old people. I don’t feel so comfortable anymore with the “insert situation, make fun of everyone’s haircuts, end with a Nietzsche quotation” style of writing. Nonetheless, I would maintain that it is not me that has changed so much– I have actually remained pretty consistent– but rather the context within which I’m working, the milieu I’m in (not touring so much, and definitely not much in North America), the recontextualization of the meaning of analog creative forms in the digital era…. stuff like that.

3. What’s your plan for where you’re going with your work next?

I don’t know. I’ve never had any kind of plan. My creative history is one long and uncoordinated flail forward. In theory I agree, having a plan is a good idea, and I even tried to formulate one when I moved to Germany, which was to quit doing music and focus on writing. Apparently to succeed and be fruitful, you need a solid focus and single-minded discipline; all the self-help books say so. But those have traditionally been my weak spots, and sure enough, now a few years later I’ve meandered off track completely. In 2015, maybe some new comics, most likely will put out some new music, and possibly but not very probably will finish up one of many long-term writing projects.

4. What books and music have you liked recently? Or maybe “like” is the wrong metric, so: what’s gotten stuck in your head?

Books: The Nostalgia Echo by Mickey Hess, Orlando by Virginia Woolf, The Loom of Ruin by Sam McPheeters, Susan Sontag: the Complete Rolling Stone Interview by Jonathan Cott

Comics: Anna Haifisch, Mike Taylor

Music: Mothers of Invention with Napoleon Murphy Brock, Disappears, Corrosion of Conformity self-titled album

5. What question should I really be asking you?

Anyone can ask me any question they want to– leave a “comment” at alburian.com. But as far as “should,” I’d say, hey, no pressure. Maybe you don’t have any more questions. That’s OK too.

This is one of a series of interviews with Microcosm authors. The next interview is with Anna Brones.

Bike stuff for bike shops!

January 21, 2015 — by Elly Blue

Hello, bike shops! evolution shirt

The bicycle transportation revolution is happening, bigtime! More people than ever are getting on bikes for fun, community, and transportation—and we’ve got stuff that they are really, really stoked about. Here’s the scoop:

T-shirts

New bike converts and old hands alike love to declare their Evolution or tell the world where to Put the Fun. Our wide range of (mostly bike-related) t-shirts include timeless standbys like our Chainring Heart, newer classics like the Bikenomics tee and Every Car a Murder, Every Bike a Love Affair (a vengeful rental car once destroyed a bunch of these while on tour, but we bounced back). All our shirts are manufactured and printed in the USA.

Small gift items

We have a huge variety of bike stickers (plus one for cars, to be fair). Bike-themed patches and buttons. Magnets. Greeting cards! Even a coloring book. All this stuff is also made in the USA.

Books

Want to give your customers access not just to a bicycle but to a whole way of life? You can pick up a selection of some of our bestselling bike books in this nice-looking counter-top display box (email us if you’d like other price options with the display).

Here are some highlights (all printed by union workers in the US! yes!):

Bikenomics by Elly Blue (the economic case for bicycling)

Chainbreaker is the best bike repair manual out there (written for bike projects so you know it’s rad; also includes all the back issues of a New Orleans bike project zine from before Katrina). (We also have the super basic $3 zine version.)

Aftermass (this is a DVD – Joe Biel’s documentary about the history of bicycling in Portland)

Everyday Bicycling (also by Elly—great for people who are just getting started riding and need to learn skills)

Pedal, Stretch, Breathe (Kelli Refer’s charming illustrated guide to the yoga of feeling awesome on and off the bike)

The Culinary Cyclist (Anna Brones’s gluten free, vegetarian cookbook for people who live the two wheeled lifestyle)

Why We Drive (Andy Singer’s scandalous history of the automobile’s troubled rise to popularity in the US, told largely in cartoons)

Bikes in Space (feminist bicycle science fiction!)

We’re always happy to pick out a selection that’ll suit your and your customers’ style. Just ask!

Wholesale ordering is straightforward. The best way to do it is to set up an account, select the wholesale option, and go ahead and order what you want on our website. If you run into trouble, give us a call at 503 232 3666 any time from 11-7 Pacific time.

Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever Valentine’s Day Spectacular

January 13, 2015 — by Microcosm

We’ve been thinking a lot about love lately…. specifically about the great historical couple whose epic spats and charming make-ups grace the pages of so many of our favorite books. You know who we mean: Glenn and Henry. Our friend Brett Marren put together this little video in homage to their romance, and to Valentines everywhere, warts and all. Watch the video and don’t forget to pick up a copy of the book for your own sweetie (or for your own sweet self).

Henry & Glenn Forever & Ever Valentines Day Spectacular from Microcosm Publishing on Vimeo.

Announcing Our Fall 2015 Titles

November 30, 2014 — by Joe Biel

We are thrilled to announce our new titles for Fall 2015, including more bicycling, punk, and travel books—new editions of Zinester’s Guide to Portland and Everyday Bicycling! Plus a new book by Alexander Barrett about Shanghai and two brand new authors—Emilie Bahr of New Orleans and Daniel Makagon of Chicago!

Meet Our Spring 2015 Titles!

August 18, 2014 — by Joe Biel

Check ’em out! Ten new Spring 2015 titles from punk rock to gender to bicycling to relationships to radicalism to humor to education to our classic DIY offerings!

Think! Eat! Act! Portland Release

June 05, 2014 — by Tim W.

Post by Think Eat Act.

2013 – Top Things Made of Words

December 31, 2013 — by Tim W.

I’m generally not one for year end lists. Usually I’m late to the party. Often times I’m not invited to the party. Sometimes I get lost on my way to the party and end up at a different party, but still have a really good time. With that in mind, this is my list of 2013’s “Top Things Made of Words.” These days format is less relevant than ever, so for this list, everything qualifies. Whether it’s an old book I didn’t read until last month, a blog, a zine, or the post-it that was stuck to my shoe, it all has a chance.

If you’re here, you probably already know the things we publish. And although I’m endlessly excited about each of them, I’ll try to leave them off of here. But no guarantees.

And now, in no particular order…

1. Scott McClanahan

Scott McClanahan is probably my favorite writer that I discovered in 2013. I’m not the only one, as his most recent book Hill William has been everywhere I look lately. Rightfully so. Scott is from one of those places you forget exist outside of the movies, and are glad you’re not from. He was raised in a collapsed coal town in West Virginia and it serves as the basis of most of his writing. I picked up a short story collection of his, The Collected Works Vol. 1, mostly based on reputation, but partly just because of the cover image. I was sucked in by his perspective as a somewhat sensitive writer and storyteller among anachronistic coal miners, hard working hillbillies, and directionless drunks. Immediately after, I picked up Crapalachia and tore through the tales of his family and childhood friends. Hill William is waiting for me at home and it will be the next book I open.

2. Corner Store #1 & #2 by Corey Plagiarist

I’ve said a few times in my life that I like movies and books where nothing really happens. A not so eloquent way of expressing appreciation for things that document a specific place or a moment in life. A record of things that don’t belong in the history books and will never be a blockbuster, but capture pieces of culture and emotion. Corner Store does this at its most basic level and it is somehow totally engrossing.

A handful of friends cruise around Milwaukee with one goal and a few basic rules. With a limited amount of money and a few government subsidies, they visit as many neighborhood corner stores as they can find. Not chains, not stores in the middle of the block, and not free standing markets. Just corner stores. They describe the places, poke around the inventory, mention anything of interest, and buy some malt liquor or a pack of peanuts or one of those 99 cent tall cans of sugar juice. Some people like to read books about WWII, or the rise and fall of kingdoms. I like to read about the chip selection of corner stores I’ll probably never visit.

From what I can tell, #2 was actually published sometime in 2012. #1 gives pretty much no indication of date. Both are seemingly hard to find in stock on the internet, but we actually have a couple copies of each in the store if you are dying for one.

3. Rontel by Sam Pink

Rontel is the pretty little kitty pictured above. Sam Pink is pretty in his own way. He’s also one of the most uniquely voiced and styled writers I’ve read in a long time. His books are generally short collections of poems, stories, phrases, and outbursts. Most of them can be taken in in a single sitting, and I’ve done that with every one of them that I could get my hands on. Rontel, like Corner Store, is also a record of a brief place in time as the author does his best to live and exist in Chicago. Actually, that’s wrong. He’s not doing his best at all. The problem is, he has no idea what his best is. So instead, he wanders aimlessly, half-awake, and a little bit dead, finding the absurdity in his own bleak existence. And he’s really damn good at that.

3 1/2. Lazy Fascist Press

Lazy Fascist Press published Rontel. They also published Scott McClanahan’s Collected Works. When it comes down to it, pretty much everything they do is weird and wonderful and unique in the world of fiction. Just go read anything you can find that has their little mustache logo on the spine. That’s what I do.

4. Mount Ennui (@mountennui) / ornery island (@nolanallan)

Is 2013 the year “weird twitter” became a thing? Or is that just another party I’m a little late to? Either way, it the year I found the thriving community of writers and weirdos that make Twitter a place for more than just links to articles. Mount Ennui and ornery island are two people (or at least I assume they are) that transcend the running jokes and bad puns of other “weird” accounts and enter a different dimension of single line poetry, interconnected thoughts, and allusions to things you didn’t realize you’ve experienced. 140 character reminders that we all share this spaceship. And that it’s forever sinking.

5. Raw Deal #13 by Joey Alone

Raw Deal #13 is both one of my favorite zines I’ve recently read, but also one of those most frustrating. Favorite because it’s a dirty (like under your fingernails, not sexy), passionate (same) collection of trains, botany, graffiti, and art through the lens of a punk mindset. From saving rare trees by breeding them in abandoned Oakland lots, to going from trainhopper to legitimate brake man, Joey Alone inspires in all the right ways. Why frustrating? Because this is the only piece of writing by him that I can find. It was formerly called Loitering is Good and I’m assuming there’s 12 other issues out there somewhere, but I’ve never encountered a single one of them. Somebody help!

6. Fancy Notions

Fancy Notions is the blog of a friend of mine. But regardless of that, it is filled with wonders of lesser traveled highways, old superstitions, liquor store artwork, and creepy childhood memories. Always worth reading.

7. Dream River by Bill Callahan

In this case, we’ll ignore the music, but you should never actually do that. Bill Callahan, formerly Smog, has spent decades releasing one great album after another. Of the large chunk of his output that I’ve spent serious time with, I can’t think of a dud. Dream River is his most recent release and continues his style of extremely personal, but concise narratives. My favorite songwriter will probably forever be John Darnielle, but where Darnielle crams a devastating paragraph into a single measure of music, Callahan achieves the same emotional resonance by slurring a single syllable out over a few beats. His words hit you in that corner of the brain that makes your eyes glaze over and hands tense, as you relive your own version of the scene he’s spelling out.

8. Radon by Aaron Cometbus and Travis Fristoe

A friend of mine may have said it best when, after I made him read this, he said something along the lines of “This completely convinced me that Radon is my new favorite band before I had ever heard their music.” And it’s true. Fristoe and Cometbus tag team the story of a DIY punk band from Florida that never quite got the attention they deserved. A portrait of a scene, a punk field guide, and just some damn good writing. If you’ve ever felt passionately about a band, you’ll be able to relate.

9. The Florida Room’s marquee

The Florida Room is a bar–good bloody marys, cheap tater tots, and just around the corner from my house. All good reasons to go hang out. But the reason it fits into this list, is the marquee. Like a lot of bars with signs or chalkboards, there’s plenty of silly jokes and advertising, and sometimes it’s amusing to see the dirtier ones in big letters on a fairly busy street. However, it’s also the only bar marquee to ever make me tear up a little. Nobody likes to lose a friend (or even just an acquaintance in my case), but it’s nice to see their name up in lights one last time.

Looking forward, I’m not sure which party I’ll wander into this year, but I’m sure it’ll be something just as engrossing as the 2013 has been. And as for things around here, there’s a whole host of things I’m looking forward to reading. The top of the list right now (which is always changing) is Aftermath of Forever, the next issue of Railroad Semantics, and the newest from Joshua Ploeg, This Ain’t No Picnic. But most of all, thank you for supporting all that we do! It would all be useless without you.

-Tim

New Newness News!

November 12, 2013 — by Jeff Hayes

Just so you know, we’ve got a lot of super great new titles! Who’s excited about Railroad Semantics #2!!?

If not that, how bout the new edition of Mostly True!

Raleigh Briggs even released her sequel to Make Your Place, the much-anticipated Make It Last!

Beyond The Music is Joe Biel’s new book, a really great one for anyone interested in the Punk “Scene” or the DIY ethics it brings with it.

And of course, we can’t forget about Everyday Bicycling, Elly Blue’s know-it-all book about cycling in any and every situation, a super great guide to get someone who might just be getting into bicycling, or even the bicycling fanatics! 🙂

Holy Cow! As I was typing this we just got another one in! The People’s Apocalypse! This one looks super interesting!

If your into that whole Thanksgiving thing, these are all things to be thankful for!
If your into that whole Christmas thing, any one of these would make great gifts!
Or, you could gift one to someone on Nov. 13th for World Kindness Day.
You’ll also have to stock up on books to read for Stay At Home Because You Are Well Day at the end of the month. Book Lover’s Day doesn’t have to end on Nov. 4th, it can last all year!

I can’t even keep up around here. I’m going to have to start reading faster…

-Jeff