OFF-KILTER COMICS, TREEHOUSE B-DAY

yes, i know; when i said i was going to blog more, i lied. again. maybe i'm just not cut out for this blogging thing. anyway, here i am, and here's what's going on:

big, great COMIC SHOW at our very own Minneapolis College Of Art and Design (MCAD).
Ivan Brunetti (Schizo, one of the most singularly brutal/ human comics...ever, not to mention a New Yorker cover and a ton of other stuff...), John Hankiewicz (Kramer's Ergot, and the amazing ASTHMA collection), Lilli Carre (Tales Of Woodsman Pete), Dan Zettwoch (Kramer's Ergot, and his solo Red Bird series), Onsmith (show curator and author of many fine zines and other stuff) and yours truly (Sammy the Mouse, Recidivist, etc). original art, etc.
also, Onsmith, Brunetti, Hankiewicz and myself will be present for a gallery talk at the show opening at 6pm on april 4, and that same crew will be doing a signing from 3-5 pm the following day (saturday april 5th) at Big Brain Comics in downtown minneapolis.
i'd wager that all but the most obsessively comics- savvy of folks will find something you've never seen in this show that will more that float your respective cultural boat, whatever it might be.
so come on down if you live here.
ok, and then LATER TONIGHT, there's a big 7th birthday celebration for minneapolis' favorite record store, Treehouse records ( in Uptown); before it was Treehouse, it was Oarfolkjokeopus (seriously), and before that it was something else, but fact of the matter is that it's been there, and been a record store, for 40 YEARS. holy crap.
a buch of folks and bands are celebrating it tonight at the Turf Club in st. paul tonight (with a bunch of the proceeds going to a New Orleans relief fund).
here's the lineup:
MICHAEL YONKERS, PAUL METZGER, THE HYPSTRZ (with special guest BUZZ BARKER), VAMPIRE HANDS and CHOOGLIN'.
dj clint destijl will be working his dancefloor magic, as well.

R.I.P. The Church

yeah so what i havn't posted for what---half a year or something ( i got so many posts under my sleeve right now you will all be CRUSHED by my blogging! JUST YOU WAIT!!! but, well, actually the real truth is that i forgot my password and couldn't find it. seriously. i know, it's sad.).
just heard word that today the Church was bulldozed into its grave. sad, sad thing.
the church was (for those of you not a) a resident of minneapolis or b) a wingnut who enjoys really fucked-up music performed in strange spaces of dubious legality) a place where, for a great many number of years, truly weird stuff went down.
mostly bands/ shows etc that couldn't (or didn't want to be) pulled off in a more "legitimate" setting. folks lived there, too.
i swear i remember going to a show there in 1991, and when the cops came to bust it up i escaped in a wheelchair i found.
anyway.
in the past decade or so, i havn't been a regular denizen of the place as much, but from time to time i've had some truly awesome/ scary musical experiences there. the first Destijl Festival, the last time i saw Wolf Eyes (ended in a near riot...some meathead smashed whathisname's table w/ all his noise thingies on it...ugly.), and the final show/party a couple months back, which was absolutely one of the most absurd clusterfucks i have ever had the privilege of being witness to ( i bailed at 3am, and there were still 4 BANDS LEFT TO PLAY.).
i could go on and on about how places like this are few and far between and yadda yadda yadda.
but really, shutting up and saying 26th and chicago ain't what it used to be is all i got at present.
RIP Church.

ZAK SALLY INTERVIEW with COMICSREPORTER.COM

oh yeah. also, a really long interview with me about Sammy The Mouse and La Mano, and other stuff (conducted by Tom Spurgeon, who wrote areally great book called "Stan Lee and the Rise And Fall Of The American Comic Book". very highly reccommended) at comicsreporter.com.
and no, actually, i'm not depressed about Sammy, or La Mano, at ALL. i couldn't be prouder.
seriously.

SHOW REVIEW: CALVIN JOHNSON with JULIE DOIRON

3 nights ago, Calvin Johnson and Julie Doiron played at First Amendment (silkscreen/ design/ all sorts of awesome stuff place here in minneapolis).
they arrived at my house promptly, quietly, and EARLY (by rock tour standards); A. they loaded all their own shit into the house, and proceeded to unpack all of THEIR OWN FOOD. A+. amazing. Calvin then regaled me/ us with tales about NW rock (including stories about Greg Sage, which is, obviously, a current mild obsession of mine), and how to bring tens of thousands of cd's to the dump A+ / B- (as the second part made me sad).
with an incredible minimum of fuss, Julie took the couch (with the dog), and Calvin went and slept in the van (because he apparently has an aversion to dogs, and because after all these years, he is STILL PUNK.) A+. woke up early, made their own food, folded the sheets i'd given them, and Calvin sort of remembered how to play "Ponytail", so he showed me that; but the point is, when they left, the house was AS IF THEY HAD NEVER BEEN THERE; like that Zen "don't leave a ripple in the pond" thing that i can never remember right. Calvin even put away the salt and pepper, and cleaned toast crumbs off the counter.

all you touring rockers out there take note: THAT'S how you DO IT.

all in all, a spectacular performance: A+.

ok, actually i missed the show itself (Calvin does sing in the shower, loudly, so i caught that and it was pretty good...) but if it was anywhere as good as their houseguest manners, i totally missed out.

no but really; Calvin is an old pal (and, let's be frank, a total pinetop-- but in a good way.) and it's always great to see him (i hadn't met Julie Doiron before, but she was real nice too). but beyond that, i've started thinking in recent years that...Calvin's the real deal. not that he ever WASN'T (in fact--and this is something that really truly surprises me-- those Beat Happening records not only hold up incredibly well, as opposed to a lot of stuff from that era that i THOUGHT was fantastic at the time but now sort of mildly suck, they actually GET BETTER as time rolls on. put on Jamboree or Black Candy and see for yourself.), just that...things move and change, so does the world. and that's fine, but Calvin knows what he is, and what he does, and he has never stopped. and me, i find it all pretty awesome.
i mean, the last part of this tour (which he is doing BY TRAIN), Calvin is playing, you know; Minot ND. and Kalispell MT. no rock clubs, not even any AMPLIFIERS. he just goes into a room, people are there (sometimes a lot, sometimes not so many), and he's got his guitar and he sings his songs. la la la. no microphone, no nothing.
aside from the fact that this just takes a lot of balls, it's...as always, PUNK.
and Calvin's "punk" was never the mohawk/ crusty kind, it was always...weirder. he does 2-week acoustic tours of small towns in Oregon.
indie-rock or "punk" or whatever you call it is now as standardized as anything else; it's just a different "sound" than, say, adult alternative (but often not MUCH different). they play the same clubs, they sign with the same labels, etc etc. what Calvin does is, and never has been, that.
it's the honest- to -god REAL DEAL: the real "punk", which, to me, is that just because "the way things work" happens to be a semi- stupid, crass, and dehumanizing bunch of nonsense, that don't mean it's the only way. it just means you try to figure out a better way. and the dichotomy here (i learned that word by looking it up in the dictionary) is that it's no big deal and the biggest deal in the world at the same time. it's not wearing a Crass shirt and having a stupid haircut and beating your chest with righteous indignation, it's just getting on with what YOU do.
regardless of if it's cool or hip according to this weeks' barometer, or that it's "unmarketable" and economically stupid, or that it flies in the face of what you're "supposed" to do (i mean, you're supposed to play ROCK CLUBS, you know?). you just do your damn thing, and the innumerable people who will tell you you shouldn't can...go ride a bike (or fuck themselves, depending). i really don't know what "punk" is anymore, and i'm not sure i ever did, but i know that...sometimes little stuff is important.
the first time i heard Beat Happening, i HATED it. all i could think is "this is RETARDED. i HATE this."
and boy was i wrong. 20 years later, here we are.

hm. i actually did not mean to write that much.
ah well. go buy a record from K, or go see Calvin play. it'll be fun.

MOCCA 2007

pushing aside all the other stuff i've been meaning to blog about but havn't yet ( i was informed by someone at the Sammy The Mouse release show--which you missed and it was a blast, thank you very much-- that he ACTUALLY READS this blog, which was wildly encouraging to me as far as keeping this thing going...) is the fact that this past weekend i attended MOCCA 2007 in new york city.
it was my 2nd time at this event, and i'll be damned if i dindn't take a total bath, $-wise: last year sucessfully cleared table and plane fare and made a couple hundred bucks on top of that, this year felt like i couldn't GIVE the damn books away. very strange.

as always with these kinds of things, though, saw some old pals ( such as the always great Mark Burrier, with whom i shared a table) and met some nice folks (such as Everett and Giaoia from the old-school fanzine Mineshaft, which you should check out). it wasn't a total bust.

also did signings for my new Sammy The Mouse book ( which Fantagraphics sold out of, thanks very much...). pictured here is me with nice fellow/ comedic genius Michael Kupperman (if you havn't seen the work Michael drew for the recent Satuday Night Live/ TV Funhouse clip "Big-Boobed Einstien", you need to check it out on youtube or whatever that thing is...pretty damn funny) of Snake N' Bacon/ Tales Designed to Thrizzle fame at the Fantagraphics signing table.

notice that he is signing things and i am not.

2nd day was with cartoonist/ writer Paul Karasik who put together the astounding new collection of Fletcher Hanks' comic work "I Shall Destroy All Civilized Planets!". holy crap is it great.
and, for those of you wondering, Jason Miles' "Dead Ringer" was NOT completed in time for MOCCA. why? because it wasn't ready yet.
when will it be ready?
(...all together now) WHEN IT IS DONE.

remember that i love you all,
zak.

LAVENDER DIAMOND, Cedar Cultural Center

hey looky here; Ron Rege Jr. has been around the small press scene for as long as i can remember (which, frankly, is getting to be a pretty long time at this point...), and is the cartoonist behind countless 'zines (including his long-running Yeast Hoist deal, which is now being put out by the good folks at Buenaventura Press, which i would surely link to if'n i knew how...), and a pretty stellar book, Skibber-Bee-Bye (...first put out by Highwater, re-released by Drawn & Quarterly a couple years back...go buy it.).
last time i saw him was on the La Mano West Coast Tour, and crimeny what a sweet guy he is; he gave me a CD/ep by his band Lavender Diamond, and i played the hell out of it in my rental car; now they're all signed to a big label and are touring behind a new record (which i havn't heard yet, because...uh...i'm broke) and playing here in minneapolis on sunday, at the Cedar Cultural Center.
so, if you live here, go see them; if you don't live here, go see them when they come to your town; if all that fails, go buy the record and do a puppet show at your house.
HOORAY!!

HELIOTROPE IV

as always, late and overdue, but need to mention one of my favorite yearly things: minneapolis' own HELIOTROPE festival.
never mind that i'm a participant, each year i end up hanging around at this thing for about 1/2 of the 3 days it's going on, and am always happily inspired by the diversity of wingnuts that participate in this, and all from my hometown, right here: screwy folk, noise, psychedelical-type rock, a "novelty gamelan" orchesetra, and a lot of points in between.
and, you know, let's be frank: sometimes with these multi-day festivals, it can get pretty over (or -under, for that matter)..uh, whelming, but with heliotrope's short sets and some great programming choices, i'm always pretty whelmed, and leave the thing happy and, frankly, inspired by all this great shit.
like i said, late, as last night was the first of 3 (now in its new location at the swanky Ritz Theater here in NE minneapolis, moved from the previous 3 years down at Franklin Art Works), and saw some great stuff already; some guy palying the hell out of some tablas, some kids who sounded like they'd been drinking some 1968 west coast wellwater (Dad In Common), a great set by Jesse Peterson, and the always astounding Paul Metzger doing a solo "Fucked-Up Guitar" set.
you should've been there.
tonight is more "rock"; me, i'm playing twice-- once with the White Map (closing the night out after Skoal Kodiak), and a 7:30 set premiering (?) this new thing, TOGPTFFSOTWOTERAMTSYOAITANTT.
huh?
better late than never:
May 17, 18, 19 at The Ritz Theater - 345 13th Ave NE Minneapolis

Ticket Prices: $8 per night, $15 for two nights, $20 for three nights

Thursday:
7:00 Milo Fine with Davu Seru, Charles Gillett and Viv Corringham
8:00 Jaron Childs and Bryce Beverlin II
8:30 Kaharwa
9:00 Jesse Petersen
9:30 Paul Metzger
10:00 The Dad in Common
11:00 International Novelty Gamelan

Friday:
6:30 New Port
7:00 Sarah Johnson
7:30 TOGPTFFSFTWOTER
8:00 Synchrocyclotron
8:30 Mute Era
9:00 Thunderbolt Pagoda
10:00 Michael Yonkers and the Blind Shake
11:00 Skoal Kodiak
11:45 White Map

Saturday:
6:30 Sean Connaughty and Jason Kesselring
7:00 Dreamland Faces
7:30 Thank You
8:00 The Pins
9:00 Dallas Orbiter
10:00 Build My Gallows High
11:00 David Krecji