On the Lower Frequencies

TWO MORE READINGS IN MAY! 1-2-3-4 Go! Records and SF Public Library

ericklyle — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:32:47 +0000

I will be presenting on “The Road to Streetopia” — an explanation of how cement etchings in the San Francisco sidewalks by long forgotten local rocker, Frankie Glitterdoll, led me on an intuitive creative search that over a period of years resulted in the massive Streetopia show that opens this May 18 at The Luggage Store Gallery with its 140 artists and 40+ scheduled events.

Join me Thursday, May 3 7:00 PM

@ 1-2-3-4 Go! Records in Oakland

I will be there in support of my old friend, Sam Mcpheeters, who will be reading from his debut novel, The Loom of Ruin.

I can’t wait!

Then…

Thursday May 10 6:00 PM

@ San Francisco Public Library

Latino Hispanic Meeting Room A/B

As part of Michelle Tea’s Radar reading series, I will be appearing with Alyssa Angel, Keely Hyslop, and the venerable Bay Area performer and poet, Bucky Sinister, who will be supporting his rad new book, Time Bomb Snooze Alarm. Hosted by Michelle Tea.

SCAM ZINE RELEASE AND MODERN TIMES 40th BDAY READING!

ericklyle — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 08:17:09 +0000

Yes, folks, it is time for another issue of SCAM — even if I’m busier than I have been in my whole life with the Streetopia show!

SCAM #9: The Story Of Black Flag’s Damaged will make its debut on April 26, 2012 at Needles and Pens here in SF.

The event is a zine release party for this new SCAM and for the latest issue of my pal, E. Conner‘s zine, Toothworm.

Emmalee and I will reading and presenting from our zines and doing various Black Flag-inspired performances.

Free Black Coffee served for all!

Come check it out!

Thursday April 26 7 PM

Needles and Pens SF

3253 16th Street btwn Guerrero and Dolores

Earlier in the month, I am also reading at the Modern Times Bookstore 40th Anniversary Party at El Rio in SF.

Modern Times is an amazing collectively owned bookstore in the city, long a petri dish for various radical activity, and one of the few places that can actually say was once MY employer in this life.

Friends of the bookstore like Daphne Gottlieb and Chris Carlsson will also perform. SO GOOD!

40 Years of Radical Writing, Rabble Rousing, and Romancing Your Brain
A party with and for Modern Times at El Rio
- Thursday, April 19
- 6-9 PM
- El Rio: 3158 Mission Street
- $5-15, NOTA

We’ve been moving and shaking since our relocation from Valencia to 24th St. Now that the dust has settled, we want a party, and we want you to join us! Featuring stories of San Francisco by some of our favorite San Franciscans: Daphne Gottlieb, Erick Lyle, Chris Carlsson, Marge Nelson, and more TBA, with drink specials, prizes, food, and surprises. Proceeds go to the development of a new event/teaching space, expanded programming, and community engagement.

STREETOPIA! STREETOPIA! STREETOPIA! COMING SOON!

ericklyle — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 08:28:41 +0000

For all of you who have wondered why I’m never at home in NYC this past year or so or who have been hearing me mumble about “my damn art show” for 18 months, I can finally go public with the full details of STREETOPIA.

I am currently back in San Francisco, finishing up work on this epic exhibition for the Luggage Store Gallery on Market Street.

Curated by myself and artist, Chris Johanson, the show is loosely based on my next book.

Themes include memory and the city and Utopian aspiration for the city.

The exhibition will take place simultaneously at Luggage Store Gallery and at 509 Cultural Center and in the streets!

Streetopia includes public performances, events on city farms, installations in vacant Market Street storefronts, a Utopian billboard campaign, and announcement of a public mural project in the Tenderloin with Emory Douglas from Black Panthers.

The gallery will host a Free Cafe with daily free food. There will be free talks, screenings, readings, performances, skillshares, workshops, etc in the gallery for the length of the show’s run from May 18 through June 23.

As of now, there are about 75 artists involved, including SWOON, Rigo 23, Barry McGee, Monica Canilao, Ryder Cooley, Finley Coyl, Michelle Tea, Sam Green, Ivy Jeanne McClelland, Sy Wagon, Edgar Heap of Birds, Greta Snider, and Rene Yanez.

As I write this, we are 52 days from opening night.

Please check out our website for events schedules, a full list of artists, and ways to get involved!

www.streetopiasf.com

READING AT EVERGREEN UNIVERSITY IN OLYMPIA 4/5/12

ericklyle — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 08:06:53 +0000

I am taking a brief break from my busy Streetopia schedule to go north and see friends in Olympia this coming week.

The Punk Rock Preservation Society at Olympia’s Evergreen University has invited me to come speak to students on campus this April 5.

My plan is to drink a gallon of coffee at B&B and then talk about Damaged for an hour and a half!

Bonus power point presentation promised!

MY TOP TEN FOR 2011

ericklyle — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 20:37:31 +0000

This was a damn wild year, folks…

Here is what I can remember, as related in my year end top ten list for Tobi Vail’s online mag, Jigsaw Underground.

Check out everybody else’s lists, too.

There’s some cool dialogue in there!

MY SONGS OUT NOW ON NEW JAPANTHER LP

ericklyle — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 20:33:36 +0000

The latest record from NYC’s Japanther, Beets, Limes and Rice, is out now.

The record includes two songs I wrote for the band:

“Round Up The Usual Suspects” and the record’s first single, “Battle of The Hopeless Crushes”.

The record features some nice cover art from our mutual pal, Monica Canilao…

BLACK RAINBOW RETURNS TO THE BAY w/ BRONTEZ, EXENE, and MORE!

ericklyle — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 07:28:02 +0000

Black Rainbow has returned to San Francisco this week to Black Flag it 5 hours a day in our trusty home away from home, the practice space, as we try to come up with a new LP. We take a break to play two local shows on both sides of the Bay — including one in the arcade of SERRA BOWL in Colma! We will be joined at the bowling alley by Brontez and YOUNGER LOVERS and special guest, Exene Cervanka of X.

SAT JULY 16 8:00 PM

@ SERRA BOWL

BLACK RAINBOW

YOUNGER LOVERS

ALIBASTAIR CHOAD

DISPLEASURE

and special guest, EXENE CERVANKA

THURSDAY JULY 21 8:00 PM

@ THE CHURCH in West Oakland (Corner of Linden and 20th)

BLACK RAINBOW

DAD FAG

HOMEOWNERS

I AM HOSTING A SERIES OF READINGS AND SCREENINGS AT CINDERS GALLERY IN BROOKLYN JUNE 2011

ericklyle — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 19:00:34 +0000

This month, my old friends and collaborators from San Francisco, Sara Thustra and Kyle Ransom present Shit. Free Art N Good Times, a joint exhibition of their art at Cinders Gallery in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I am excited to have the opportunity starting June 23 to host a series of weekly events in the gallery during their shows run this month. Readers of my book, On The Lower Frequencies, will recognize Sara Thustra as a key figure in the protest and art interventions described therein. With the following events, I attempt to reassemble some of that SF Utopian spirit here in Brooklyn by literally bringing members of that SF community together to present their latest works.

THURSDAY JUNE 23

On Thursday June 23, there will be a rare NYC screening of Sara Thustra’s most recent feature length film, The Treatment, along with two short films, “California is an Island” by Sarolta Jane Cump, and “Performance Spaces” by Heather Rene Russ. Inspired by Sara Thustra’s long time tradition of serving free food at his San Francisco protest and art events, the screening will be preceded by a free dinner for all. Vegans welcome!

THURSDAY JUNE 30

There will be a night of readings and film. Savannah Knoop, Kat Case, and I will all debut new fictional works in progress. After an intermission, there will be a screening of Cary Cronenwett’s Bay Area classic, Maggots and Men (2009). Featuring an all-star cast that includes Thustra himself, and lovingly shot in beautiful Super 8, Maggots (54 minutes) reimagines the Kronstadt Uprising of the Russian Revolution as a transgendered Utopia. This film is probably the thing that I am most proud to say was made by my friends!

FRIDAY JULY 8

There will be a rock show to close out the exhibit with Brooklyn DIY heros by-way-of-the-Bay, SHELL SHAG. Ivy and I will also play lower-fi guitar/vocal arrangements of Black Rainbow songs and more under our occasional billing as IVY AND ERICK — our first show together in NYC in three years!

CINDERS GALLERY IS IN A NEW LOCATION AT 28 MARCY STREET BETWEEN HOPE AND METROPOLITAN

For more info, to watch movie trailers, or for artist bios check out www.cindersgallery.com

or read below

ABOUT THE TREAMENT: Two years in the making, “2010 ‘s Best Art Movie”, The Treatment (60 minutes) is the third movie made by Thustra and Siobahn Alluvalot under the collective name, Lovewarz. The viewer is taken into a world of live performance art filmed across the country, a narrative of historical examples of artists fighting for access to new language. A star cast jumps through vivid scenery exhibiting gutteral attempts at using new voices to address the commonalities in our lives. Not meant for the weary, The Treatment is an experience challenging our culture’s motives, color schemes, storytelling and sense of self through others. 60mins

Watch the trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8Q94YoKeLc

ABOUT CALIFORNIA IS AN ISLAND AND SAROLTA JANE CUMP:

This debut short (20 minutes) tells the never before told history of the island of California’s discovery and its controversial, queer mapping. Drawing on accounts of the conquistador Hernando Cortes’ attempt to settle Baja California, as well as 16th Century cartographies and a romance adventure novel ripe with Amazons; the nineteen minute experimental documentary ‘California is an Island’ uses lushly shot re-enactments, animations of re-appropriated map graphics, and text to investigate the fantasies, fears and fetishes of European explorers with a post-colonial, queer lens and a bawdy sense of humor to boot.

Sarolta Jane Cump uses film, video and other less fancy tools to explore the intersections between public and private histories & interrupt the dominant narrative. She is based in Oakland, Alta California and was recently inspired by collaborating with the Water Underground.

ABOUT HEATHER RENEE RUSS AND PERFORMANCE SPACES:

“Performance Spaces” (10 minutes) is a trailer of a longer work in progress, consisting of contemporary video portraits of three individuals, Pedals, Nathann and Tuck who have a certain enigmatic quality to their daily performance. While on quest to present themselves to ‘the other’ each
encounter their unicity. Through playful editing understanding is
intentionally suspended, calling attention to the viewer’s own
performances.

Photographer and video artist, Heather Renee Russ is the co-editor of Cutter Photozine and the longtime host of San Francisco’s now-defunct monthly club series, Club Feral. Recently graduated with an MFA in Photo/Video from SVA, she has lived in Brooklyn for two years.

ABOUT THE READERS:

ERICK LYLE is the editor of the long-running underground punk/criminal zine, SCAM, and the author of On The Lower Frequencies: A Secret History of The City. His work has appeared on This American Life, in The Brooklyn Rail, Raritan, and he is a frequent contributor to the San Francisco Bay Guardian. His next book will be published by Soft Skull Press May 2012 in conjunction with an exhibition at San Francisco’s Luggage Store Gallery.

www.onthelowerfrequencies.com

SAVANNAH KNOOP is an interdisciplinary storyteller. Through writing, clothing- making, and performance, she explores the notions of perceived image and the prismatic quality of identity. Her memoir, Girl Boy Girl: How I Became JT Leroy was published by 7 Stories Press in 2008. She will be reading from a new fictional work in progress, loosely titled “School of Fish”, in which a young woman named Gerald, self-injects those places “wanting” in her body with her mother’s beauty home-kit, a product called Radiance. When Gerald moves to a new city her co-dependance with the School of Fish quickly becomes difficult and Gerald struggles to negotiate a new life for herself. Knoop now lives in Brooklyn.

KAT CASE is a formerly columnist for the underground punk bible, Maximum Rock and Roll, and the editor of her own zine, 36 Snaphots. Case is now a public high school teacher in East New York.

ABOUT MAGGOTS AND MEN AND CARY CRONENWETT:

Film-watchers of the world unite! Seeing Cary Cronenwett’s Maggots and Men, you have nothing to lose but your preconceptions of gender. This utopian re-visioning of the Kronstadt Uprising of 1921, featuring film history’s first cast of over 100 transgender actors, paints an idyllic portrait of formerly pro-Soviet sailors at the Kronstadt naval garrison who rebelled against the perceived failures of the new Bolshevik state.

A degree in Russian history and a familiarity with the work of Soviet cinema master Sergei Eisenstein will certainly deepen your understanding of this ambitious experimental film — you need neither, however, to appreciate Flo McGarrell’s stunning art direction, Jascha Ephraim’s lyrical score or the physical beauty of the trans-masculine actors. In drawing a parallel between the history of revolution and the free expression of gender, Maggots and Men evokes the poignant sense that our present world is haunted by radical potentials that have yet to be fulfilled.

This pioneering Frameline Film and Video Completion Fund winner positions the struggle for gender equality within a larger struggle for peace and justice, bringing together trans and queer communities as well as audience members drawn to the film’s political content. Ahoy Sailor! — SUSAN STRYKER

Watch trailer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZEz4Kk3tMc

ABOUT SHELLSHAG:

Shell Head (Shell) and Jennifer Shagawat (Shag) have been writing songs together for 13 years, and performing live for 6. They are the DIY stalwarts behind the Brooklyn indy label, Starcleaners, and are just back in town from an epic year of touring Europe with Japanther, and to the Chaos in Tejas and Do You Hear We? Punk fests.

http://www.spinner.com/2010/03/14/shellshag-interview-sxsw-2010/

http://www.myspace.com/shellshag

READING AT CLOCKTOWER GALLERY MANHATTAN 4/26/11

ericklyle — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 19:00:42 +0000

I will be doing a reading at the venerable Clocktower Gallery in Manhattan this April 26 (6-9PM) as part of a month-long residency by the band, Japanther. The band has curated a series of four events with music, story telling, film, and amazing free food provided by their pal, Jenn Su, from LA. Space is limited so please RSVP at the address below…

Here is some info

Japanther “Dinner-Actions” at The Clock Tower Gallery. Three Tuesdays in April, 2011

Conversations and informal presentations over delicious food prepared by Jenn Su
Featuring a telephone booth recording sculpture. Designed to capture stories of food, travel and survival. Eventually the sculpture would play the back a one hour radio program featuring the stories it captures, original music and audio from the presentations.

The 3 FREE “Dinner-Actions” will be on Tuesdays this April from 6-9 at 108
Leonard St. on the 13th Floor. Space is limited to 30 guests and you must RSVP to:

events@ARTonAIR.org

April 12th 6-9 pm Japanther “Process Lecture” and Aida Ruilova “Meet The Eye” and songs by Shellshag + KATHRYN MITZKA AND DAN REDDINGER

April 19th 6-9 pm “Puppies Summer Camp” and A piano performance by Ben Wildenhaus

April 26th 6-9 pm Night Toilet “Night Toilet Preceded by Seventy-two Zeroes.” + a reading by Erick Lyle of Scam magazine

The gallery has been nice enough to fly Jenn Su out from L.A. to head up tis unique “pop-up” restaurant, read about her L.A. trading post in the NY Times
magazine here: http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/20/a-pop-up-larder-in-echo-park/ Needless to say we are honored and excited to have her visiting us and look forward to some amazing meals.

THE SANDINISTAS IN THE MISSION DISTRICT OF SAN FRANCISCO

ericklyle — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 05:48:40 +0000

My long piece on SF poet, activist, and, yes, guerilla warrior, Roberto Vargas ran this week in the Bay Guardian. It tells the now somewhat forgotten story of how Latino poets in the Mission in the 1970′s went to fight alongside the Sandnistas in their victorious revolutionary war against the dictator, Somoza. The story is centered on an inspirational figure, poet Roberto Vargas, who was at the epicenter of that long ago Mission District. Happy birthday today, Roberto!

read it here

http://www.sfbg.com/2011/02/23/back-streets