Download: The Soft Pack “Answer To Yourself”

(from the self-titled LP out now on Kemado)

New issue! See you at the release party tomorrow at the Cha Cha Lounge! Find print issues here, buy back issues here and obtain a print subscription here. Please contact us if you’d like to advertise in the next one!

Inside you’ll find…

THE SOFT PACK
MAYO THOMPSON of THE RED KRAYOLA
HARLEM
THE MAGNETIC FIELDS
SAINT VITUS
PIT PER PAT
PRINCETON
ANCESTORS
BIG FREEDIA
FULGEANCE
SCOTT H. BIRAM
RAY WYLIE HUBBARD
CLOROX GIRLS
WILDBIRDS & PEACEDRUMS
INFINITE BODY
RECLAMATION’S ‘AQUARIUM’

AND MORE!

New issue! See you at the release party Monday! Find print issues here and contact us if you’d like to advertise in the next one!

Hello to all! Tonight we celebrate the release of Vol. 4 Issue 4—Pasadena country singer DAVID SERBY on the cover and the much-touted NOSAJ THING decked out on the poster, and then inside you’ll find BRUCE LaBRUCE discussing love and romance and STEVE ALBINI of SHELLAC discussing fish, food and forest fires! Plus the mighty SONICS, the almost-Angeleno ART BRUT, the formidable FEMI KUTI, the unstoppable SHARON JONES (who did her interview immediately after returning from the hospital!) and the legendary LEROY SIBBLES of Studio One’s HEPTONES and much more than we could courteously insert in just one simple email! (THE SHINS, CHAIRLIFT, BUSDRIVER, HANDSOME FURS, YA HO WHA 13, THE HUNCHES discussing their last show ever, Grandaddy’s JASON LYTLE and still yet more…) Issues available at the Cha Cha tonight—free to visit and copies of the new L.A. RECORD free as always! Hope to see you there and many thanks for all support!

Inside we have interviews with Happy Hollows, Wale, Amanda Jo Williams, rock ‘n’ roller Andre Wiliams, Carlos Nino and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson of the Dilla orchestral piece “Suite For Ma Dukes,” the Phantom Surfers, Large Professor, Brazil’s Garotas Suecas, Ethiopian jazz-funk originator Mulatu Astatke, Wrecking Crew drummer Hal Blaine, the Nothing People, A.C. Newman, the sound artists of Sound In Space 2, Mike Mills, the Crickets (of Buddy Holly fame!) and even more!

The party is free and so are the issues! Hope to see you there!

The PDFs of the new issue number 31 of Arthur are now available for download. Info and links below.

Author Trinie Dalton traveled into the wilds of New Mexico to live with psychedelic earthers BRIGHTBLACK MORNING LIGHT for two days. Sublimity ensued. Here’s what happened. With photography by Lisa Law.

Douglas Rushkoff: The mortgage and credit crisis wasn’t merely predictable; it was predicted. And not by a market bear or conspiracy theorist, but by the people and institutions responsible. Illustration by Arik Moonhawk Roper.

Dave Reeves: Having doubts about Iraq? America’s victory is Infinite. Just have a look at Vietnam…

Molly Frances on all sorts of delights in, from, or about Los Angeles—from Wallace Berman, Velaslavasay Panorama and Lily Tomlin in The Late Show to Show Cave, Nite Jewel and the new Flying Lotus album. Plus other, non-geographically specific stuff.

On May 10, 1968 SLY & THE FAMILY STONE opened two shows for THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE at the Fillmore East in New York City. Artist/scholar Plastic Crimewave reports on this extraordinary, little-known moment in American countercultural history.

Greg Shewchuk: What is it about skateboarding that makes kids willing to break laws in order to do it? Illustration by Joseph Remnant.

Nance Klehm: What to do with the nuts, seeds and berries you can find while foraging in the urban jungle. Illustration by Makeswell.

The Center for Tactical Magic: Do the ends ever justify the magic(k)? Illustration by Cassandra Chae.

Erik Davis: Is the “planetary consciousness” of neotribal psytrance gatherings like Portugal’s Boom festival just window dressing for the same old hedonism and escapism—or could it actually be what it says it is?

A centerfold of new ARTHUR COMICS by Jeffrey Brown, Charles Burns, Al Columbia,
P.W.E., Simon Evans, Matt Furie, Tom Gauld, Lisa Hanawalt, Joseph Hanks, Tim Hensley, Ted May, Anders Nilsen, Laura Park, Helge Reumann, Souther Salazar, Julia Wertz and Dan Zettwoch. Edited by Buenaventura Press.

STYLE: Annakim Violette, glampire vamp, tells an arachnid tale from a rainbow’s underbelly. Styled by Miss KK, with photography and design by Alia Penner.

BYRON COLEY & THURSTON MOORE review choice finds from the deep underground.

C and D let it rip about the Fela! musical, Hacienda, Megapuss, Little Joy, Kasai All-Stars, Grouper, Natacha Atlas, El Guincho, Matt Baldwin, Mercury Rev, Desolation Wilderness, Gang Gang Dance, Raglani, Jonas Reinhardt, Apse, and Eagles of Death Metal.

Download: Arthur 31 Part 1 of 2
Download: Arthur 31 Part 2 of 2

Or click here to arrange a subscription!

And table of contents via Arthur website:

“The Woman Who Knows Too Much”: For over two decades, she has terrified and enraptured audiences with plague masses, homicidal love songs and sensational vocal and piano acrobatics. Meet DIAMANDA GALAS: avenging queen of the damned, obvious musical genius and the only person alive who’s a fan of both Doris Day and Vlad the Impaler. By John Payne, with photography by Susanna Howe.

“Guerrilla Warfare”: What happens when bands play live where they’re not supposed to? Paul Moody dissects the London GUERRILLA GIG scene of the early ’00s spawned by the Libertines. Plus: No Age‘s recent daylight guerrilla gig by the L.A. River, with photos by Joshua Pressman.

“Reign of Blood”: Erik Morse tells the amazing-but-true, blood-drenched story of how fictional pulp criminal FANTOMAS begat numerous classics of early cinema and inspired the most revolutionary art movements of the 20th Century.

“The Girls Who Fell To Earth”: Clothes make the alien. Photography and styling by Molly Frances and Mark Frohman.

“Do the Math”: When the Man went after Dave Reeves, Dave took notes.

“Applied Magic(k)”: How to use a magic wand, by The Center for Tactical Magic.

Zodiac by Molly Frances: 2008 is a ’1 year’ in numerology. Time to draw up those blueprints for the future of you.

“The Analog Life”: The debut of a new column by ERIK DAVIS exploring cultural life outside the ascendant empire of the digital.

“21 Recently Discovered Delights”: Farmer Dave Scher waxes enthusiastic about aging, elliptical machines, using your left hand and more.

“Where’d You Get That Name ‘Arthur’ From?”: If you don’t know, now you do. Art by Joseph Remnant.

Plastic Crimewave salutes the late CHARLIE NOTHING

“Strings” by PShaw: the final episode

“People Are Talking About” by Brian J. Davis

“Bull Tongue”: Columnists Byron Coley & Thurston Moore review the latest burps and gurgles from the deep underground.

C & D: Two pseudonymous know-it-alls get their comeuppance while still having the last word on new records by The Carbonas, Beach House, Cloudland Canyon, Clark, Earth, Dead Meadow, Graveyard, Monade, The Dirtbombs and a live one by Harmonia. Stephen Malkmus makes a cameo, discussing the meaning of golf

Print issues of Arthur will be available across L.A. in about a week, or visit www.arthurmag.com for info on subscription and mailorder.