Do It Together Fest 2010

Each year since 2007 my Monster House roommates Richard Wehrenberg and Matt Scheuermann have organized a DIY punk festival called "Do It Together Fest" in Kent, Ohio. This year's iteration takes place over September 10th & 11th at The Vineyard and at Professor's Pub.

Wehrenberg, a renowned poet as well as an accomplished DIY promoter, said, "It's going to be pretty cool, I guess."

Scheuermann, of Punknews.org's band/record of the year, The Sidekicks, said, "It's your typical fest."

But would your typical fest have Tao Lin, author of Shoplifting From American Apparel and the forthcoming Richard Yates, fly in to read, slapping himself or his publisher with "mad" fees, and staying with Jordan Castro + Jordan Castro's parent(s) for four days in Solon, Ohio? Would your typical fest do that?

No. It's the most internet-literature-DIY-punk fest in the world. Or, at least, more so than Berea Fest.

Also out of the norm: rumored "awesome" after show will feature the debut of underground hip-hop sensation, Monstrosity. The first in the wave of 3rd floor hip-hop acts that call The Pocket home. Soon we will have something to rival St. Catherine's incipient "Spy Girl" scene.

Full DIT Fest schedule after "The Jump."

BTW

Mosaic Magazine, an undergraduate art and literature publication at OSU, recently put its 2008 issue online. That issue reproduced two of my flyers, "No Christians" and "For Brian Shaffer: Capitalism Will Disappear  Too." Mosaic changed the title of the Brian Shaffer flyer by cutting, you guessed it, "Capitalism Will Disappear Too." Brian Shaffer, for those that do not live in the pocket, is the OSU student who walked into Ugly Tuna and never walked out. The flyer dedicated to him is an image of my kit-kat Dori laser beaming a stand-in for The South Campus Gateway.

Microcosm Publishing used an excerpt from my essay on Ben Snakepit's Snakepit in their promotional blurb/product description for his book.

Melville House Publishing's Dennis Johnson (not Denis Johnson) wrote a short note about my blog entry where I described my surreal experience of reading a book, Tao Lin's Shoplifting From American Apparel, and discovering that I was INSIDE the book.

New Buttons

I recently started selling these at Rag-O-Rama as well. Which is, uh, funny. Got those franchises.

Shout Out Loud Prints Compilation Tape

                          Tape art by Craig Dransfield of Chop Chop Gallery.

Pat Crann of Shout Out Loud Prints recently put out a tape comp in conjunction with In The Pocket Tapes (both companies are run out of The Monster House art-fraternity compound). The tape is a collection of bands, old and new, that have ordered shirts to be silk-screened from Shout Out Loud Prints. The selection is a veritable who's who of national DIY pop-punk bands in the 2000s including Defiance, Ohio, Screaming Females and Modern Machines, mixed in with local yokels like Vile Gash, Slugging Percentage, Tin Armor, Saint Seneca and my old band Amelia. Previously unreleased tracks from Paul Baribeau, Best Friends Forever, Good Luck, The Boy Who Could Fly and a Minor Threat cover by Letters To The Moon make this a rare comp worth copping. Get yours for $4ppd here.

Full tracklist and insert after "the jump."

The Gateway: In With The New, Out With The New.

Aarthi and I were once going to make a zine about the South Campus Gateway which, at the time, had just opened. This is a version of that text, unedited for non-clarity and replete with a sort of half-baked political rumormongering. But our naysaying has been thoroughly vindicated through the years. Today, the Gateway is a mess that is currently relying on "The Arts" to bail it out and keep it populated. The movie theater has changed hands annually, people have been killed their annually, and businesses seemingly close monthly. Their current roster of business can be summed up as tanning salons and bars for the people who love them. Some of the storefronts - smartly - never even opened. And, yes, the houses directly across from it on 9th still lay vacant. Without further ado:

IN WITH THE NEW, OUT WITH THE NEW:

THE FIVE THEMES OF

THE SOUTH CAMPUS GATEWAY:

James y Lux

Introduction:

In 1995, The Ohio State University and the city of Columbus created Campus Partners for Community Urban Redevelopment to “revitalize” the southern section of High Street in the University District between 9^th Avenue and Chittenden.  (///) The South Campus Gateway was set into motion—a supposed safe-haven for the college market directly adjacent to the area. The existing bars that lined High Street were to be replaced by “student-friendly” drinking spots, along with other various businesses that would draw a more acceptable clientele. The bar district and residents that once inhabited the unattractive Southside of Columbus’ University District were made to disperse, their premises vacated and gutted, and construction began in 2004. The South Campus Gateway was opened for business in the fall of 2005, and immediately became an all-inclusive entity: where one could eat, live, and play—and never have to leave.