Wednesday 2nd May at Cross Art Books.  Readings by Jack Sargeant and music by Mike Cooper.  7pm.  $5 gets you wine.  Back issues available.  Vol 1 includes pieces by Brion Gysin, interviews with Charles Bukowski and Daevid Allen of Gong.  Vol 2 features interviews with Kim Salmon and mythical jazz bassist Sirone as well as pieces about cultural rabble rousers, Celine and Gabriele D’Annunzio.  Vol2 also includes a CD of legendary ‘beat’ author Paul Bowles field recordings.  

Copies will be sent to distributors and subscribers next week. With contributions by Jack Sargeant, Jurgen Ploog, Theo Green, Stephen Davis and Mats Gustafsson this edition is chock full of goodness. Interviews with Peter Brotzmann and Carl Weissner (RIP) round out the issue. Where else can you find a journal that skips from the fabled red city of Marrakech to the synthesis of art and boxing exemplified by Arthur Cravan and Jack Johnson then back to exploring the seismic cultural waves of fifty years of Naked Lunch? 60 pages, perfect bound. The first 100 issues come with a Moroccan Ronda playing card.

Burroughs Exhibition

Available from Milviasun Records

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/dec/30/sam-rivers

we here at xochi HQ tend not to listen to many spoken word CDs.  This may be because the majority tend to veer into the territory of pretentious feather preening but one has recently landed that has been on constant rotation.  PIANO KEY TRANSPARENCY, originally recorded in 1983 as a radio broadcast by KPFA in Berkeley, California.  As the liner notes suggest it was broadcast in the wee hours of a Saturday morning and it is perfect blend of a hypnotic narrative and sublime musical selections.  It would be interesting to know the feedback the station received on broadcasting PIANO KEY TRANSPARENCY and if there are more readings by Theo Green knocking around in the station’s vaults as, judging by this one, they would be well worth hearing.  PIANO KEY TRANSPARENCY is available from Aftermath Books.

For those in Norway-All Ears Music Festival

For those lucky enough to be close to such a marvellous event get along to the All Ears Music Festival

xochi HQ in bloom

The Jazz em Agosoto festival was great. Good people, great music and all the rest of it. Highlights were Fire! and Little Women who made the long journey from Australia more than worthwhile. Hopefully, we will see these fine bands out here soon.

We also had a chance to have a good listen to Travis Laplante’s (tenor player from Little Women) solo saxophone CD and it is well worth owning; up there with the recent releases of Joe Mcphee on the Roaratorio label.