The production company that my pals Eddie Gonzalez, Dimitri Coats and I operate, Dirty Opera, are thrilled to announce our latest Event. We will be presenting Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan at The Claremont Laemmle 5 on November 11th at 7PM. There will be a Q&A with the film’s director Nicholas Meyer after the screening. Tickets are available for presale, this event will sell out.
Amps for Christ & Two Ambiguous Figures live on the Bill Chen Vs. Dennis Callaci show this Wednesday.
Listen to a rare live radio performance by Amps for Christ with Two Ambiguous Figures on the Bill Chen Vs. Dennis Callaci radio show this Wednesday on KSPC 88.7 FM from nine to noon PST or online at www.kspc.org
“The Gospel According To Bombastus” by Brutus Chieftain and Stevo Lution out now on Bamboo Dart Press
What began as countless daily texts from Brutus to make Stevo laugh at work soon evolved into their final collaborative venture. The pair’s original scheme, Stevo working at a fortune cookie factory swapping standard fortunes for Brutus’ quotes, failed when he was fired for refusing to wear a hair net. They quickly moved on to plan B, a page-a-day calendar, and Stevo began illustrating Brutus’ texts. That project was paused when Brutus passed in 2023, then restarted when Kevin Ausmus selected the strongest entries for a chapbook. The final product, The Gospel According To Bombastus, explores topics from biology to theology with wit, wisdom, and weirdness. The book is available now direct from us or at finer book stores.
Keep Your Strength Up
Join director Dave Markey for the first screening of 1991: The Year Punk Broke in Southern California in 15 years
Dirty Opera is screening Dave Markey’s now-classic film 1991: The Year Punk Broke on Thursday, September 18th, at 7:30 pm at The Laemmle Claremont 5. Maverick director Dave Markey and guest will be on hand to discuss the film at this screening. The film has not been seen on the big screen in Southern California in over fifteen years. Our previous events have all sold out, so we recommend that you reserve your seats while there are seats to be had.
The Coin Cold Heart of Darkness
Some artists don’t or can’t tour. They don’t meet and greet. They are not on Ex or Insta or some sort of Abra app dopamine delivery. They work a few jobs maybe, or raise kids, and tend to that art thing in the late eves, between things.
So the artist is not here, near or before you. How you find the time in your life to do such a thing in a doom scrollers wet dream is truly something, seek out work by artists that are not outward facing. Something like this book by Patrick Brayer I keep yammering on about. He had a record out on Shrimper four or five years back, and he won’t quit. This book that Mark Givens and I just published on Bamboo Dart Press, thirty years in the making, it is called The Cold Coin Heart. It was missed visits with David Lynch. It was kids in New York threatening to move to Fontana, CA after seeing Patrick perform live. It is like near nothing that I had ever read as it captures something of The Inland Empire that has eluded so many who have attempted to write about it. Read this fascinating piece that Brayer has posted about the history of his book below with excerpts from The Cold Coin Heart for more about the unique world that he occupies. Here he is digging a grave in Fontana in the 70’s with Roy Ruiz Clayton. I imagine this grave holds a seed as well.
Son of Buzzi & Joseph Allred fall tour dates announced
Son of Buzzi has just announced some European tour dates with Joseph Allred this fall to support the Shrimper release Ein Hase, Ein Phönix, Ein Schwan which was released a few months back. To be in the presence of Sebastian Bischoff’s guitar playing is otherworldly. His is an intuitive nature. He makes use of decay, space, and silence in his playing, and has the innate ability to transcend a genre of solo acoustic guitar players that is not tethered to the Takoma/Basho realm, but is something altogether different in his hands. I could blather on and on, but hell, I don’t need to as this record of his that he allowed me to issue on Shrimper is one of the best records of the year.
Patrick John Brayer’s “Cold Coin Heart” book on Bamboo Dart Press is out now worldwide
Patrick John Brayer was raised on an egg ranch in the steelmill town of Fontana, California. Think Hell’s Angels, think Sammy Hagar, think Shelton Brooks. Developing a unique style of writing early on as an answer to his inability to speak, he went on to receive an education in music from an array of dirt parking lot honky tonks that befriended a Valley Blvd. truck route. To his own surprise his writing has led to the winning of eight Gold, Platinum, and Grammy Award winning projects. To this day he admits that he likes to write prose best because “when doing that, while managing to be unsuccessful, people leave you alone”. Humble but not one prone to self-deprecation he was once heard to say, “Hey, by hook and by crook, I’m better than I’m supposed to be.”
The Coin Cold Heart is Brayer’s first book, and it rings with the authenticity of one that has a rusted out belt to show from the experience of the roads he has been down. His self released recording, Cold Feelings, was released on LP in 1979 just when country was truly going south. South as in overproduced and limp. His first record is deeply personal, stripped of window dressing and the bullshit of the times. It is timeless. I mention this as it seems fitting with his trajectory that he then had the audacity to release a record of stripped down Bluegrass/Country/Songwriter gold when the world was not looking for that. Be damned those that did not or do not give it a listen. This book is a lot like that. A majikal realism trek through the possible birth of Fontana, California as told by one of our most gifted songwriters. Who knew he had a book in him? Well, hell, anyone that knows him knew he had a book in him. He has a whole goddamn trunk of them in my imagination. May this be but the first.
Bill Chen Vs. Dennis Callaci picked up for another year at KSPC
Thrilled that KSPC is allowing Bill and I to continue berating and amusing one another in between blocks of our favorite music of all walks for our fourth season of Bill Chen Vs. Dennis Callaci. Our weekly radio show is heard ad free, with no subscription fee, no nothing, on the public airwaves from 9am until noon every Wednesday (PST). Listen live on the FM band if you are in the vicinity (88.7 FM) or listen live anywhere in the world at www.KSPC.org, where you can access our previous two weeks worth of shows on demand. Henry Barnes of Amps for Christ has created this lovely flyer to celebrate our pick up. Thank you Henry, thank you KSPC and thank you listeners.
Patrick John Brayer’s “The Coin Cold Heart” trailer premiere
Patrick Brayer has released thousands of songs and nearly a hundred self released records, as well as one on Shrimper a few years back. When you visit his Blog, Field Notes From Wrongtario, you will see and hear the artifacts of his life. Photos of him with Bill Monroe, music and photographs he has created ad hemming it all in, his writing. For an artist that has written within the economical confines of a song, and Brayer’s lyrics stand alone on a page, it is an epiphany to read his first work of fiction, one of magical realism and truths centered around Fontana, California that make up The Coin Cold Heart . Sentences inhale and exhale a few times before any sort of exclamation or period puts an end to it as Brayer utilizes the chicken wire frame of Aesop to spin this fantastical yarn. Check out the trailer for the book featuring a reading by Brayer from the book. The Coin Cold Heart book is out worldwide on August 12th on Bamboo Dart Press.