Awkward Press

I’ve followed the Die Antwoord saga pretty closely, and I still have no idea what’s going on. From what I gather, it’s a real hip-hop experiment created by people who come from a performance art background. So it might be kinda fake, but the joke isn’t super obvious, so it probably isn’t entirely fake, but maybe it’s real and fake at the same time, or whatever. I can’t explain it all. Read about it. The Internet exists for a reason.

Regardless, this video is probably the scariest thing I’ve seen this Halloween. If I was a kid today watching this on whatever kids watch videos on nowadays (brain screens? bathtub cams?), it would most definitely terrify me as much as Laurie Anderson’s performance on SNL actually did terrify me when I was a child. A performance that I would love to link to for comparison’s sake, but which does not seem to exist anywhere on the legal Internet.

Awkward Podcast #3 comes just in time for Halloween. I wrote this spoooooky monster story for the “Will Wright Reads …” event the other night. The event took place in a restaurant, so even if you were there, this may be the first time you’re able to hear it.

Brand Monsters

Music totally stolen for this podcast:

“Throw Aggi from the Bridge” by Black Tambourine
“Globetrotter” by The Tornadoes
“Adventure” by Be Your Own Pet
“Meniscus” by This Mortal Coil
“Count in Fives” by The Horrors
“Atlantis to Interzone” by Klaxons
“Sex Your Corpse Up” by the Psychos

Rave number two is live and on the Internet! I’m pretty sure this puts us in the running for the Booker Prize this year.

This small volume of brief short stories smashes against any theory that short short stories are not great fiction. Awkward 2 – Brevity fills itself with short stories that run the gamut from crime to bald-faced imagination. Within only 104 pages, this volume is crammed with great short stories and fast-paced and compressed short story writing. They say that poetry remains the compression of thoughts into the smallest amount of words possible; in this manner, the authors of Brevity 2 present short stories that are small microcosms of reality – and unreality. Since I am a lover of fiction, I appreciated the pop-zang effect of creating an imaginary tableau in 1,500 words or less. Short stories have a beginning, middle and end, and to produce a powerful short story in this amount of words shows great intensity and talent.

You can read the whole review right here.

And you can buy the book right here.

Haaaa … it’s real! First of all, Sterling’s Gold: Wit and Wisdom of an Ad Man is the best fake book name of all time. Second of all, they shouldn’t have put that band around it: those who get it, will get it. Third of all, awesome.

(Via Boingboing.)

We like them, right? They’re cute? Cool video? No dreads?

Don’t let anyone ever tell you we do things in a timely fashion around Awkward. The LA Awkward Two release party took place on September 28, 2010 and here I am, one month later, finally posting the pictures. Good thing a picture is forever, am I right, ladies? I’m right.

Over the course of 2 1/2 hours, we managed to get through 7 fantastic readings by Joshua Citrak, Greg Pierce, Joanna Whitmarsh, Robert Cole, Michael Cipra, Nadja Stokes, and Jeffrey Dinsmore. We showed 3 of the films from the book on a giant, 40 foot screen: “Inappropriate Gifts” (directed by Tracy Dishman, based on the story by Lynette D’Amico), “Egg Salad 1967″ (directed by Brian Bartelt, based on the story by Nadja Stokes) and “The Vanishing Point” (directed by Eric Kissack, based on the story by Jeffrey Dinsmore), as well as the high-larious Awkward Two trailer directed by Gabe Michael. There were lots of laughs to be had and many drinks were consumed. We’ve had many fine hours over the last few years, but this was another one.

A thousand thanks to Katie Shapiro and Sarah Cole for taking the pictures, which can be enjoyed after the jump. (more…)

I’m proud to announce that Awkward Two just got a GREAT review on Blogcritics.com! And I quote:

In fact, whether pensive or inventive, there’s a surprise or two in every package – practically every 33 of the micro-short stories – economically bubbling over the bounds of Awkward Two’s one hundred pages. An array of subject matter, themes, styles, tones, and characters are represented. Don’t like one story in this mostly hit, some miss, affair? Turn a page or two, flip on through – there’s another, and another…

You can read the whole review right here.

And you can (and should) buy a copy of the book right here.

I’ve added this new poll thing to the site so that Matt and I can determine what album to take on in the next edition of The Faith Project, one of our much-beloved regular features. Are any of the albums listed below beloved classics? Please vote for as many records as you’d like! And if there are other records from the 80s you’d like to see covered, please let us know in the comments and we’ll add them to the poll. Vote early and often after the jump, or in the sidebar. (more…)

Inspired by their mutual love of the INXS record Kick, Matt and Jeff have decided to take another listen to their favorite classic and forgotten records from the 80s. This is the Faith Project, and it is 100% guaranteed to contain absolutely no analysis of George Michael’s Faith.

Matt:

New Jersey was the first CD I ever owned. I won it in a radio contest in the summer of 1989. I was the right caller. I wrote down the previous night’s top twenty and recited it back to the DJ. I didn’t have a CD player then. My parents didn’t have a CD player. I went to the neighbor’s to listen to it because they had one. I listened to it a lot for not having any way to play it back myself.

So I was expecting this one to sound like the summer of ’89 all over again, which maybe it does. It’s just that summer is a lot cheesier than I remember it being. Which, why is this a surprise? It was middle school. I liked a lot of cornball Top 40 hair metal in middle school. Slaughter, anyone? But Bon Jovi had to have been doing something right in the late ’80′s because they’re still around and literally everyone from that era isn’t. I am not counting Brett Michael’s second career as being “still around.”

So what did they do right? Well, they found a way to make hair metal less about the metal and more about the pop rock, more so than any of their contemporaries. Nobody was confusing them with Judas Priest. They had a charming and versatile front man who could also sort of act—and I don’t believe I’ve seen David Coverdale make a cameo on 30 Rock yet. They hired Desmond Child to write their hits. And they never took themselves terribly seriously. (more…)

Of course! Of course.

(Via Videogum.)