BOOKS
In Heaven Everything Is Fine
In the late ’70s and early ’80s, Saturday Night Live and National Lampoon were leading a comedy renaissance, while punk and new wave turned the music world on its head. At the nexus was the underground, cable-access show New Wave Theatre, hosted by the visionary Peter Ivers. Pre-MTV, the show forged a groundbreaking union between comedy and punk, placing comedians like John Belushi, Chevy Chase, and Harold Ramis onstage with Black Flag, the Dead Kennedys, and Fear. On the cusp of mainstream recognition, New Wave Theatre came to a sudden end on March 3, 1983 when Ivers was found beaten to death in his downtown Los Angeles loft. The show was forgotten, but Ivers’s influence on pop culture has lasted. A magnetic creative force, his circle included Doug Kenney, Jello Biafra, David Lynch, Ramis, and Belushi. He was also a fascinating musician: in addition to composing the centerpiece song on the soundtrack of Lynch’s cult classic film Eraserhead, Ivers recorded seven albums. Josh Frank’s research inspired renewed interest in Ivers, and the abandoned murder investigation was reopened. Through his narration and interviews with the LAPD and those close to Ivers, Frank brings this underappreciated and compelling creative figure to life.
Pixies- Fool The World
It's the 1980s and the rock landscape is littered with massive hair, synthesizers, and monster riffs, but there is an alternative being born in the sleepy East of America--we just don't know it yet.
Before the Internet, MTV, and iPods provided far-off music fans with information and communities--and before Nirvana--kids across the world grew up in relative isolation, dependent on mix tapes and self-created art to slowly spread scenes and trends. It was under these conditions that four young musicians found one another in Boston, Massachusetts, and started a band called Pixies.
During their initial seven-year career, Pixies would play some of Europe's most gigantic festivals, keep the press guessing, and cultivate a fervid international fan base hungry for more and more of their unique surf punk. The band worked fast, cranking out four albums at a breakneck pace, but ultimately pressures and personality clashes took their toll: Pixies broke up just as bands were singing their praises as the rock'n'roll innovators.
For twelve years, a Pixies reunion seemed impossible, but a sudden announcement in 2004 proclaimed the unthinkable--Pixies were getting back together. Their extremely successful reunion tour finally gave the group something they'd always lacked in their homeland: proof that their bone-rattling music had left an indelible impact.
Fool the World tells Pixies' story in the words of those who lived it, from the band members to studio owners, from A&R executives, producers, and visual artists who worked with them to admirers of their music, such as Bono, PJ Harvey, Beck, and Perry Farrell. With new cartoons by Trompe Le Monde illustrator Steven Appleby, Fool the World is a complete journey through the life, death, and rebirth of one of the most influential bands of all time.
"The Good Inn"
(An Illustrated Novel and Feature Film)
A Narrative Fiction collaboration with Black Francis of the Pixies and Illustrated by Steven Appleby.
www.thegoodinnbook.com
