Sunday, November 18th at 3pm
At
Brickbat Books
Meet
Raj Haldar, Chris Carpenter, 
and Maria Beddia
Creators of 
"P Is For Pterodactyl
The Worst Alphabet Book Ever!"

Followed by
A parent and kid's happy hour at 
The Hungry Pigeon

Event: My Final Territory




Thursday, November 15th at 7pm
at
Brickbat Books

My Final Territory: 
An Evening With Writer Yuri Andrukhovych


Please join us for a reading with Ukrainian writer Yuri Andrukhovych.

Yuri Andrukhovych will be reading from his latest English-language publication My Final Territory, a collection of philosophical, autobiographical, political, and literary essays. My Final Territory showcases Mr. Andrukhovych’s unique voice and provides insight into the Ukrainian experience of nationality and identity. One of the book’s translators, Mark Andryczyk, will also participate in the event.

Light refreshments served!

BYOB

Co-Sponsored by The Ukrainian Community Foundation and The ULP Cultural Trust

Event: APR Fall Issue Reading




Friday, Sept. 28th at 7pm
at
Brickbat Books:

APR Fall Issue Reading:
Mark McCloughan
Nomi Stone
Devon Walker-Figuero

Join us to celebrate the Sept/Oct issue of The American Poetry Review with a reading by three APR contributors: Mark McCloughan, Nomi Stone, and Devon Walker-Figueroa! 

Winner of the 2018 Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize, Mark McCloughan is a poet and artist living and working in Brooklyn. They are the author of the chapbook 'No Harbor' (L + S Press), and their poems have appeared or are forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Juked, decomP, and Lines + Stars, among others. Mark is a founding member and co-director of No Face Performance Group.

Nomi Stone’s second collection of poems, Kill Class, is forthcoming from Tupelo Press in 2019. She is also the author of Stranger’s Notebook (TriQuarterly Books, 2008) and teaches anthropology at Princeton University.

Devon Walker-Figueroa is a writer, editor, harpist, and erstwhile professional ballet dancer. A graduate of Bennington College and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she currently serves as Co-Founding Editor of Horsethief Books and teaches poetry and literary editing at University of the Arts in Philadelphia.

Event: Michael DeForge & Mickey Zacchilli Book Signing





Thursday, September 13th at 7pm
at
Brickbat Books:

Michael DeForge
&
Mickey Zacchilli
Reading & Book Signing



MICHAEL DEFORGE lives and works in Toronto, ON as a cartoonist and commercial illustrator. His one-person anthology series Lose has received great critical and commercial success, having been nominated for every major comics award including the Ignatz and Eisner Awards.



Surviving school is tough; now imagine peer pressure and midterms while hurtling through the vacuum of space. Mickey Zacchilli blends Starfleet with Degrassi to make a classroom saga that recalls manga, Sunday funnies and composition book epics scrawled while ignoring the periodic table.

MICKEY ZACCHILLI was born in 1983 and lives in Providence, RI. She is a massage therapist and a purple belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Zacchilli’s sprawling, wild and woolly, romance, adventure epic RAV was published in two collections by Youth in Decline.


Event: LOUD! FAST! PHILLY! Presents: "We Are The Clash"




Tuesday, July 20th at 7pm
at
Brickbat Books:

LOUD! FAST! PHILLY! Presents:
"We Are The Clash"




LOUD! FAST! PHILLY! Presents:
"We Are The Clash: Reagan, Thatcher, and the Last Stand of A Band That Mattered" authors Mark Andersen (of Positive Force DC and We Are Family DC) and Ralph Heibutzki live at Brickbat Books, Philadelphia.
A live interview with the authors followed by audience questions and a book signing.
"We Are the Clash" is published by Akashic Books.
www.AkashicBooks.com
http://www.akashicbooks.com/catalog/we-are-the-clash/

Moderated by Joseph A. Gervasi of LOUD! FAST! PHILLY!
This event is part of the LOUD! FAST! PHILLY! speakers series.
In conversation with Frank Blank Moriarty, author of "Modern Listener Guide: Jimi Hendrix," foreword by Derek Trucks, afterword by John McLaughlin. To be published by Modern Listener Publishing this summer.
Please help this event out not only by attending, but by sharing it with your friends. It's only through grassroots promotions that this event and other will succeed.
About the book:
The Clash was a paradox of revolutionary conviction, musical ambition, and commercial drive. We Are The Clash is a gripping tale of the band’s struggle to reinvent itself as George Orwell’s 1984 loomed. This bold campaign crashed headlong into a wall of internal contradictions and rising right-wing power.
While the world teetered on edge of the nuclear abyss, British miners waged a life-or-death strike, and tens of thousands died from US guns in Central America, Clash cofounders Joe Strummer, Paul Simonon, and Bernard Rhodes waged a desperate last stand after ejecting guitarist Mick Jones and drummer Topper Headon. The band shattered just as its controversial final album, Cut the Crap, was emerging. Andersen and Heibutzki weave together extensive archival research and in-depth original interviews with virtually all of the key players involved to tell a moving story of idealism undone by human frailty amid a climatic turning point for our world.
With a foreword by The Baker.
“When did the Clash quit being ‘the only band that matters’? This fascinating book faces a challenge: documenting the final years of the British band that its record label had promoted with that slogan . . . The band may no longer have mattered, but its legacy mattered to the authors, who make it matter to the readers. More than a footnote to the rise and fall of one of the last great rock bands.” —Kirkus Reviews
“This is an inspiring take on the rock-band bio format, as much a political history of the 1980s as it is a look at an influential band in its final years.” —Publishers Weekly
“Coverage is specialized, extending considerably beyond mere behind-the-scenes reportage and deeply explores the sociopolitical context in which the band operated; as such, the tone can be intense (read: punk) and professorial. In all, Andersen and Heibutzki’s examination of the band’s proletarian stance in light of its commercial striving is immensely satisfying.” —Library Journal
Included in the Shepherd Express‘s Roundup of New Music Titles
“The inside story of the last great British punk record.” —Jon Savage, author of England’s Dreaming
“We Are The Clash tells an important part of the story of both The Clash and punk rock. The repercussions of what went down politically both in the USA and UK back then are still very much felt today.” —Kosmo Vinyl, former manager of The Clash
“At long last, The Clash’s final incarnation has been definitively chronicled. Mark Andersen and Ralph Heibutzki have brilliantly filled in the blanks of the ‘Clash Mark II’ era, including its eventual implosion. Beautifully constructed and brilliantly written . . . I was riveted, unable to put it down.” —The Baker, from the foreword
“Smash your television and buy this book! We Are The Clash proves, once again, the importance of The Clash, even during their rarely discussed and most maligned period. Situated in the Reagan/Thatcher era, We Are The Clash illustrates why, when Reagan called women like my mom ‘welfare queens,’ I bought a ticket to see ‘the only band that matters,’ and then went on to start one of my own.” —Michelle Cruz Gonzales, author of The Spitboy Rule: Tales of a Xicana in a Female Punk Band
“The Clash are remembered as much for their blistering music as their gritty yet hopeful message to listeners worldwide. In this first serious look at The Clash’s music and meaning, post–commercial success, the authors mix thoughtful reflection with grassroots political analysis in an effort to inspire a new generation of music fans and activists to Cut the Crap.” —Craig O’Hara, author of The Philosophy of Punk: More than Noise!

Event: Elkhorn, C Joynes, Laura Baird




Thursday, June 7th at 8pm
at 
Brickbat Books:

Elkhorn / C. Joynes / Laura Baird

ELKHORN (Philadelphia/New York) is an acid folk guitar duo featuring the 12 string acoustic fingerpicking of Jesse Sheppard and the improvisational electric soloing of Drew Gardner. Their music straddles the story of American guitar over the last century by digging into deep folk, jazz, blues and psychedelia. The Black River, their debut LP, was released on Debacle Records in 2017. Their forthcoming cassette on Eiderdown Records, Lionfish, is coming out in June of 2018. 
https://eiderdownrecords.bandcamp.com/album/lionfish
https://elkhorn.bandcamp.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulrzeuvH4Ik
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB2ip2WzQdo

Over the last decade, C JOYNES (UK) has ploughed a singular furrow through solo guitar, with a body of work incorporating English folk-tunes alongside North & West African music, and lifting proto-minimalist and improvised techniques from the European classical tradition.  Joynes has released 7 albums to date, including ‘The Wild Wild Berry’, a collaboration with singer Stephanie Hladowski (fROOTS Editors Choice Album Of The Year 2012, MOJO Top 5 Folk Albums 2012). Shifting to solo electric guitar on his most recent releases, the '33 Chatsworth Rd' EP on alt.vinyl (2015) and ‘Split Electric’ LP on Thread Recordings (2016), he’s currently exploiting the instrument’s potential for placing overdriven garage blues throw-downs alongside the brittle ringing tones of electric folk.
http://cjoynes.tumblr.com/
http://cjoynes.bandcamp.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWDbO40_a00
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GPhcDa90TQ

LAURA BAIRD (Philadelphia) is a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and recording engineer. Since 2001 she has performed and recorded as The Baird Sisters with her sister, Meg Baird (Espers). In 2012 the duo released Until You Find Your Green (Grapefruit Record Club, 2012), which was recorded and engineered by Laura at Forest Hill Farm, her home recording studio. John Mulvey of Uncut has described their album as one of his personal favorites of 2012.  In addition to The Baird Sisters, Laura has also recorded with Espers, Death Vessel, Aroah, and The Trouble with Sweeney. Laura plays a wide variety of instruments, including banjo, flute, piano, harpsichord, guitar, trombone, theremin, and fiddle. She enjoys crossing and blending genres like folk, pop, classical, and electronic, and frequently collaborates with other artists and musicians who work in and between these genres.
http://laurabaird.com/music/
https://badabingrecords.bandcamp.com/album/i-wish-i-were-a-sparrow
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1Z2HEnZS48

7pm / $10 suggested / all ages


Event: Marcellus Hall



Thursday, May 24th at 7pm
At
Brickbat Books:

Marcellus Hall
Music & Book Signing

Musician and New Yorker illustrator Marcellus Hall debuts his graphic novel, Kaleidoscope City, with music, q&a, slideshow & books!


Event: The Hugely Popular Poetry Series!


Saturday May 5th at 7pm
at
Brickbat Books:

The Hugely Popular Series Presents: 
 
Mark Scroggins
Jessica Smith
Stan Mir 
 
 

Mark Scroggins
Mark Scroggins's volumes of poetry are ANARCHY (2003), TORTURE GARDEN: NAKED CITY PASTORELLES (2011), and RED ARCADIA (2012); PRESSURE DRESSING is forthcoming. He has published two volumes of essays and reviews, critical monographs on the British fantasist Michael Moorcock and the American poet Louis Zukofsky, and a full-length critical biography of Zukofsky. He is currently editing a selection of the erotic poems of Algernon Charles Swinburne.

Jessica Smith
Jessica Smith, Founding Editor of Foursquare and name magazines and Coven Press, teaches at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She is the author of numerous chapbooks including TRAUMA MOUTH (Dusie 2015) and THE LOVER IS ABSENT (above/ground press, 2017) and two full-length books of poetry, ORGANIC FURNITURE CELLAR (Outside Voices 2006) and LIFE-LIST (Chax Press 2015).

Stan Mir
Stan Mir is the author of two books of poetry, SONG & GLASS (Subito, 2010) and THE LACUSTRINE SUITE (2011). His poetry and criticism has appeared in Asian American Literary Review, Hyperallergic Weekend, Jacket2, and Seedings. He lives in Philadelphia and teaches at Temple University. 

Event: Willie Lane & Overt Hostility





Friday, April 13th at 7pm
at
Brickbat Books:

Willie Lane & Overt Hostility

WILLIE LANE
Folk/raga stringed incandescence from the hearty New England wilds. 
https://willielane.bandcamp.com
----

OVERT HOSTILITY (debut performance!)
American guitar crud free from the shackles of taste and restraint.
https://soundcloud.com/max-milgram

$5-$7 donation


Event: Anna McGlynn & Hannah Kaplan Comic Book Release Party





Saturday, April 7th at 7pm
at
Brickbat Books:
Anna McGlynn & Hannah Kaplan

Join Anna McGlynn and Hannah Kaplan for a reading of new comics they wrote together, but separately. Comics and zines for sale! Food and drink served!

Event: The White Chalk Of Days Book Release & Reading




Friday, March 16th at 7PM
at
Brickbat Books:

The White Chalk Of Days Book Release & Reading

Please join Columbia University's Mark Andryczyk, present the release of The White Chalk of Days: The Contemporary Ukrainian Literature Anthology (Academic Studies Press, 2017).

The anthology presents translations of literary works that imaginatively engage pivotal issues in today’s Ukraine and express its tribulations and jubilations.

Featuring poetry, fiction, and essays by fifteen Ukrainian writers, the anthology offers English-language readers a wide array of the most beguiling literature written in Ukraine in the past fifty years.

 

Event: The Hugely Popular Poetry Series Returns!


Saturday February 3rd at 7pm
at
Brickbat Books:

The Hugely Popular Series Presents:
Jenn McCreary
Orchid Tierney
Amanda Silberling



Jenn McCreary is a Philadelphia poet. She serves as president of the board of directors for Small Press Traffic, a San Francisco-based nonprofit arts organization whose mission is to provide a local and national platform for experimental writing. She is also the author of three books of poetry, several chapbooks, and in 2013 was named a Pew Fellow in the Arts.


Orchid Tierney is from New Zealand-Aotearoa, currently residing in Philadelphia. Her chapbooks include Brachiation (Dunedin: GumTree Press, 2012) and The World in Small Parts (Chicago: Dancing Girl Press, 2012), and a full length sound translation of the Book of Margery Kempe, Earsay (TrollThread, 2016). Other work has appeared in Bathhouse Journal, Pacific Literary Review, Empty Mirror and elsewhere. She co-edits Supplement, an annual anthology on Philadelphia writing.


Amanda Silberling will graduate from the University of Pennsylvania this spring and is generally nervous about that. An interdisciplinary text-based artist, her poems and not-poems have appeared in The Rumpus, Paper Magazine, Consequence of Sound, Reality Beach, decomP, and others. Her first film "We're Here, We're Present: Women in Punk" debuted this summer on VICE. For more info, visit amandasilberling.com.

Event: Mark Fosson & Laura Baird



Saturday, January 13th at 7:30
at
Brickbat Books:

Mark Fosson
Laura Baird



While the sheer virtuosity of ‘Solo Guitar’ is certainly a large part of its charm, more important is Fosson’s ability to weave memorable and articulate melodies. Without a clear sense of direction, solo instrumentation can risk meandering somewhat – but not here. There’s a clear sense of focus throughout the album, Fosson casting a very particular spell with the moody atmospherics of ‘The Creeper’, ‘Noodlin On The East Fork’ likewise boasting a vibrant sense of forward-motion and energy.
‘Solo Guitar’ is a really well crafted record – it’s well balanced and it never struggles to keep the attention of its listeners. It’s an album that confirms Mark Fosson to be technically equal to many of the genre’s biggest names and, likewise, he has no trouble in directing that ability into charming, well thought-out pieces which slot together to create a great album in ‘Solo Guitar’.
...unequivocally proves that he’s a guitarist that should, by rights, be mentioned in the same breath as genre-overlords like Fahey and Kottke.
Martin Leitch - GIGSOUP - July 23, 2017


Fosson has dexterity to spare. His instrumental style is akin to his early mentor, the American “primitive” guitarist John Fahey, to whose label, Takoma Records, he first recorded in 1976. From then to now, critical appreciation and commercial appeal have run in parallel, and while the fittingly titled Solo Guitar won’t change that, it is nonetheless a breath of fresh air to hear such crystal-clear, fluid and agile guitar playing.
Tony Clayton-Lea - IRISH TIMES - 27 July 2017 





"With a musical timeline dating back to her early childhood, Laura
Baird is an exceptionally talented multi-instrumentalist and
singer-songwriter, best known for her projects with her sister, Meg,
as The Baird Sisters, and guitarist Glenn Jones. Baird’s own sound
stems from the Appalachian folk tradition, and she connects to it via
family lineage--her great-great uncle I.G. Greer’s folk recordings for
the Library of Congress are a large influence. Also woven into her
sonic influences are classical composers like Bach and Satie, and
modern day musicians such as Opal and Yo La Tengo."

"For her upcoming debut solo album, I Wish I Were A Sparrow, Baird
plays odes to the tradition from which she learned to play, combining
Appalachian balladry, the roughness of old field recordings, and a
dose of dreaminess and solitude that captures the distinct environment
of sleepy central New Jersey. This is where Baird departs from
tradition, leaving the communal origins of folk music and capturing
the singular self. An amalgam of old and new can be found in the
overall sound, as well as the lyrics, with half of the songs on
Sparrow, including "Dreadful Wind and Rain" and "Pretty Polly", being
passed down from the folk tradition, and the other half, including
"Wind Wind "and "Love Song From The Earth To The Moon" coming from
Baird’s own hand. While the most salient part of her last Baird
Sisters project was the melding of familial voices and various
instruments, Baird’s solo effort is centered around the combination of
her virtuosic banjo playing and prominent but airy vocals."