November 21st, 2012 by Darin
A while back, I read from Noise as a part of a mixed media experiment with Shiny Around the Edges. They’ve got a baller new album out: The Night is a Disco. It’s straight hypnogogia—experimental, ambient, and jazzy.
March 12th, 2012 by Darin
I (barely) survived another year at 35 Denton. Highlights included The Raincoats, Grandlake (Jason Lytle from Granddaddy merged with Midlake), Atlas Sound, Words and Music, lunch trucks, and the back porch at Dan’s Silverleaf.
Here’re some pictures.
Fig. 2: Big, blurry video screen thing. It is its own 18-wheeler trailer. Neat. It's got Mountain Goats on it in this pic.
Fig. 3: Crowd shot.
Fig. 4: Another crowd shot.
February 14th, 2012 by Darin
I seem to recall having posted this, but I can’t find evidence of such. Anyway, it’s currently my favorite song. Just seems to sum up the zeitgeist quite nicely. (Damn, I even feel like I used that line.)
Whatever. Enjoy.
November 9th, 2011 by Darin
Youth Lagoon: “Montana”
June 18th, 2011 by Darin
Frightened Rabbit: “My Backwards Walk”
Lyrics Born: “Callin’ Out”
Heartless Bastards: “The Mountain” (Ignore the video’s lyrics (they’re mis-transcribed) and its stroke-inducing text-flash.)
Beth Orton: “Ooh, Child” (prepare to be destroyed)
Muslimgauze: “Saladin Mercy” (This fan-made video includes difficult-to-watch footage of Israeli bombs hammering the hell out of Gaza City.)
May 28th, 2011 by Darin
If you couldn’t already tell by all of the live music pictures, in addition to scotch, politics, and the economy, I’m also a big music fan. A recent conversation with some other enthusiasts re: music we were fairly certain the others hadn’t heard of inspired me to share a few links for some of what I’m into these days. The chilled-version. Enjoy.
(Tinariwen. Saharan Tuaregs on electric guitars. Badass.)
And that’s it for this week. We’ll do some more next time around.
May 24th, 2011 by Darin
Fig. 1: Dim Locator. Dan's Silver Leaf. DTX
May 16th, 2011 by Darin
Fig. 1: Record Hop. Hailey's, Denton, TX
April 16th, 2011 by Darin
Fig. 1: Elliott Brood. Dan's Silver Leaf, Denton, Texas
April 5th, 2011 by Darin
One night, when I was still living in Asheville, my wife and I joined a buddy of ours at our neighborhood pub. It was this great little place called The Admiral. At the time, it was barely the size of a traditional diner, decorated with kitschy vintage naval art and situated at the ass-end of Asheville’s very popular Haywood Street. (Its neighbors were a couple of under-attended venues, a halfway house, and a busted up convenience store.) For a brief while, The Admiral was really something. It was a total dive-bar, complete with cabinet-top vintage video games; dimly-lit, curtained booths; and freely distributed ashtrays (you could still smoke indoors in N.C. at the time). Get this: it was also, like, a four-star restaurant. The tattooed rocker-chefs (who cooked on what must be one of the smallest lines for a kitchen that became as wildly popular as it did) served everything from steak tartare to homemade marshmallows in a jar of smoke. Really progressive gastronomy stuff. Eventually, of course, the interest in the restaurant outpaced the interest in the bar, and it became the go-to destination for retirees and scensters, whose interests eventually pushed out the video games, removed the juke box, and otherwise turned it into just another restaurant in Asheville (even if it does still have a bar).
So, this one night, we’re sitting in the still-cool Admiral, and our bartender pal starts playing the acid-jazziest, riff-distortedest prog rock I’d heard in years. LOUD. This stuff was so underground, we really weren’t cool enough to be listening to it. The bartender tells me it’s Blue Phantom—namely, their album Distortions, which was formed as a side project to score B horror/thriller flicks. (Sort of like Gremlin, if you’re geek enough to know what I’m talking about.) Of course, I looked for it, but it was unavailable or very rare.
Darin Bradley is the author of Noise. He holds a B.A. in Language and Composition, an M.A. in Literature and Literary Criticism, and a Ph.D. in English Literature and Theory. (bibliography)
NOISE
“In the aftermath of the switch from analog to digital TV, an anarchic movement known as Salvage hijacks the unused airwaves. Mixed in with the static’s random noise are dire warnings of the imminent economic, political, and social collapse of civilization—and cold-blooded lessons on how to survive the fall and prosper in the harsh new order that will inevitably arise from the ashes of the old.
“Hiram and Levi are two young men, former Scouts and veterans of countless Dungeons & Dragons campaigns. Now, on the blood-drenched battlefields of university campuses, shopping malls, and gated communities, they will find themselves taking on new identities and new moralities as they lead a ragtag band of hackers and misfits to an all-but-mythical place called Amaranth, where a fragile future waits to be born.”
Learn more at Salvage Country.
"This haunting debut from a brilliant new voice is sure to be as captivating as it is controversial, a shocking look at the imminent collapse of American civilization—and what will succeed it."
"A cruel little knife-strike of a book, in the best possible way."
"An exceptionally polished debut."
"Bradley’s voice is unique and compelling, and his take on surviving the end of the world as we know it is unlike any other."
"Edgy and disturbing, Noise is a worthy successor to all those post-holocaust books of yesteryear."
"Hiram's disassociated voice gets in your head and under your skin, so very sensible even when describing the mowing down of a potential mob with a .50-caliber machine gun or the firebombing of a National Guard humvee. And it is this unique voice that is the book's strongest and most persuasive feature."
"Story edged as a katana, prose tight as the grip that wields it, Noise is keen in its purpose and most 'incisive.' Shorn of false sentiment and trite cynicism, it paints an all too plausible apocalypse, and paints it in bold fresh terms. This is a great new take on its genre and an exemplary work in its own right."
"This is the sort of book that makes you squirm not because of what's happening to the characters but because of what they themselves are capable of. It's distressing and smart and I can't get it out of my head."
"Noise is The Book of Revelations by way of Fight Club. Alternately heartbreaking and terrifying, you can't imagine a world where the Collapse could happen, but secretly you know it's already too late. The signs and portents of Salvage are out there, and Darin Bradley is the only one who has been taking notes."
"Darin Bradley's brainy, slippery, and riveting Noise is Lord of the Flies on serious psychotropics. With narrative tendrils in the "paper" book and online as well, Noise is deliberately speaking to a young, media-soaked audience through various texts and tricks. You watch. Noise is destined to be a milestone work for Millennial readers."
"You want this book. You will covet this book and re-read it multiple times. You will search for meaning behind the words, the layers just hidden out of sight. You will peer over, read with your breath held at all the escalating violence and terror and wonder and love and then just when you think, holy shit, I need to rest, I need to stop, this book is wearing me out, I’m thin and hollow and can’t go on—that’s when the shit really picks up and you can’t stop."
"Noise is not an easy read, but it is a very rewarding one, and sure to touch a nerve among those of my generation: we that came to age in the shadow of the Cold War, when the possibility of annihilation was whispered from every television set showing The Day After and a handful of dice and graph paper offered the possibility of escape, if only for a few hours."
"Bradley has done an excellent job of capturing things going to hell in a hand basket."
"Considering the nature of his dystopic fiction and the fullness of his vision, I can perhaps be forgiven for thinking that, in his debut, Darin Bradley may be The One."
"In a year that is becoming more and more defined . . . by the emergence of quality apocalyptic fiction, Noise sits proudly amongst the very best of it’s kind."
"The voice of Darin Bradley is a brilliant addition to apocalyptic fiction."
"Noise is a small juggernaut of dystopian lit."
"This is a stunner of a novel, with a modernist almost poetical style, and a concept that blasts its way through the hoary old clichés....It’s the best fiction book I’ve read this year"
"[A] fascinating, fast-paced narrative charged with sociopolitical ideas. Striking and disturbing stuff."
"[Bradley] has a gift for evocation, and uses that gift to ground his story in the busy desolation of young male midwestern existence."
"In this riveting and jarring debut novel, university writing instructor Darin Bradley provides ample proof that the old adage that 'Those who can, do and those who can't, teach!' is just nonsense. Not only can this guy teach writing, but he is also definitely and deftly capable of practicing what he preaches!"
