WEDS. MAY 20; 10:30am:    StoryTimeFunLand  with Daniel, Hayley and Mindy: Interactive kids’ story and music hour for anyone who loves their ABC’s and the buzz-buzz-Bumblebee.    Casual, fun atmosphere for toddlers and the people who keep their hands clean. 

FRIDAY, May 22, 8pm:  Poetry curated by Rafael Alvarado
Black & Tan  presents JUDI SMOLKER and
A.K. TONEY  http://www.myspace.com/aktoney25

THURSDAY, May 28; 7:30pm:  “MEMPHIS & the MISSISSIPPI DELTA: A COMPLETE GUIDE” party, signing, reading with authors Justin Gage and Melissa Gage. Plus 12-bar blues deconstructed by LE SWITCH
* From Beale Street’s barbecue, blues, and rock ’n’ roll to the city’s five-star dining and lodging, Memphis is a monster mecca of American music and more. The A-side is world-famous attractions and the flip side has funky shops, historic sites, and gold record legacies.  Step back in time to the Mississippi Delta with endless cotton fields and rural shacks. There is no better place to experience hopping juke joints and the stomping grounds of blues greats like Muddy Waters.
As Citysearch’s travel editor, Melissa Gage wrote about destinations from Sun Valley to San Juan, Puerto Rico. She is currently a freelance writer and screenwriter. Justin Gage is the founder of Autumn Tone Records and the blog creator of Aquarium Drunkard. He is also a music writer, concert promoter, and radio DJ. They live in Los Angeles, CA.

* Fri June 5, 8pm: a party for Mark Blake’s book :  “THE WIT & WISDOM of KEITH RICHARDS”  — compiled quotes form the world’s favorite guitarist and riff-master.  We’ll have bandanas, djs spinning “HAPPY”, some sloppy covers, some dramatic readings and whatever else we can come up with. Keith impersonators and anyone with vintage Stones’ clips please contact liz@storiesla.com

* Sat June 6, 8pm:   GOOSEBERRIES party
Focus on photographer Sterling Andrews    view on local bands: Silversun Pick Ups,  Rogue Wave, Pity Party, Henry Clay People, The Happy Hollows and others.   Andrews created a fantasy backdrop for her friends to pose.  Music, snacks, images … are you ready for your close up too ?

The Bluegrass is the same

The Place is the same

The good time is the same…

just make sure you have the correct date !

join us this Saturday, MAY 16 for the party !

Join on us for what we hope will become a semi-regular summer series with music and storytelling.

Tonight, it’s bluegrass from Portland, Oregon’s The Watertower Bucket Boys

“It sounds like a bluegrass/old-time fusion mit cajones. Bluegrass music anymore tends to be massively over-produced, slicker than an Escalade’s paint job, excruciatingly boring, exponentially irrelevant, and O so square, so painfully white. But what I heard from Water Tower definitely rocks. Its not the kind of navel-gazing fusion-diluted silliness you get from bands, its more like the rolling energy of Jackstraw only with a real old-time rooted integrity. Those children will go far. Already have.” -Bill Martin legendary dance caller www.bubbaguitar.com

Hailing from Portland, Oregon, the Water Tower Bucket Boys perform their hard-driving, soul-saturated traditional and original music with tight vocal harmonies and powerful instrumentals. The energy from their lightning stage performances will literally plow through you as you are transcended to another place and time. The Water Tower Bucket Boys got their start busking on the street corners of Portland and enlivening local square dances. Honing their sound as a solid dance band, playing up and down the west coast, as well as in the east, the boys have perfected their unique style, drawing from classic bluegrass, old-time, and country songs. Their original repertoire, heavily influenced by blues and country, distinguishes them from other string bands. This one-of-a-kind sound has been influenced and shaped by almost every genre of American music. Just like the traditional songs, their originals works will take you on an entertaining roller-coaster of emotions, while still maintaining that “high-lonesome” integrity. Whether busking on the streets of downtown Portland or traveling around the world, their infectious love of the music spreads far and wide.

JERRY STAHL reads and signs from his new novel, “PAIN KILLERS”

From the “brilliantly demented” author of Permanent Midnight and I, Fatty comes a novel of American Nazis,
Born-again Porn, Secret Pharmaceuticals, Felonious Love
and One Very Disturbing German

Jerry Stahl earned a cult following with his gritty and fearless memoir, Permanent Midnight, a bestselling junkie confessional that drew critical raves. His subsequent fiction, including Perv: a Love Story, Plainclothes Naked, and I, Fatty, established him as a sometimes disturbing, sometimes hilarious, but always unsparing and utterly original voice. Thomas Mallon, writing in The New Yorker called him “a better than Burroughs virtuoso.” James Ellroy dubbed him “America’s hipster bard.” And Entertainment Weekly praised his “brilliantly demented riffs.”

Weds, April 22, 7:30pm

NOBODY ROCKS PRESS  LAUNCH PARTY FOR  CULT CLASSIC  “The Last Stand of Mr America” by Jason Williams-Flroes. WWW.NOBODYROCKS.COM

Nobody Rocks is the first alternative press to publish novels for the Kindle and Sony Reader.

“Jason Flores-Williams is a literary force of nature…a train wreck of genius.” San Francisco Chronicle.

Last Stand is about a lost corporate soul trying to find meaning in plastic America. His life a prison of work, apathy and television, save for his sex club explorations and gallows sense of humor. “Jason Flores-Williams is an all-American outlaw and edgewalker in the tradition of Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski and Biggie Smalls. The Last Stand of Mr. America cuts into our heart of darkness with no bullshit bedside manner and no anesthesia.” David Gates, Preston Falls, Jernigan.

Flores-Williams, who has been featured on CNN, NPR and Air America, is also known for his political activism. He wrote the High Times “Call To Resistance” and shut down Rockefeller Center in protest against the war. He is a frequent contributor to the Brooklyn Rail, Artillery magazine and does socio-cultural commentary for WBAI radio in NYC. Recently, feature film righs to Last Stand have been acquired by Melting Pictures, an independent film production company in Los Angeles.

“Disturb the powerful, empower the disturbed,” says Flores-Williams. “They’ve already got TV – so why else be a writer?”

Media Contact:

Jason Flores-Williams

917-703-0436

Jasonflores_williams@hotmail.com

STORIES CALENDAR as of Saturday, March 29, 2009

WE’LL BE OPEN AT 8AM STARTING MON March 30.

Gourmet espresso coffee made from Cafecito Organico beans, fresh bagels and other things to wake you up.

Please enter thru alleyway between Logan & Lemoyne

Upcoming events:

Every Friday: FRIDAY NIGHT KNITS; Tina Marin and Michelle Tritten host a non pressure knitting hang out. Bring your knitting, get some coffee and knit one/ purl two.  For those of you who know your way with yarn and for those of you who end up in knots. Intro to knitting and other helpful hints available. There’s no reason to stay home on a Friday night !

Weds April 1; 7pm

Patrick deWitt; “Ablutions”  TIME OUT NEW YORK:  “a viciously hilarious story of an alcoholic, pill-popping, 32-year-old Hollywood bartender in the midst of a slow and steady downward spiral . . . Despite its messy topic, the book becomes a welcome rarity: an experimental novel that’s also a page-turner.”

Fri April 3; 8pm

Readings from The Girls of Juniper Lake www.myspace.com/calendargirls  

A collective of smart, witty, talented women who write about the cracks in life’s sidewalk from teen angst to break ups to betrayal.

Sat April 4; 4pm

“Sophmore Undercover” – reading and signing from young adult author Ben Ecsh

Sun April 5; 3pm

The Hollywood Institute of Poetics (H.I.P) receives a certificate from Councilman Eric Garcetti for their contribution to the neighborhood.  Followed by a reception at the Edendale Grill, 2828 Rowena Blvd, Silverlake

Weds April 8; 10:30am * FOR THE KIDS !

STORYTIMEFUNLAND:  Meet with Daniel and Hayley and Mindy for some interactive  songs & stories. For toddlers and anyone just finding their beat to a different drummer

Discount coffee & baked good for the hour!  The 2^nd & 4^th Weds of each month

Fri April 10; 8pm

Poetry

Sunday, April 19; 4pm

Reading and signing for the fanzine “LOVE”

Featuinrg John Tottenham, Rob Roberge and Annabelle Gurwitch

Weds April 22; 10:30am* FOR THE KIDS !

STORYTIMEFUNLAND

Thurs April 23; 7pm

JERRY STAHL; reading and signing from his book

“PAIN KILERS”

April 24; 8 pm
Black & Tan reading Hosted by Robert Juarez & Bryan Sanders

With Gabriela Jauregui and Cati Porter

Sat May 9; 8pm

Reading and performance http://splintergeneration.com/

A collective of poets and writers under the age of 35

click on link!

stories-narrow-books-event-flyer1

Dominic Priori signing
To celebrate the release of “Pop Surf Culture: Music, Design, Film and Fashion from the Bohemian Surf Boom”  and the growing popularity of Priore’s “Riot on Sunset Strip: Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Last Stand in Hollywood” (Jawbone Press, London, 2007), the brand-new Stories book store in Echo Park will host a book signing event and free performance from surf band The Boardwalkers.

“Pop Surf Culture: Music, Design, Film and Fashion from the Bohemian Surf Boom” is a full-color, hardback book focusing on the organic transference of ideas from Honolulu to Los Angeles during the first half of the 20th century, and its presentation to the public at large during the 1960s.  Contemporary poster artist Frank Kozik designed the cover, and the forewords are by Kathy Zuckerman (originally Kohner, the real-life “Gidget” on which the book, and movie, was based) and legendary Ferus Gallery artist Billy Al Bengston, who surfed at Malibu during the ’50s and was friends with the 16-year-old Kohner.  Bengston was known as “Moondoggie,” which became a character name in “Gidget”.  “Pop Surf Culture” bravely attempts to capture all the most iconic images from a time when the surfing aesthetic was based on things inherent to the beach itself, and before it creeped into its current billion dollar trade show/NASCAR-level sponsorship sham.  “Pop Surf Culture” breathes life back into the beauty of surfing’s roots.