Time Out New York: Notes From Underground

In the latest issue of Time Out New York, Michael Miller has written a piece on "underground" book publishing in New York. He mentions Two Dollar Radio (the opening paragraph doesn't, but it's a good intro).


"These days, small publishers don’t draw enough attention to spark book-banning fervors à la Ulysses or Naked Lunch. They do not, like roving illegal loft parties, get raided by the police. But there’s still a rogue jolt of underground sensibility running through a handful of New York City’s independent purveyors of contemporary lit. What distinguishes them is the very thing that keeps them out of the spotlight: Run by people with uncompromising tastes, they put authorial freedom before profit and leave controversies to mainstream attention-mongers like Judith Regan."

"...at this point in time, the word underground is becoming an increasingly elastic category, one that’s expanding to include former big-house authors. Take relative newcomer Two Dollar Radio, the Brooklyn-based “movement” started by Eric Obenauf in 2005. So far, it has done small runs—around 1,000 copies—of books like high-rise window washer Ivor Hanson’s memoir Life on the Ledge. But in early 2008, TDR will print 5,000 copies of The Drop Edge of Yonder, the new novel by old-school counterculture chronicler Rudolph Wurlitzer, who was once published by Knopf. As mainstream presses become more gentrified, yesterday’s Random House scribes could become today’s underground staples. And that’s a good thing. We should be happy that authors like Wurlitzer, Lutz and Lemus—all of whom were at one point with major publishers—have found homes for their challenging work."

Francis Levy is an Animal!

Francis Levy, author of the forthcoming novel Erotomania: A Romance (due out from Two Dollar Radio in Summer '08), graces the pages of the Wall Street Journal online health section today, talking about his fitness regimen.


Francis is a self-professed "compulsive fitness addict," who is also a third degree black belt. "Every morning, Mr. Levy rolls out of bed, stands on his head for 30 seconds, does 20 push-ups, about 50 sit-ups and ends with a somersault down his hallway."

Read more about Erotomania - a modern take on a crazy little thing called love - in the "books" section at twodollarradio.com.

Times Literary Supplement

Michael Greenberg, in his column in the Times Literary Supplement (of London) today, calls Rudy Wurlitzer's The Drop Edge of Yonder "mesmerzing. A Western as Celine might have written one, the characters stripped down to the zero degree of their existence. A purgatory of frontier emptiness and mayhem."

Greenberg also gives considerable ink to Two Dollar Radio, calls our list of authors "impressive" and "marvel(s) at [our] idealism."

For the complete article, you have to pick up a copy of the Times Literary Supplement as it is unavailable online. (...Or sign up for a free two issue trial of their ePaper.)

Two Dollar Radio @ Wordstock!

We're super-excited to be partaking in this year's Wordstock Book Festival, in Portland on November 9 - 11, at the Oregon Convention Center.

At Wordstock, we will be debuting our two Spring 08 titles - The Drop Edge of Yonder (a novel by Rudolph Wurlitzer) and 1940 (a novel by Jay Neugeboren). Both are amazing reads, which is why we're so eager to unleash them.

More information on both of these titles can be found in our "books" section at twodollarradio.com.

You'll also be able to pick up any of our previous releases, our handmade catalogues, and tee shirts whose sale benefits literacy awareness and causes.

See you in Portland.

A New Distributor for Two Dollar Radio

We are pleased to announce that we will be changing distributors beginning January 1, 2008, to Consortium Book Sales & Distribution. This is good for us. We're happy. They presently distribute many of those publishers that we tried to emulate when initially starting out (like Serpents Tail and Akashic).

Despite the delay in our publishing schedule, there is still plenty of work for us to stay busy with. We're bidding our time - twiddling our thumbs, conceiving an imprint, getting tan, possibly purchasing our own offset printing press, catching up on some reading - till the contract kicks in.

We had a great experience in the past with out previous distributor, Biblio, a sister company of the National Book Network, and I would recommend them to anyone starting out with a small press. (bibliodistribution.com)

Drop Edge Release Date.

Contrary to our previous posting, the release date for THE DROP EDGE OF YONDER by Rudolph Wurlitzer, will not be until April 2008. We will be debuting the book at this November's Portland book festival, Wordstock (alongside our other new spring release, 1940)!

This is for a couple of reasons, which we hope to fill everyone in on very soon. Thanks for your patience.

In the meantime, if you write for a newspaper/magazine and would be interested in receiving an advance galley of the most buzz-worthy book in the history of time, write to Brian (brian@twodollarradio.com).

The Drop Edge of Yonder Release Date.

We're super-excited to announce that THE DROP EDGE OF YONDER, the new novel from Rudolph Wurlitzer that the world has been eagerly awaiting, is slated for release on October 1!

To whet your appetite and to find out what two-headed dragon we'll be unleashing, head on over to the site we set up for the book: www.zebulonlives.com.

The buzz is building:
"Rudy Wurlitzer takes no prisoners. It's like Sam Beckett meets 'The Searchers'. An uncompromising, wild and wooly tale." -Sam Shepard.

"The Drop Edge of Yonder is a book you watch as you read, cast the film as you reread, and create a sequel as you sleep. A hypnotic yarn of poetry and mystical love." -Patti Smith

"Shoenberg playing on a whorehouse piano, a roulette wheel spinning on a melting ice floe, Sam Beckett with a six-gun and a sack of rattlesnakes. Rudy Wurlitzer wrings your heart like a chicken's neck while he shows you the cannibal in your bathroom mirror: our true American myth of origin." -Gary Indiana

Ledge News - from the ManhattanUsersGuide.com

From manhattanusersguide.com:
"We've often thought about doing a series on career changers for MUG – we're always hearing stories about the corporate lawyer who chucked it all to manufacture a better Bongo Board, or the former doorman who decided coding software was really his calling.

"Whether or not we do that series, have you heard the one about the punk rocker who became a window washer, and is now a memoirist, too?

"His name is Ivor Hanson and he's certainly got an unusual resume: A graduate of Vassar and Columbia J School for his masters, he also was in some serious punk bands: S.O.A, which was Henry Rollins' first band, Faith, and Embrace with Ian MacKaye.

"How he went from punk rocker to NYC window cleaner is chronicled is his new book LIFE ON THE LEDGE (Two Dollar Radio, $14). Mr. Hanson is a good storyteller and he has good stories to tell."
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Also: for those good folks in New York City and Brooklyn, you can attend a reading that Ivor will be doing at a beautiful old waterfront bar called Sunny's in Red Hook this Sunday, December 3, at 3 pm.

How to get to Sunny's:
By bus: take the B61 toward Red Hook from Atlantic Ave. & Court St. (or from the A train midtrain exit at Jay Street Borough Hall). Get off near the end of the line at Van Brunt & Beard streets., walk 1 block right and 1/2 block left. Or take the B77 bus down 9th Street from Park Slope (or from the Smith and 9th Street F train stop--exit at the rear of the train and come down the stairs to street level and the corner bus stop.) Take the bus in the direction of Van Brunt Street and Red Hook.
If you're driving: From Manhattan, take the Brooklyn Bridge and get off at the Court Street exit--then take a left on Cadman Plaza West, which will turn into Court St. Go about a mile, past Atlantic Avenue, and take a right on Sackett Street. Continue straight for five blocks, across the overpass over the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, and take a left on Van Brunt Street. Continue down almost to the end of Van Brunt (you'll see the waterfront up ahead) and take a right on Reed Street. Go one block and take a right on Conover Street--you'll see a big sign that says BAR. That's Sunny's.

Behold: new artwork from James Farias

After a brief repose, our art section has added the work of a stellar new, young artist, James Farias. You can view 8 pieces of his work in the 'art' section of twodollarradio.com.

Zebulon Lives!

We've created a website, complete with illustrations by the talented artist, Adam Collison, in anticipation of the May 2007 release of THE DROP EDGE OF YONDER, a novel by Rudolph Wurlitzer.

Dennis Cooper had this praise to heap upon the book: "The Drop Edge of Yonder is one of the most purely, deeply thrilling, inspired, and inspiring American novels I've read in many years."

And try this one on for size: "Like the Ancient Mariner, Wurlitzer holds his reader right there by his account." ~ William S. Burroughs.

For a good old fashioned synopsis of THE DROP EDGE OF YONDER, along with quotes from Alan Arkin and Scott Spencer, as well as blurbs about Wurlitzer's previous works from the Village Voice, Thomas Pynchon, and Sam Shephard, head on over to zebulonlives.com, y'hear?

(Stay tuned for a site for LIFE ON THE LEDGE: Reflections of a New York City Window Cleaner, a memoir by Ivor Hanson, which will feature a short video documentary of Ivor dangling from the ledge...)

BROOKLYN BOOK FESTIVAL

Thanks to everyone for coming out to the benefit concert yesterday. There was much rockin done, and a good time was had. I promise I'll have pictures as soon as I find my camera.

On to next weekend: This Saturday, September 16, we'll be showcasing our goods at the Brooklyn Book Festival at Brooklyn Borough Hall from 10-6.

We're super-excited because this will be the first time for people to be able to buy our 2 brand freakin' new titles - Life on the Ledge: Reflections of a New York City Window Cleaner, a memoir by Ivor Hanson; and Vagabond Blues (a finalist for the San Diego Book Award), a novel by Emmanuel Burgin. These books don't hit the streets until December 1, and this will be the only opportunity to get either of them before that date.

You'll also be able to pick up our first title, The Drummer, a novel by Anthony Neil Smith, heralded by Publishers Weekly as "enjoyable...a fun read."

You should be super-excited too because Ivor is going to be at our table signing copies of Life on the Ledge for a couple of fun-soaked hours in the September sun.

GET LIT 2006, a concert to benefit Behind the Book

Yeah, you know you wanna dance:

On Sunday, September 10, from 4-9, we will be having a concert to benefit a great non-profit group called BEHIND THE BOOK, whose goal is to inspire a lifetime love of reading and books in children.

The show will be at North 6, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and will feature LOUIS LOGIC, TK WEBB, GLUE, GOOD EVENING, and THE SONG CORPORATION (color-coded here for your enjoyment).

Admission is 110% FREE, so you really have no valid excuse for not attending.

The show is being presented by Two Dollar Radio and our friends at VoidMagazine.com.

I expect to see you there, and I expect to see you dancing.

[The above illustration was done by the talented, Maggie Suisman... maggiesuisman.com]

Cogan - the man, the myth.

Brian Cogan, author of THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PUNK MUSIC + CULTURE, will be celebrating the release of his book at Freebird Books (what appears to be a really cool store that I need to explore) in Red Hook, Brooklyn, on August 27 at 6 pm.

Cogan contributed a quote for the cover of our title, LIFE ON THE LEDGE: REFLECTIONS OF A NEW YORK CITY WINDOW CLEANER, due out on December 1.

This is what he had to say about LEDGE: "If Ivor Hanson had merely been one of the key pioneers in the Washington DC punk scene of the eighties, that would have been enough to cement his legacy as a true innovator. But who knew that he was also a writer of no small skill and talent? In this memoir, Hanson tackles the questions of how one discovers worth and meaning in one's life with all the dexterity of a master drummer, and all the balance he learned living life on the ledge."

In the words of Cogan himself, "Listen for the sound of acoustic punk and/or spoken word you shall find us."

New Two Dollar Radio Blog

We don't do myspace because they're owned by NewsCorp, so in an effort to keep up with the trends, we're starting a blog.

I'm not sure if this is good or bad, but I am excited to have a more direct line of communication with readers/groupies as to the books we publish, the authors, and the events we put on.

Stay tuned for more to come shortly...