Go Metric

Pre-order Kung Fu Monkeys' "The Incredibly Strange Case of the Mysterious Mystery" 7"

The Kung Fu Monkeys, long assumed to be deceased, rise again with their 13th (!) 7". Two new songs, "Persephone Please" b/w "A Nudie Suit Made of Bees." It's a split release between Surfin'Ki Records (Italy) and Waterslide Records (Japan). With KFM frontman James Cahill now residing in Toronto (Canada) this sizzling platter is truly an international affair.

Pre-order today, friends!

Word Up: Washington Heights’ Pop-up Bookstore Seeks a Permanent Home

By Brett Essler

New York City is the literary capital of the world, but many of its neighborhoods are still without a community bookstore.

As the big box book retailers shutter (Borders) or contract (Barnes and Noble), the health of community bookshops is more important than ever. They provide access to harder-to-find small press material and, perhaps more crucially, a meeting place for neighborhood residents and artists.

The Washington Heights neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, despite its population and geographic size, has long been without an independent bookstore that provides a venue for author readings and performance.

Mid-Atlantic 49ers

By Hope Coppinger

In the wake of the closure of New Jersey’s only public television station, lawmakers have put forth a plan to divide New Jersey into two parts and offer the  sections to their respective neighbors, Pennsylvania and New York.

The move has been met with a mixed response. State agencies in both New York and Pennsylvania will scramble to revise vital statistics records for the nation’s most densely populated state, which will now show births, deaths and marriages to have taken place in their new states. While the project will create hundreds of long-term temporary jobs in both states, it will require tax hikes that will wipe out any savings New Jersey residents may have hoped to see as they join the tax rolls of their new home states. Residents of New York and Pennsylvania are also not happy to gain New Jersey’s financial troubles.

New Print Issue Underway! Sort of.

Friends, family, insomniacs who've stumbled across us for the first time,

Thanks for checking out the Go Metric website.  We dig our web presence.  Hope you do, too.  All of its strengths are due to two factors: 1) Brett Essler,  handler of all things technical and 2) our most excellent contributors.

However, we're going on hiatus.  Brett is going back to school and I, Mike, am pleasantly swamped with writing projects.  One of these is the next print issue of Go Metric.  The first contributions are starting to roll in, including a comic from Sanden Totten and interviews with Todd Cong (Toys That Kill, Recess Records), Isaac Thotz, (The Arrivals), and Mark Ryan (Marked Men, Mind Spiders).  

Have an idea to pitch?  Yes, please. Send them to: gogometric@yahoo.com.  Please put "Next issue" in the subject line.

Longtime readers know that when I say it'll be out "any time now" I mean roughly 6-8 months.  Hang tight.  Read Out of Sheer Rage by Geoff Dyer, check out a minor league ballgame, enjoy a tasty beverage.  We'll be back soon.

Mike

Are You Receiving Me? – Black Wine: Round #3

by Mike Faloon

Black Wine
Dark Energy 7” EP
Don Giovanni

“The train won’t stop going/No way to slow down” — “Locomotive Breath” Jethro Tull

Black Wine close their latest EP with a cover of “Locomotive Breath.” It’s a Jethro Tull song but Black Wine drag the sucker to a near-halt, creeping along at a sub-Flipper tempo, openly defying the lyrics, at least that part about not being able to slow down. The tune is asking, pleading, to go faster but Black Wine say, Nay!

Ronnie James Dio (1942-2010)

This Charming Man

Glance over the ranks of Go Metric contributors past and present and you'll find few tattoos. Our idea of permanence doesn't go much beyond the initials we Sharpie on our undershirts. But when we do get some ink, we do it right. GM contributor Chris Gethard. Morrissey.

Great Moments in Morrissey Fandom: The Tattoo

Fish Karma: the theory of intelligent design

Fish Karma
the theory of intelligent design
Alternative Tentacles

Suffice it to say that it is not due to Go Metric’s unreasonably tight deadlines for reviews that I still find myself unable to make it through this CD in its entirety.  The Winston Smith album cover is great but that’s about it. Really, really, really, like seriously, unlistenable dreck. Seriously, what the fuck is AT doing? -- Matt Braun

Thought of the Day by Dick Cheney

1. Kneel Before me! Kneel son of Jor-El, at the feet of Zod! I love that frigging movie!

2. Aw, what a cute puppy? Who’s a cute puppy! Who’s a cute puppy!

3. Note to self, Syria looks like a bunch of pussies, better tell W.

Samurai Lunchroom Monitor

Faced with mounting concerns regarding inappropriate cafeteria behavior, Glenwood Elementary School, in White Plains, NY, has hired legendary samuari, Kambei Shimada.

"The kids were too loud.  They were throwing their garbage on the floor.  It was mayhem," said Glennwood principal Mark Fenster.  "Parents were upset.  Teachers were unhappy.  We needed a new approach: the way of the bushido."

Fresh from the legendary but ultimately futile fight with the forty bandits, Shimada was welcomed with open arms by the Glenwood staff.  "He's so good with the kids," said fellow lunch staff member Angie Bickell, "just last Tuesday one of our first graders, who has a tinkling problem, was running to the bathroom for like the tenth time that day, didn't even ask to get up.  Kambei just looked at him and said, 'Brendan-san, to tinkle is also not to tinkle.' The boy stays in his seat all through lunch now, like the serene enlightened one he has become."

Mr. Shimada moved to the White Plains area a year ago when his wife took a job at the Manhattan branch of the Bank of Tokyo.

"He's a little hasty to offer ritual suicide as a solution, but we're pleased with his performance," added vice principal Kip Arlin.  "In fact, last week he and six other samuari, helped our second graders defend their kickball title against Taft Elementary.  Those guys could have easily cut the Taft kids to little pieces, literally, instead they brought our kids together as a team.  With our budget problems we could only offer them lunch meat as payment, but they worked hard.  Harder than some of our tenured staff.  We're thinking of using samuari for our music and art programs, too."

Response from parents has been largely positive.  Madeline Lyons, whose son is in fourth grade, was skeptical at first.  "The talk in the parking lot was that Mr. Shimada would become a masterless ronin, but then Zachary, who hates writing, wrote this essay about the harmonious aura of the buddha.  My husband and I didn't really understand it, but we didn't have to fight about homework that night."