New Website

Lemon o Books, the publisher and instigator of The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music, now has its own home on the Internet. Lemonobooks.com will feature individual pages dedicated to the newest Lemon o publications, hair-related and otherwise, collecting them all in one tidy place with the least possible fuss and distraction.

This website (the one you're reading right now) will continue to chronicle the ongoing Famous Hairdos of Popular Music project and will continue to fulfill your Lemon o news needs.

Come check out my new place.

Our Moon

New from Lemon o Books!

With one week until the third annual Chicago Zine Fest on March 10, Lemon o Books is pleased to announce its newest publication, a short booklet and CD entitled Our Moon.

Following hot on the heels of Actual Bird Song last October, Our Moon is the second in a series of art booklets masquerading as field guides. It once again comes packaged with a CD focused on the same theme. Actual Bird Song dealt with all things avian, but for Our Moon we've turned our gaze even further skyward to contemplate the moon.

The CD features four tracks, the first of which is a heartbreaking, fifteen-minute piece by Adam Krause and Marielle Allschwang featuring guitar, violin and crackly snatches of ham radio conversation intercepted by walkie talkie. This might be the song that was in Michael Collins' head on the far side of the moon. The remaining tracks on the CD were recorded by Gen Ken Montgomery in New York City. His suite of three tracks commences with collaged audio from the Appollo 11 mission and ends, twenty minutes later, with a joyful section that reminds me of The Residents at their most beautiful. It's a great listening experience, and, really, the whole cross-country collaboration hangs together beautifully. I'm proud to have played a part in it.

Below are photos of the project. Anyone interested in obtaining a copy of Our Moon can mail $5 well-concealed cash to:

Lemon o Books
P.O. Box 11872
Milwaukee, WI 53211

Shipping costs are included in the price for anyone living in the contiguous United States. International friends should email for more information. Update: This title is sold out.

Upcoming Events: Chicago Zine Fest 2012 and Moon Ragas in NYC

Above: Fine dining, outside our hotel room, Chicago Zine Fest 2011

Except for the fantastic drawings received in the mail last month, it probably seems like a quiet start to 2012 here at The Famous Hairdos of Popular Music/Lemon o Books. However, a lot of work and planning have been going on behind the scenes.

First off, in a little less than a month Lemon o Books will be in Chicago for the third annual Chicago Zine Fest on March 10th. I've tabled at this event the last two years, and despite the bitter weather that a Midwestern March all but promises, it has always been a blast. The Chicago Zine Fest is housed in a beautiful space at Columbia College, and last year it took two floors to accommodate all of the talented exhibitors. It always draws a large, diverse crowd, and the organizers seem to pull off a better show every year. I'm definitely jazzed to make the trip again.

Here's the full schedule of events for the weekend:

Friday March 9, 2012:
1 - 3pm Gender, Race & Sexuality, a Discussion with Women in Self-Publishing at Columbia College
6 - 9pm Zine Readings at 826CHI
9:30pm - 12am Zine Olympics at Quimby's Bookstore

Saturday March 10:
11am - 6pm Zine Exhibition at Columbia College

Our Moon and "Moon Ragas"


Above: A stack of tape loops
(Tape loops and photo by Adam Krause)

In other news, the follow-up to Actual Bird Song is quickly taking form, and much like its predecessor, that form will be book and CD shaped. Where Actual Bird Song was a quasi-field guide and audio companion inspired by birds and notable for its lack of both fields and guidance, this next project takes its inspiration from the moon, Earth's satellite and cosmic dance partner. It will be called Our Moon and should be finsished just in time for the aforementioned Chicago Zine Fest. If everything goes to plan in the next month, Our Moon will be just as beautiful, weird and scientifically useless as Actual Bird Song was last fall.

Actual Bird Song began as a collaboration between myself (in charge of book-making) and Neil Gravander (aka Lucky Bone, sound-making). The project soon expanded when Neil invited fellow Milwaukee sound-maker Slow Owls to create his own avian-inspired audio.

In a similar way, this new project began as a collaboration between myself (once again handling the visual half of the audio-visual equation) and writer, musician, carpenter Adam Krause but expanded when he invited sound artist Ken Montgomery to contribute to the audio portion of the project.

This weekend, the collaboration gets even more collaborative when Adam travels to New York City to play a show at The Stone (Avenue C and 2nd street) with Montgomery. The event will be recorded and the results should find their way into the final version of Our Moon. If you're in New York on February 19th, consider attending this event.

Meanwhile, I'll be here in Milwaukee putting the finishing touches on the booklet for Our Moon. I'll post all the details right here as soon as the project is ready to share with the world. Thanks for looking and reading. Here's to an active and exciting spring!

Actual Bird Song Previews

Thanks to Neil "Lucky Bone" Gravander, you can now listen to previews of both tracks from Actual Bird Song, the booklet and CD released last October, from the comfort of your computer chair. Give 'em a try.

Lucky Bone - actual bird song (excerpt) by ursa--major

Slow Owls - actual bird song (excerpt) by ursa--major

Copies of this project are still available. Interested parties can send five dollars well-concealed cash to P.O. Box 11872 Milwaukee, WI 53211. Update: This title is now sold out.