AMJ confesses that inspiration for his work comes both from his own experiences and the world surrounding him:

“In the sense that the separation between ‘me’ and the ‘other’ is always a problematic one and I use my work as a means to investigate this problematic duality. Inspiring philosophers who influenced my works are among others Jacob Boehme (a Renaissance thinker and Shoemaker), Spinoza (Dutch Renaissance Freethinker), Vladimir Solovyov (Russian 19th century Mystic) and the whole bunch of modern philosophers ranging from Karl Marx and Oswald Spengler to Deleuze and Pierre Bourdieu.

I cannot make a distinction between my ‘head’ and my ‘life’, my ‘head’ is my ‘life’ and my ‘life’ is my ‘head’, so what’s in my head is also in my life and vice versa.”

‘My head is my life and my life is my head.’ ~ Interview with Suze Hupkes, Yeditepe University Instanbul / Hogeschool Utrecht

For AMJ, the most important aspect of his work “is the artistic investigation regarding subjectivity versus objectivity resulting in pieces, art objects questioning our perceived realities. As our experiential perceptions are tightly coupled to different belief systems, I investigate visual residues of hitherto unexplored societal territories. Using the internet as a rich resource of source material I reconstruct a ‘new’ spectacular ecosystem linking various intellectual premises to a user experience.”

“I certainly can see beauty in ‘darkness’ even progress in evaluating its underlying reasoning system. Landscapes as such can express a feeling of guilt or regret or any other human emotion, but it always will depend on the contemporary political and societal conditions. It is the interpretational quality which should guide the spectator in its appreciation of any work of art. I like to go to the point where there is barely any solid ground left to function as a qualifying framework.”

In the following four works from AMJ’s “Looking for Mao” series, the artist further illustrates his transmedial art and the motif of urbanity through his choices of medium, materials, detail, as well as that path of separation between the subjective and the objective belief where reason departs the spectator, as guide, leaving only the barest subjective groundwork to interpret from.

Looking For Mao

AA 2012,"Vertigo", typex and permanent marker on transparent A4 sheet.
Copyright (c) Andreas Maria Jacobs. All rights reserved.

AA 2012, "At the Chinese ", typex and permanent marker on A4 transparent sheet.
Copyright (c) Andreas Maria Jacobs. All rights reserved.

AA 2012, "Cold Train" (detail), typex and permanent marker on transparent A4 sheet. Copyright (c) Andreas Maria Jacobs. All rights reserved.

AA 2012, "The Lake", typex and permanent marker on transparent A4 sheet.
Copyright (c) Andreas Maria Jacobs. All rights reserved.

Agam (A.) Andreas [Andreas Maria Jacobs - NL 1956] is an artist, writer and editor, studied physics and musicology at the University of Amsterdam NL (1978), electronic and computer music at the State University Utrecht NL (1981) and holds a BSc. in software engineering (University of Applied Sciences – The Hague NL (1997).

He is publisher of Nictoglobe magazine, ISSN 1874-9534, online since 1986! He is (co)Founder of the Brahamian Intelligence Service. Member of the fake Scientific Comittee for REFF, Rome Italy. He also runs a radioshow Burgerwaanzin at Radio Patapoe, Amsterdam NL. He lives in Amsterdam, the Netherlands and Walkenried, Germany with Judith V. and their 3 children.

relevant weblinks:

http://nictoglobe.com/new/agam (portfolio)
http://burgerwaanzin.nl (experimental web art)
http://nictoglobe.com (internet magazine online since 1986)

Note: background material about the artist was culled from the interview with Suze Hupkes. Used with permission. An excellent and exquisite interview, the editor suggests you read it in full, here.

One of the major difficulties of writing transgressive, post-realist urban fiction in Canada is how that writing, by and large, is received by reviewers. Largely lacking the critical wherewithal to appropriately interpret transgressive, post-realist urban fiction, reviewers simply regurgitate publisher press releases — often verbatim — then proceed to act as spoilers by giving up what the book is about, story by story, along with a few pithy interpretations.

Matthew Firth, born and raised in Hamilton, Ontario, and now living in Ottawa where he works by day for a national trade union has experienced these haphazard literary reviews ever since the publication of his first three collections of transgressive, post-realist short stories: Fresh Meat (Rush Hour Revisions, 1997), Can You Take Me There, Now? (Alley Cat Editions, 2001), and Suburban Pornography and Other Stories (Anvil Press, 2006).

A common thread running through reviews of all Firth’s early collections were that they were “too sordid,” “too dark,” “too violent” and “too raunchy.” And like a bad aftertaste running through almost every individual review is Firth’s comparison with American underground writer, Charles Bukowski. Besides the most superficial of comparisons between these two writers, they could not be more different. While Bukowski’s fiction is largely based on his persona’s alcohol-fueled narcissism, misogyny, and misanthropy — Firth’s characters seek meaning, substance, and personal gratification in their bland, quotidian existence. Anyone who has followed Firth’s development as a writer from book to book, can attest to this distinction.

Which brings me to Firth’s fourth and most recent collection of short fiction, Shag Carpet Action (Anvil Press, 2011). When I read Firth described as “something of a disciple of the late American 20th-century author and poet Charles Bukowski” by Paul Gessell in The Ottawa Citizen, I was flabbergasted. But not entirely surprised, either.

Take, for instance, the first story, “Action.” A story about a voyeur watching a neighbour woman repeatedly having sex with a Spiderman action figure. Gessell figures the X-rated premise of “Action” to be preposterous…”an immensely sad story about the lengths unloved people will go to find something resembling intimacy.” Much like Gessell’s comparison of Firth with Bukowski, it is a shallow and pithy interpretation of a much more complex allegory. Rather than being a sad search for intimacy, Firth explores in this tight, punchy piece, middle-age sexual desire and obsession from the dual perspective of both sexes.

The novella, “Dog Fucker Blues,” which takes up almost half of Shag Carpet Action, is Matthew Firth’s best work to date. The story functions as a microcosm, of sorts, for all middle-aged men in the workplace, and the complex tightrope they walk in these uncertain economic times. What makes it transgressive isn’t the pill-pushing thugs or the drugged-out sex workers. It’s all the ways you learn to swallow the bullshit:

“When I hit twenty years of service, I just told myself I was on the downside, heading toward retirement way off in the distance. I looked at it this way: the job was like one drawn-out workday and I was into the afternoon. All I had to do was ride it out for another twenty years, call it a day…”(p.156, Shag Carpet Action)

Faultlines-XVI copyright by Devin McCawley

From the autobahn came the sudden sound of screeching rubber, metal impacting against metal, and breaking glass. In the spirit of the prevailing ambiguity and ambivalence, Ralf stood up and half-heartedly began to slice the cheese. Nearby in the grass lay the usual empty beer cans, crumpled cigarette packs, and used condoms, all waiting for someone to include them in some redundantly mundane and boring poem.

Cornelius lit a Cuban cigar and stared off into the stand of fir trees that defined the perimeter of the rest stop. He was overcome by an urgent desire to discuss the things he no longer cared about, which seemed to be increasing exponentially from day to day, perhaps even minute to minute, but then decided against it. Instead, he dipped into an ongoing reverie in which a recent trip to the island of Crete was replicated in all its detail. There was the room in the hotel above the harbor with its polished stone floor on which the rainwater that had blown in under the door to the balcony had collected in a shimmering puddle; there was the squeaking bed with its ornate iron bedstead; the bedside table with its kitschy neo-art-nouveau lamp; the hulking wooden armoire with its creaking doors; and the all-pervading fallow atmosphere of a mostly deserted holiday resort in Greece in the middle of winter.

Again the sound of screeching rubber, metal against metal, and shattering glass could be heard from the direction of the autobahn, thus bursting the bubble of Cornelius’s detailed and comprehensive recollection.

Bread and cheese were passed around, and vintage Coke was poured into the white plastic cups that Francine had so thoughtfully included, where it foamed and effervesced with cheery familiarity, despite its advanced age. “Cheers,” Francine said, raising her plastic cup. It was the first word spoken since their arrival at the rest stop, and although no one could possibly foresee it, it was to be the last word spoken during their brief interlude alongside the noisy autobahn.

The others raised their cups in silence, wordlessly acknowledging Francine’s well-meant toast.

Brigitte returned from the women’s toilets and fell upon the bread and cheese like a person starved. Ralf glanced down at an empty potato chip bag lying in the grass nearby and was immediately aware of the lines of a poem beginning to form in his head. It was a terrible habit. He quickly looked away and forced his mind to think of something else, but being the visual sort of person that he was, there was no other choice than to think about what he saw, which happened to be one of the truck drivers climbing up into the cab of his truck. He was dressed in jeans and cowboy boots, a red and black checkered shirt, a black leather vest, and a black cowboy hat. Had they been in America, this would not have seemed the least bit remarkable to Ralf, but since they were in Germany, this struck Ralf as being most odd and incongruous indeed.

The truck driver had left the door of the cab open while he got settled in his seat, and suddenly Ralf heard the familiar strains of Hank Williams’s Your Cheatin’ Heart, and was immediately reminded of one of his first girlfriends who had a BMW 2002 with an eight-track tape player in it and a meager collection of cartridges which included, among others, The Greatest Hits of Hank Williams, which, during the course of their relationship, they had certainly heard at least one million times, until one night the tape finally broke and became an impossible tangle of shimmering black tagliatelle.

There was another accident on the autobahn, this time apparently involving several vehicles in a series of thundering chain-reaction collisions. Sirens could be heard approaching in the distance.

Having devoured the last of the bread and cheese, Brigitte leaned back and lit a cigarette, pondering the scene she had just experienced in the women’s toilets. There had been a large, noisy group of gypsy women and their children, washing themselves and their clothes, while a portable gas samovar steamed on the floor in the corner. For the most part, the gypsies had ignored Brigitte and gone about their business, and Brigitte had followed suit, although there was one older woman who seemed not to be able to take her eyes off of Brigitte.

After Brigitte had washed her hands and was combing her hair in the steamed-over mirror, she suddenly became aware of the older woman standing next to her, gesturing with the open palm of her hand. Brigitte started to open her purse to get out her wallet, but the woman shook her head and pointed at Brigitte’s hand. Then Brigitte understood. She held her hand out, palm up, towards the woman, who took it in her own hand and began to study it with an expression of utmost earnestness. Without looking up, the woman began to speak, but it was a language that Brigitte couldn’t understand, much less even recognize. She tried to discern from the tone of the woman’s voice if what she was saying was either positive or negative in nature, but the woman spoke in a flat, even monotone that betrayed no emotion whatsoever, although it was obvious from the woman’s demeanor that what she was saying was of great import. Brigitte watched the lips of the woman move as they contoured to the language she was speaking, and noticed a small growth just below her left nostril, out of which grew three shiny black hairs.

There was a long, suspended screech of rubber, almost in slow motion, followed by the violent crumpling of sheet metal and the spraying of safety glass and suddenly Brigitte was aware of herself watching Francine packing the remnants of their meager roadside repast into the wicker picnic basket.

Cornelius and Ralf had both gotten to their feet, and were silently involved in a series of stretching exercises, prior to getting back in the car and continuing with their journey.

When the last of the plastic cups and the dusty bottle of Coke were packed away in the basket, Francine found herself absent-mindedly staring down at the worn surface of the cement table, with its slight green shimmer of moss, and was immediately reminded of a recent walk she’d taken through Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris, ostensibly to see the graves of Colette, Edith Piaf, Sarah Bernhardt, Oscar Wilde, Apollinaire, and the meister of remembrance of himself, Marcel Proust, when actually she had been most interested in seeing the grave of Jim Morrison, the infamous Lizard King, although she’d been too embarrassed to mention this to her friends.

She’d had no idea where to look for Jim Morrison’s grave, and couldn’t bring it upon herself to ask someone, but eventually she began to notice little arrows scratched roughly into the sides and backs of the tombstones and monuments, sometimes accompanied by the word Jim, and as she began to follow these crude signs they began to increase in frequency and complexity, sometimes including lyrics or quotes or poems. At one point she thought she heard some kind of music, and as she came around the corner of a large obelisk, she saw a group of people loosely gathered around a small plot, some standing, some sitting, with one guy strumming on an acoustic guitar, an inept attempt at Light My Fire, sung with a thick French accent.

Francine approached the grave, and then saw the small bust of Jim Morrison’s head, draped with beads and flowers and a pair of someone’s sunglasses, a crudely rolled joint pressed between the stone lips. The people gathered there were all quite young, dressed in vintage hippie garb, with colored scarves and snakeskin boots and black velvet jackets and fringed leather vests and a lot of other things that Francine hadn’t seen since high school. The people were passing around a joint, as well as a bottle of wine, talking in hushed tones, or just staring listlessly at the grave itself. The reverential atmosphere of the scene was impressive, but there was also something quite ludicrous about the entire scenario. Francine thought about the rumor that Jim Morrison hadn’t actually died, that he wasn’t buried in Père-Lachaise, and that he was alive and well and writing poetry somewhere in North Africa. It was with no small effort that she suppressed the urge to laugh out loud, although the last laugh certainly would have belonged to the Lizard King.

Then she was suddenly swept up in another powerful reminiscence of another visit to another grave in another part of the world. It had been mid-winter as she was visiting friends in Boston. She wanted to drive up to Lowell to see Jack Kerouac’s grave, but she couldn’t interest anyone to accompany her, and ended up going alone. Somewhere on the turnpike there had been a sign for Walden Pond; a big, blue, state highway sign like all the others along the turnpike. She hadn’t realized that she would be passing so close to the idyllic setting of Thoreau’s masterpiece, and wondered what he would think of seeing his humble abode listed as just another exit along the turnpike.

Having never been to Lowell, Francine had no idea where to look for traces of Jack Kerouac, and since she was expected back in Boston for dinner that evening, and somewhat pressed for time, she finally just asked someone on the street, who directed her to a downtown office of the state park system, where a woman in a ranger’s uniform gave her a handful of leaflets and maps and described the route out to Edson Cemetery where Jack Kerouac was buried.

Francine wandered around town for a while, trying to soak up the atmosphere and get a feeling for the place. There was Lowell High School, and there was the Paradise Diner, the supposed inspiration for the last name of Sal Paradise. It was bright and sunny, but there was a driving icy wind that seemed to cut through everything, including her clothes. Despite the abundance of sun and light, Francine had no problem seeing Lowell as the dreary, red brick mill town so often described by Kerouac. She went into the Boott Cotton Mills Museum where one of Kerouac’s rucksacks was on display in a glass case, complete with its well-worn contents. She looked closely at the small gas cooker, the battered aluminum mess kit, the plastic water bottle, the sewing kit, and a dog-eared little notebook with the pages full of penciled-in notes. Also on display in the same glass case was an old portable typewriter, worn and battered from years of constant use.

Afterwards Francine walked down the hill to the plaza where the Jack Kerouac Commemorative was located and read all the inscriptions on the massive stone monoliths, but the wind was just too cold to linger, and she got back in the car and headed out towards Edson Cemetery. The map she’d received was accurate and easy to read, and she parked outside the cemetery and walked in through the wide iron gate and continued to follow the directions on the map. It was a large cemetery, with the graves organized in neat rows, divided by streets into a symmetrical grid of blocks, much like a regular city neighborhood. The leafless trees formed stark, jagged silhouettes against the bright blue winter sky, while the leaves themselves swirled and skittered among the gravestones. Apparently she was the only person in the cemetery.

Suddenly Francine found herself standing directly over the grave of Jack Kerouac, a small rectangular slab of stone set into the grass, with the words Ti Jean inscribed across the top. Against her will, and in absolute contradiction with her personal nature, she was overcome by a feeling of immense sorrow and loss. She could feel tears forming in her eyes, in which the bright winter sun was now refracting, temporarily blinding her.

A long howl of abrading rubber was followed by a deafening grinding and smashing of metal and glass as a large truck jackknifed into the other cars already stationary on the autobahn after the previous accident. There was a muffled explosion as a car’s ruptured gas tank burst into flames. Francine closed the wicker basket and started towards their car. The others followed, and without exchanging as much as a single word, took up their places in the green Volvo station wagon. Ralf started the engine, searched futilely for a tape with some country music but then gave up, put it in gear, eased out the clutch, and started towards the autobahn, where thick, black smoke could be seen coiling up into the sky.

Francine sorted through the cassettes as well, looking for something by the Doors, and finding nothing, decided on a tape of traditional Gypsy violin music, which immediately launched Brigitte into another reverie, while Cornelius chewed on the cold stub of his cigar, trying to decide just what it was that he really cared about least of all. From somewhere in the distance came the sound of police and ambulance sirens, but they soon merged and mingled indistinguishably with the sound of the violin music, which Francine had decided to hear a little louder. It went without saying that the travelers were glad to be back on the road again.UG

Mark Terrill shipped out of San Francisco as a merchant seaman to the Far East and beyond, studied and spent time with Paul Bowles in Tangier, Morocco, and has lived in Germany since 1984, where he’s worked as a shipyard welder, road manager for rock bands, cook and postal worker. His writings and translations have appeared in over 500 literary journals and anthologies worldwide, a dozen chapbooks, several broadsides and four full-length collections, including Kid with Gray Eyes (Cedar Hill Books, 2001) and Bread & Fish (The Figures, 2002). He recently guest-edited a special German Poetry issue of the Atlanta Review, which includes his translations of Günter Grass, Peter Handke, Nicolas Born and many others. A four-time Pushcart Prize nominee, his own work has been translated into German, French and Portuguese, and he’s given readings in various venues in Amsterdam, Berlin, Paris and Prague. Together with the poet Cralan Kelder, Terrill co-edits the poetry journal Full Metal Poem. His most recent publications are a chapbook of his translations of the poetry of Jörg Fauser, An Evening in Europe (Toad Press), and a full-length collection of his translations of the poetry of Rolf Dieter Brinkmann, An Unchanging Blue, Selected Poems 1962-1975 (Parlor Press / Free Verse Editions). Currently he lives on the grounds of a former shipyard near Hamburg with his wife and a large brood of cats.

Relevant links:

Mark Terrill’s web site

Mark Terrill interviewed by Christopher Harter for Bathtub Gin

Jay Corsilles’ “motion representation” (a video) of Mark Terrill’s prose poem, “The Stream”

Five prose poems in Exquisite Corpse

Two prose poems in The Brooklyn Rail

A suite of five prose poems in Stride magazine

“A Poem for Uncertainties” in Rattle magazine

“A Poem for Patriots” in Diagram

Two poems in Nth Position

“The Sweltering Sky” in Poetry Flash

“Not About Now But Right After” (prose poem) in Wood Coin

Two translations of Rolf Dieter Brinkmann in Jacket magazine

Two translations of Jörg Fauser in no man’s land

Review of Full Metal Poem in The Prague Post

The editor generously thanks bart plantenga for his contribution of several rare, hard to find tracks in this mix.

Amsterdam performance artist, Diva AnAmontAnA, performs as part of the Mighty Aphrodite Variety Show at The Comedy Theater Nes as vaudeville burlesque comes to Amsterdam. What makes Diva AnAmontAnA’s performance so intriguing is how she combines vaudeville burlesque with traditional elements of Japanese Noh theatre. The result is purely delicious!

Eddie Woods writes poetry the way he lives life, intensely. Experience informs his art, and vice versa. Passion, raw edges, nothing left out. Sex, love, politics…coupled with an unrelenting drive towards awareness, the need to understand what universal reality is all about. The Irish poet Ewart Milne said of the poem “Mary,” following its publication in Peter Mortimer‘s Iron magazine [Issue 43, Tyne & Wear, England]: “It’s very powerful, strong and fearless, and it troubles the hell out of me!…It reminds me somehow of the brothel scene in Ulysses.” “My words are like bullets…Plus I have enough ammunition to wipe out as much opposition as will ever come up against me. And every bullet will hit the mark, because I am a good shot.” From the telephone prose-poem “Bloody Mary.” If, indeed, Eddie Woods’ words are bullets, then his poem “Mary” enters the listener’s ears like a wordbomb, exploding inside the mind, and reverberates down the spine like electroshocks from the brain’s pleasure centre. Introduced by the Amsterdam performance artist AnAmontAnA at Salon dAdA on May 1st, 2011 (in the above video), Eddie Woods describes AnA’s Salon “as pure Dada. Usually laced with clear sexual overtones and occasional nudity. You’ll find acts calling themselves The Sugar Sluts, et cetera.”

Mary

I am Mary,
mother of the true god
of cosmic adventure
and queen of the libertines.
I give myself to all comers
regardless of race, creed and size of penis.
I am available to women as well as men,
to plants as well as animals.
I fuck for nothing
but freely accept all tokens of appreciation,
negotiable or not.
I have no inhibitions,
there is no form of sex
to which I am not partial.
I will even talk to you over a cup of tea.

I am Mary,
patron goddess of all prostitutes,
the only true saints
humankind has ever known.
They give what others are unwilling to part with,
subject themselves to cruelties
others will not endure
and abide the scorn of their less liberated sisters.
Were all women as free as I,
as unattached to their mythical egos,
as unburdened by likes and dislikes,
as unadorned with vanity
and conditioned notions of the body’s needs,
then harlotry would cease to exist,
never again would desire be exploited.

I am Mary,
loving sister of all men,
provider of all their needs,
destroyer of all their wants.
Having seen with my inner mind
to the very core of all their frustrations,
I have also witnessed
the seeds of their aggressiveness,
the twisted roots of their hardened ambitions.
Sigmund Freud has taught me nothing,
I have learned all by opening my cunt,
exposing my bosom
and allowing the whole world
to massage my heart.
Were all women like me,
no man would need play
his ego-inflating games of seduction
nor sublimate his desires
by seeking to conquer the material world.
I deflate egos by hardening cocks.
I take the wind out of all masculine sails
and recycle its potency as a tantric generator.
By making lust sacred, I make men divine:
true gods never need prove themselves,
they live secure in total self-knowledge.

I am Mary,
anarchist princess of spiritual revolution,
scarlet perpetrator of crimes against ignorance,
debauched ascetic
in a cruel world of self-righteous gluttons.
I am the unprincipled advocate of sexual Tao,
I conquer hate by offering pleasure
and quell violence by permitting pain.
I am an empty well of immortal flesh
within whose depths only love can abide.
I am the golden maiden of carnal alchemy,
transforming all vice into highest virtue.
Because I am God I live without fear.
The devil is not my enemy but my self-created lover,
I embrace his darkness with arms of pure light,
giving human sensations their reward for being.
Live as I do and you shall never die.

I am Mary,
calling all my sisters out of their houses,
all my brothers out of their armies,
all my workers out of their factories,
all my admirers down from their temples,
all my lovers out of their shadows,
all my revilers up from their miseries,
all my ancestors out of their heresies,
all my descendants out of their destinies,
all my dreamers out of their fantasies.

I am Mary
and I am real.

The Pietà photo © by Diana Blok & Marlo Broekmans is used solely by permission.

A published poet & prose writer since his late teens, Eddie has variously worked as a short-order cook, computer programmer, encyclopedia salesman, restaurant manager, journalist (Bangkok Post, ABC Radio News, New York Times, Tehran Journal, etc.), radio DJ, and precious gems dealer. His work has appeared in numerous online and print periodicals, including Exquisite Corpse, Parisiana, Beat Scene, Sensitive Skin, Chanticleer/Ol’ Chanty, Primal Urge, Nictoglobe and Radio Joy.

In December 2011, Sloow Tapes (Stekene, Belgium) released Eddie’s The Faerie Princess & Other Poems on audio cassette. Order via email: sloowtapes ‘at’ gmail ‘dot’ com.

Photo of Eddie Woods © 2009 by Sacha de Boer.

Rumoured about for quite some time among long-time fans, ANT-BEE’s Electronic Church Muzik is James’ mini-opus, his homage to the late sixties, early seventies psychedelic freak scene.

Do not expect a nostalgic trip down memory lane, though, replete with all those psychedelic cliches we’ve grown so familiar with — long guitar solos, overly florid lyrics, or an effects-happy production (so much weirdness for weirdness sake). Electronic Church Muzik takes the dissonance of various disparate root elements — avant-garde, psychedelia, psychedelic blues, psychedelic rock, folk, and spoken word — and James brings them together under the allegorical quote made by Jimi Hendrix: ”We call it ‘Electric Church Music’ because to us music is a religion.” Thus, the religious overtones of this CD (from artwork is designed to look like a leather-bound Bible that folding open to reveal tracklisting and credits as biblical “verses”).

I kept being reminded of a particular phrase used in the 1970s to describe many well-known, psychedelic albums of that era: Headphones-to-oblivion. That phrase in reverse describes this CD exquisitely. Take a listen to these following tracks:

Eye of Agamoto

Don’t You Ever Learn

It’s easy to understand why such legendary Los Angeles musicians as Bunk Gardner, Don Preston, Buzz Gardner and Jimmy Carl Black (Mothers of Invention), Napoleon Murphy Brock (Zappa / George Duke), Peter Banks (YES, Flash), Jan Akkerman (Focus), Moogy Klingman (Utopia), Rockette Morton and Zoot Horn Rollo (Captain Beefheart’s Magic Band), Michael Bruce (Alice Cooper Group), Daevid Allen and Gilli Smyth (Gong) would join James on his Electronic Church Muzik CD.

As an independent, DIY artist, Billy James has constantly been on the cusp on emerging creative trends, embracing new technologies. He reveals new promotional, creative paradigms of independent recording and publishing not through theory, but his own actions.

Purchase Electronic Church Muzik at James’ website, then listen to his monthly UK radio program Listening Through A Glass Onyon broadcasted the first Sunday of every month at 12:00 noon EST at Get Ready to ROCK! Radio.

“Ant-Bee is the brainchild of one Billy James. Formed thru a series of musical experimentations in the recording studio back in 1987 in Los Angeles, Ant-Bee was born. “In 1988, Ant-Bee were signed to the notorious Los Angeles record company Voxx/Bomp Records. The first Ant-Bee album was Pure Electric Honey, and received rave reviews worldwide. The Ant-Bee became an overnight legend in the European underground. As an author, Billy James has written several critically acclaimed and best selling books, with various reprints and versions in different languages including No More Mr. Nice Guy – The Inside Story Of The Alice Cooper Group (with Michael Bruce) and Lunar Notes – Zoot Horn Rollo’s Capt. Beefheart Experience (with Bill Harkleroad). He is currently completing vol.2 of his Todd Rundgren biography. As a musical artist, James records under the guise of ANT-BEE and has several albums out, most recently, Electronic Church Muzik. Billy James also runs Glass Onyon PR, a full line publicity company. Some of his clients are Kevin Godley and Graham Gouldman (10cc), Wishbone Ash, Mark Volman (Turtles, Flo&Eddie), Vanilla Fudge, The Grand Mothers, The Lizards (ex-BOC/Rainbow), Don Preston and many more.