Author Archive
December 22, 2011 at 11:24 am · Filed under From the Trenches, posted by pfm
-
We’re thrilled to present the four-song debut release from Underground Reverie, Seattle’s premier anarchist electronic ensemble:
Underground Reverie
“Out of Isolation and into the Fray”
Four-Song Debut [27MB]
The release is free, of course—but if you can, please show your appreciation by making a donation to the legal fund of those arrested in last month’s building occupation in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. To do so, go to Paypal and donate to the email address ‘defendoccupychapelhillarrestees@riseup.net’; further inquiries can be addressed to that same email address. Learn more about the arrestees here.
One of these songs appeared in our video coverage of the aforementioned building occupation. Since this is the digital age, we can already offer a review of the release, courtesy of Seattle’s excellent Tides of Flame [PDF]:
“Underground Reverie’s debut album is throbbing, haunting, and completely amazing. Samples from helicopters, owlish flutes, various films (including Network), and eerie old songs flesh out a skeleton of delicate electronic beats. The music is as much about the horrors of civilization as it is about the raw beauty of struggle. In the liner notes, UR reflects on anarchist praxis and encourages us to keep fighting.”
Contact Underground Reverie: undergroundreverie@riseup.net
October 25, 2011 at 5:06 pm · Filed under Hot Off the Presses, posted by pfm
-
As police violence intensifies alongside the inequalities it exists to enforce, some communities are mobilizing to defend themselves, while others have yet to understand why this is necessary. In response, we’ve prepared a bulk newsprint version of our poster stressing the structural role the police play in maintaining capitalism.
These are available practically at cost; please order a pile of them to distribute in your neighborhood, school, or occupation or to decorate the walls of your city! Note that they have been added to the Poster Mix Kit as well.
In addition, we’ve prepared a new text for the back of the poster, Seven Myths about the Police. A full pdf of the print version is available here.
We’ve also yet again reprinted our Civilian’s Guide to Direct Action, which remains available in bulk as well. This paper offers a step-by-step overview of how to act directly to transform society, rather than bogging down in fruitless efforts to exert influence through bureaucratic channels.
October 8, 2011 at 11:23 am · Filed under Calling All Anarchists, posted by pfm
-
Test Their Logik is currently on a ten-week tour of Europe promoting their new album “A”. They’ll be traveling everywhere between England, Greece, and Catalonia, stopping at the anarchist book fair in London and the G20 in Cannes and playing shows at legendary squats and social centers. Joining them at some of these shows will be some of the best European anti-authoritarian hip-hop acts, including Mary Read Collectif, DJ Malatesta, and Drowning Dog.
Read the rest of this entry »
October 7, 2011 at 8:47 pm · Filed under Hot Off the Presses, posted by pfm
-
Starting with the occupation of a park next to Wall Street on September 17, a new movement is spreading across the country in which people gather in public spaces in protest against social inequalities. We’ll present a full analysis of this phenomenon here shortly; in the meantime, here’s an open letter to the occupation movement, engaging with some of the issues that have arisen thus far. Please forward this widely and print out versions to distribute at the “Occupy” events!
Dear Occupiers [online viewing version]
Dear Occupiers [print version]: A two-sided flier intended to be folded down the middle, longways.
Read the rest of this entry »
July 7, 2011 at 11:44 pm · Filed under From the Trenches, posted by pfm
-
Our friends in the Mysterious Rabbit Puppet Army, whose work we’ve shared here before, just embarked on a month-long tour to present their newest shows. The feature show, “What Are Prisons For?”, uses shadow puppets to outline the history of the Prison Industrial Complex from chattel slavery in the South to today’s exploding prison population.
Tour dates after the jump!
June 27, 2011 at 8:48 am · Filed under Hot Off the Presses, posted by pfm
-
We’re relieved to announce that, at long last, the “new” printing of Work has arrived here in Salem. We’ve put the binding through extensive torture testing, and by all accounts it has held up extraordinarily—these are the books as they should have been the first time.
This ludicrous saga of faulty production has taken years from our lives, but sitting here, paging through a copy, makes it all worth it—we really love this book, and hope you do too. All backordered copies have been mailed out as of Saturday, to arrive in hands shortly. New orders will be shipped out immediately. Thanks to everyone for their patience and understanding.
Credit and exchange instructions for people with defective copies after the break.
May 22, 2011 at 12:49 am · Filed under Internal Memos, posted by pfm
The good news is we hope this will be the last update about our difficulties bringing our newest book, Work, into the world, and our next announcement will be that they are finally ready to ship out. The bad news is all the intermittent disasters and disappointments that got us here: we’ve had numerous setbacks and failed attempts to repair the books we had printed, all of which took an absurd amount of time to deliver untenable results to get us to where we are now—basically, right back at zero.
Work is now being reprinted, and we expect to have copies to mail out mid-June. For the hundreds of you who have back-ordered the book—anticipating, as did we, that they would be available by now—we offer our most sincere apologies. Never did we imagine this fiasco would be extended for so long. You have three options: 1) Do nothing and your book will be among the first ones sent out a month from now, 2) Cancel your order by emailing us, or 3) E-mail us to remove Work from your order, and we’ll ship out the rest immediately (send emails to house@crimethinc.com). Details of the exchange/credit program for people who received defective copies will be announced once we have the new copies in hand. Thanks everyone for your patience during what has been a genuine nightmare for us!
May 1, 2011 at 12:03 am · Filed under Read All About It, posted by pfm
-
To mark the coming of May Day, we’re delighted to take part in the online debut of the subMedia film END:CIV, now available in it’s entirety—for free, of course—at our movie sub-site, the CrimethInc. Emergency Broadcast System.
The 76 minute film examines our culture’s addiction to systematic violence and environmental exploitation, and probes the resulting epidemic of poisoned landscapes and shell-shocked nations. Based in part on Endgame, the best-selling book by Derrick Jensen, END:CIV asks: “If your homeland was invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air, and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?”
Backed by Jensen’s narrative, the film calls on us to act as if we truly love this land, moving along at a brisk pace, using music, archival footage, motion graphics, animation, slapstick and satire to deconstruct the global economic system, even as it implodes around us. Featuring interviews with Paul Watson, Waziyatawin, Gord Hill, Michael Becker, Peter Gelderloos, Lierre Keith, James Howard Kunstler, Stephanie McMillan, Qwatsinas, Rod Coronado, John Zerzan and more.
April 19, 2011 at 11:03 pm · Filed under Internal Memos, posted by pfm
We’re absolutely heartbroken to have to announce that the print run for our new book Work has been discovered to contain a high number of books with a production defect where the front cover can easily become detached from the rest of the book. We’ve fielded enough reports over the last few days to be sure the problem is not isolated, and thusly, we are suspending shipments of the book immediately. We are currently in negotiations with the printer as to how to fix this problem, and it is likely to take several weeks to resolve. You can be sure that until we are certain we have books in hand that do not have the defect, we won’t be sending any out.
For details on the problem itself, and how we are going to make things right with people already in possession of faulty books, read on.
April 4, 2011 at 10:38 am · Filed under Hot Off the Presses, posted by pfm
We’ve just reprinted three of our best-known titles: Days of War, Nights of Love, Expect Resistance, and Off the Map. For the new printing of Days of War, we went the extra mile and subtly improved the entire design from cover to cover. The lighthearted do-it-yourself aesthetic of our first book remains one of its charms, but we’ve learned a lot in the intervening decade and couldn’t resist the opportunity to polish it up a bit. When things here settle down a bit, we’ll post a thorough review of the changes and the ideas behind them. Needless to say, it’s a constant temptation to go back and improve older projects rather than focusing on new ones, but rest assured we’re not about to rest on our laurels any time soon. The new printings of Expect Resistance and Off the Map include no significant departures from the last ones—though a few small production gremlins that haunted the last printing of ER have been eradicated, and there is a tiny surprise awaiting people who receive this new version. Starting immediately, all orders will receive the ‘new’ versions.
As foreshadowed in our “State of the Union Address,” we’re also increasing the prices of our books slightly. This will help us stay solvent so we can take on other printing projects rather than simply retreating to the obscurity of virtual publishing. A quick glance at our colleagues’ prices will confirm that our books are still more affordable than almost anyone else’s.
The flip side of the price increases is that later in 2011 we plan to debut free electronic versions of all our books, refined, adjusted, and enhanced to make the most of various digital formats. These will take us some time to prepare, however, so please be patient.
April 2, 2011 at 9:53 am · Filed under Internal Memos, posted by pfm
-
To set the stage for next week’s announcements, we present to you the free bookmark that will be included in the first 999 orders of the new book. Hand printed on the letterpress in our garage, it might just be possible to feel some of the excitement and thrill we had making these in preparation for the book’s release.
More photos and letterpress geekery after the jump.
March 30, 2011 at 9:04 am · Filed under Hot Off the Presses, posted by pfm
For years, we’ve searched for a way people could watch our movies over the internet in the quality they deserve, rather than just pirating terrible low-quality versions. Finally, we’ve set up the CrimethInc. Emergency Broadcast System, an online movie-viewing theater. Four movies are currently available on the page: pickAxe, Breaking the Spell, The Miami Model, and Subversive Action Films‘ excellent The Chicago Conspiracy. The site is quite rudimentary right now, but we plan on having Spanish-subtitled versions up soon, adding more features, and expanding the collection as times goes on.
The first three of these are also available on our Guerilla Film Series DVD, along with five other video shorts; The Chicago Conspiracy is also available on DVD from the directors. We urge viewers to support the filmmakers who are sharing their work by buying their DVDs or donating to them: filmmaking is one of the most expensive mediums, and without financial support we can expect fewer and lower quality radical movies in the future, at precisely the time that more are needed.
Check out the Frequently Asked Questions page for more information, and enjoy these four finely-crafted documentary films.
March 29, 2011 at 9:33 am · Filed under Internal Memos, posted by pfm
-
In just a couple days, we’ll unveil our newest round of projects—some of our most ambitious in several years. But first, we’d like to offer a glimpse into our internal discussions. We’ve been trying to figure out how to handle our current financial difficulties while rendering our materials more widely accessible; we think we’ve hit upon a solution, but we’ll need your support to make it work.
Read on after the jump.
March 14, 2011 at 10:26 am · Filed under Hot Off the Presses, posted by pfm
-
During last June’s G20 protests, the Canadian government brought trumped up conspiracy charges against our friends Test Their Logik, accusing the hip hop duo of causing the riot that destroyed downtown with their hit video “Crash the Meeting.” The two were imprisoned, then forbidden contact upon release, as part of a massive campaign of repression that ultimately targeted over 1000 people.
In response, we released a collection of their material as a benefit for G20 defendants. Now that the prosecutors have admitted that their charges were groundless and dropped their no-contact injunction, Test Their Logik are back in action and coming harder than ever. Featuring a cameo by fan Glenn Beck of Fox News, their new video “Conspiracy Rap” sends a big fuck you to the ones who tried to stop them and offers a preview of their first official album, which we’ll be helping them release this May. Like “Crash The Meeting,” this video was produced by Anarkid, a self-taught multi-media warrior and VJ from Montreal bent on radicalizing the rave scene.
Test Their Logik will be touring extensively this spring to support the release of their new album, showing that resistance cannot be stopped by any amount of repression. Meanwhile, over a dozen people still face serious charges as part of the same conspiracy rap the Canadian government tried to pin on Test Their Logik; the Guelph Anarchist Black Cross has released this zine to publicize their situation, which we strongly encourage you to print out and distribute.
Check out their tour dates after the jump.
March 10, 2011 at 8:28 am · Filed under From the Trenches, posted by pfm
-
Since February 15, the capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin has been at the center of a storm of popular protest against proposed austerity measures including anti-union legislation. Hundreds of people occupied the building until March 3, touching off other actions around the state, including an ongoing university occupation in Milwaukee that began March 2.
On March 9, while Senate Democrats were absent in protest, Wisconsin’s Republican Senators passed a bill stripping public-sector unions of collective bargaining rights. In response, thousands returned to the capitol building, forcing open windows and pushing past state patrolmen to reenter and occupy it. Police eventually gave up attempting to control the crowds, and the announcement went out that they would not remove demonstrators from the building despite the court order that had forced the end of the previous occupation. At the high point on Wednesday evening, several thousand people filled the first three floors of the building entirely; after midnight, a few hundred still remained, despite the usual pleas from authoritarian organizers for people to leave.
Unions are legally prohibited from calling for a general strike, but there has been much talk of striking. In any case, a series of protests are planned for the next several days. In addition to this list of demonstrations Thursday morning, Thursday evening a flash mob is planned for the university library in Madison at 10 pm, Saturday farmers will drive their tractors into Madison in protest, and it’s rumored that teaching assistants will go on strike on Monday when the state contract with the Teaching Assistants’ Association expires.
Events are still unfolding in Wisconsin, and may yet escalate further. But we can already draw some conclusions from them, which can guide us in the months ahead–for Wisconsin is surely only the first of many states that will see public outrage over austerity measures.
Read our full report and analysis.
Older Entries »
-
Underground Reverie
