Feral House – förlag

Winner of the 2005 Independent Publisher Book Award in Erotica. The punk rock pin-up cultural phenomenon known as suicidegirls.com includes journal entries excerpted from the site and over 200 artful, color photos.

"Bloodcurdling shrieks, fiendish schemes, deeds of darkness, mayhem and mutilation—we all have a rough idea of what Grand Guignol stands for. But until now it has been hard to find out much more about it than that. According to the American theater historian Mel Gordon, no major history of the theater so much as mentions it, although it is a form of entertainment that held its own on the Paris stage for more than half a century. But Mr. Gordon has made a thorough job of filling the gap."—John Gross, The New York Times

Here is the expanded edition of classic outré book, The Grand Guignol, first published in 1988 and now long out of print.

Like the original anthology, it includes an illustrated introduction to the theater of Paris and abroad, a breakdown of its stage tricks, a summary of one hundred plots, extensive photo documentation, André de Lord''s essay, "Fear in Literature," and two originally produced Grand Guignol scripts.

The expanded edition also contains additional graphic and textual material including a color insert of Grand Guignol posters; the 1938 autobiographical account of Maxa, the company''s leading female performer entitled "I Am the Maddest Woman in the World"; and the controversial playscript Orgy in the Lighthouse.

"Adam Gorightly offers a unique take on virtually every conspiracy of our time."—Erskine Payton, Erskine Overnight

Kerry Thornley never imagined that after starting a spoof religion in the 1950s that worshipped Eris—the Greek goddess of chaos and discord—that this seeming joke would unleash a torrent of actual chaos into his life in the years to follow.

During the late 1950s, Thornley became friends with Lee Harvey Oswald when the two served together in the Marines, and was actually writing a novel based on Oswald three years before John F. Kennedy''s assassination. These connections would later cause New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison to suspect that Thornley was one of the notorious Oswald doubles and a part of a JFK assassination plot. Initially, Thornley denied these allegations, but later came to believe that he''d been used as an unwitting pawn in the conspiracy.

Adam Gorightly is best known for his book on the Manson Family, The Shadow Over Santa Susana: Black Magic, Mind Control and the Manson Family Mythos. Adam has appeared as a guest on numerous radio shows such as Coast To Coast AM with Ian Punnett and Ground Zero with Clyde Lewis. Television appearances include the History Channel''s documentary The Manson Murders.

"Mae''s work may be more relevant now than in her heyday. Like those of many other freedom fighters throughout history, the ghost of Mae Brussell will never rest till justice is served."—Tim Cahill

"The main Brussell thesis, if I dare risk commit the sin of summary on her complex work, was that an ex-Nazi scientist-Old Boy OSS clique in the CIA using Mafia hit men changed the course of American history by bumping off one and all, high and low, who became an irritant to them."—Warren Hinkle, San Francisco Examiner columnist

The Essential Mae Brussell is a compilation of chilling essays and radio transcripts by the seminal American anti-fascist researcher, famously supported by John Lennon and Yoko Ono.

Mae Brussell was a married housewife with five children living in southern California before she took up the study of fascism in America. After the Kennedy assassination, she purchased the twenty-six-volume Warren Commission Report, and compiled, for herself, evidence that Lee Harvey Oswald was, as he maintained after his arrest, a "patsy." She had a regular radio broadcast on KLRB, an independent FM radio station in Carmel, California. She also published articles in Paul Krassner''s the Realist, Hustler, People''s Almanac, and the Berkeley Barb. In 1983, Mae''s hour-long program shifted to KAZU-FM in Pacific Grove, California, and she remained on the air weekly until her final broadcast in June 1988. On October 3, 1988, at sixty-six, Brussell died of cancer.

The Secret Life of a Satanist steps behind the curtain with the founder and High Priest of the Church of Satan.

What is contemporary Satanism, and why would one start a church dedicated to the Dark One? It wasn''t a rebellion against an oppressive religious upbringing; it was Anton Szandor LaVey''s disgust with most of humanity. Drawing from Jack London, H.L. Mencken, Friedrich Nietzsche, Marquis de Sade, George Bernard Shaw, John Milton, Benjamin Franklin, and a host of reprobates, with a large dose of alchemy and black magic, LaVey formulated a philosophy that deeply resonated with him.

LaVey did not worship Satan; he paid homage to the rebellious spirit of innovation, defiance, and self-reliance that the archetype embodied. His background as a musician, circus lion trainer, hypnotist, and police photographer is covered here. The author, who later became his paramour and mother to his only son, was allowed extraordinary access to documents concerning his life, testimonies from people who had known him for years, and, most importantly, anecdotes and fond memories from a man living out of his time.

After the original publication of this biography in 1990, LaVey and Blanche Barton fought through the Satanic Panic together, and guided the Church for another seven years. This revised edition adds a dozen new and never-before-seen images.

"There was never an artist who came close to capturing horror and dread like Lee Brown Coye. He was master of the weird and grotesque illustration. Coye''s sketches had the shape of nightmares."—Robert Weinberg, The Weird Tales Story

"It was always my belief that a good drawing was a good drawing, whether it was in the archives of the Metropolitain Museum or in a pulp magazine."— Lee Brown Coye

No other artist working in mid-century pulp fiction created work as twisted as Lee Brown Coye. By the 1970s, after surviving a life-threatening illness, Coye would outdo himself, creating lurid illustrations exclusive to rare privately published books and fanzines. With nearly one hundred gloriously rendered Coye-penned images, Pulp Macabre showcases Coye''s final and darkest era, containing some of the most passionately ghoulish artwork ever made.

Mike Hunchback is an enthusiast of various eras of extreme and bizarre underground art, and is currently working on a biography of original Fangoria magazine editor Robert "Uncle Bob" Martin.

Caleb Braaten operates Sacred Bones Records, which has recently teamed with David Lynch to release his new album The Big Dream.

There used to be a time when designers were trained in the history of composition. Now you just buy a fuckin'' piece of software and now you''ve become a designer.

"Art Chantry . . . Is he a Luddite?" asks a Rhode Island School of Design poster promoting a Chantry lecture. "Or is he a graphic design hero?"

For decades this avatar of low-tech design has fought against the cheap and easy use of digital software. Chantry''s homage to expired technology, and his inspired use of Xerox machines and X-Acto blade cuts of printed material, created a much-copied style during the grunge period and beyond.

Chantry''s designs were published in Some People Can''t Surf: The Graphic Design of Art Chantry (Chronicle Books), exhibited at the Seattle Art Museum, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian, and the Louvre.

More recently, Chantry has drawn upon his extraordinary collection of twentieth-century graphic art to create compelling histories of the forgotten and unknown on essays he has posted on his Facebook page. These essays might lionize the unrecognized illustrators of screws, wrenches, and pipes in equipment catalogs. Other posts might reveal how some famous artists were improperly recognized.

Art Chantry Speaks is the kind of opinionated art history you''ve always wanted to read but were never assigned.

Ian Brady and Myra Hindley''s spree of torture, sexual abuse, and murder of children in the 1960s was one of the most appalling series of crimes ever committed in England, and remains almost daily fixated upon by the tabloid press. In The Gates of Janus, Ian Brady himself allows us a glimpse into the mind of a murderer as he analyzes a dozen other serial crimes and killers.

Criminal profiling by a criminal was not invented by the dramatists of Dexter.

Novelist and true-crime writer Colin Wilson, author of the famous and influential book The Outsider, remarks in his introduction to Brady''s book that one must first explore the depraved reaches of human consciousness to truly understand human character.

When first released in 2001, The Gates of Janus sparked controversy attended by a huge media splash. The new edition, the first in paperback, provides the reader with a decade and a half of updates, including Brady''s letters to the publisher, both providing information regarding his own demented history along with demands that Feral House remove its unflattering afterword written by author Peter Sotos.

Neighbors From Hell finds itself nestled in the "children''s book for adults" niche in the vein of Go the Fuck to Sleep. The book tells the story of the real life monsters in America who could be living next door, people like a repo man, a reality TV star, or a slumlord.

The playful rhymes provide the reader (whether a child or an adult), an informed perspective on the biggest social and economic problems facing our country.

Taras Kharecko illustrates stories by AlterNet editor Jan Frel and prolific author John Dolan that will intrigue children of all ages and terrify adults who understand the real damage caused by these monsters in our neighborhood.

The infamous eco-anarchist John Zerzan whose books have resulted in recent interviews by Vice and Believer magazines, checks in with further provocative articles about the chaotic results of civilization and technology.

Says novelist Lang Gore in his introduction:

"The present collection of essays continues the overarching thrust of John''s scholarship, unveiling the post-apocalyptic nature of our times by noting the apocalypse was yesterday, several thousand years ago, to be precise, and that nothing produced by civilization can ever redeem the systematic attempt it has undertaken these (very) few millennia to destroy or alienate any human connection with the earth.

"In fact, when civilized Europeans imposed themselves everywhere on Earth, they created a terminal crisis for themselves by their very contact with indigenous societies. Suddenly, those with eyes to see and ears to hear could recognize that patriarchy, property and authority, and certainly slavery, were neither necessary nor desirable, let alone determined by ''human nature.''"

Famous for its revolutionary aspects in musical, political, sexual identity and consumerist ideas, punk rock also has its lesser-known gangster ethos as well, explained here by players in the various punk gangs.

The Los Angeles, Orange County, and South Bay punk scenes, populated by blue collar kids who responded to the violence and aggression of punk songs and shows. A number of them formed punk gangs that got into beatings, drug dealing and murder. Among them, no gang was more notorious than La Mirada Punks, or LMP.

Says LMP chieftain Frank the Shank after getting arrested by police for murder: "After having my hands in so much bloodshed over the years, I most certainly had it coming. I deserved whatever I got."

Unexpectedly Frank was bailed out from prison by his father''s friend, a mob gangster.

"Too many people died at the hands of punk rock violence," said Frank. "I got lucky, some didn''t. As an ultra-violent punk rock gangster, I admit my part in ruining the scene. L.A. punk was a magical moment of youth expression like no other. And the gangs ruined punk rock. I still have people telling me today that they quit punk because of LMP. I dig graves at a small cemetery just outside Los Angeles. What else would you expect for Frank the Shank?"

Cover illustration by the renowned Raymond Pettibon.

"Here is a window inside the Jihad... presented here in its bare face without a distorting commentary.”—Jeremy Glover, Headpress

"(C)ontains essays and fascinating images that will render you serious, humbled and even a bit sympathetic... Extreme Islam''s deranged carnival succeeds in shocking most when the ‘extremists’ themselves are lucid, poignant and poetic."—R.U. Sirius, LA Weekly

"If Howard Bloom is only ten percent right, we''ll have to drastically revise our notions of the universe through the contagious joy of a great mind set loose on the biggest intellectual puzzles humans have ever faced. Whether you''re a scientist or hyper-curious layperson, Bloom''s argument will rock your world." — Barbara Ehrenreich on Howard Bloom''s The God Problem

Osama bin Laden called Mohammad "a Prophet of Conquest." Pakistan''s Universal Sunnah Foundation brags that under Mohammad''s battlefield leadership, "Islam spread an average of 317 square miles per day."

Right now ISIS, al Qaeda, Boko Haram, and the Supreme Leader of Iran know that Islam toppled two of the biggest superpowers in history—Rome and Persia—then took over two-thirds of the inhabited world. Militant Muslims believe that Islam is on the brink of doing it again. The Muhammad Code: How a Desert Prophet Brought You ISIS, al Qaeda, and Boko Haram lays bare the origins of this profoundly dangerous belief.

Many contemporary thinkers excuse Islamic violence as a legitimate reaction to Western imperialism. They blame America''s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the establishment of Israel in 1948. But Jihad was invented in 624 AD by the only prophet ever to call himself "The Prophet of War." And that prophet was not responding to "legitimate grievances," but an ambition for world conquest.

Who is seeking to destroy all esoteric religious movements, starting with The Process Church of the Final Judgement? The Process was the most fascinating innovative cult of the 1960s, then vanished for four decades before being virtually reborn by the use of information technology. Revival seems to be fiction, yet it’s based on fact and explores the implications of the internet, and the disintegration of conventional faiths. As reported in the author’s anthropological study, Satan’s Power, the Process was polytheistic, asserting the union of Jehovah with Lucifer, and the unity of Christ with Satan. Each Process member was a fragment of a god, with a corresponding personality trait: Jehovah = Discipline, Lucifer = Liberation, Christ = Unification, Satan = Separation.

Before the first page of this book, the computer magician who resurrected the Process Church was murdered. Was this man Christ?

Christianity may be the opposite of what it seems, a Satanic plot that subconsciously preaches, “Release the fiend that lies dormant within you, for he is strong and ruthless, and his power is far beyond the bounds of human frailty. Come forth in your savage might, rampant with the lust of battle, tense and quivering with the urge to strike, to smash, to split asunder all that seek to detain you.” Can the surviving Processeans achieve the hopes expressed in their blessing: “May the life-giving water of the Lord Christ and the purifying fire of the Lord Satan bring the presence of love and unity into this assembly”?

The City of Roses, as natives of Portland, Oregon like to call it, has a long and honorable history of crime and corruption, starting as far back as the post-Civil War frontier days, leading into the mobster-infused decades of the twentieth century when prohibition, prostitution, gambling, and hard drugs besieged the town.

The so-called Great Portland Vice Scandal of 1956-57 spilled into national politics, with hearings before the Senate Rackets Committee. When the ''70s rolled around, members of the police narcotics squad were caught red-handed perpetrating nefarious deeds. This Northwest city, known best today for its punk rock and hipster comedies like Portlandia, was once overrun with corruption and foul play.

Rose City Vice reveals a city where the cops are putting drugs back on the street, maybe even committing murder. The city council is high on coke, and the mayor is carrying on a clandestine sexual relationship with 13-year- old schoolgirl while under surveillance by the vice squad. It''s 1970''s Portland and blackmail is in the air.

"I was a Long Island kid that graduated college in 1976 and moved to Greenwich Village. Two years later, I was working The Mudd Club door. Standing outside, staring at the crowd, it was "out there" versus "in here" and I was on the inside. The Mudd Club was filled with the famous and soon- to- be famous, along with an eclectic core of Mudd regulars who gave the place its identity. Everyone from Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jeff Koons, and Robert Rauschenberg to Johnny Rotten, The Hell''s Angels, and John Belushi: passing through, passing out, and some, passing on. Marianne Faithful and Talking Heads, Frank Zappa, William Burroughs, and even Kenneth Anger— just a few of the names that stepped on stage. No Wave and Post- Punk artists, musicians, filmmakers, and writers living in a nighttime world on the cusp of two decades. This book is a cornucopia of memories and images, and how this famed wicked downtown club attained the status of midtown and uptown. There was nothing else like it— I met everyone, and the job quickly defined me. I thought I could handle it, and for a while, I did. "—Richard Boch

The story of the most famous female pirate in history provides a remarkable personal odyssey from a time when women were almost powerless and at the lowest level of the social order on both sides of the Atlantic. This new biographical work fills considerable gaps in Anne Bonny’s life beyond her mythology to rescue an actual person for posterity.

After turning her back on everything she knew growing up in South Carolina to find a sense of personal freedom, Anne Bonny sailed the Caribbean’s pristine waters during the Golden Age of Piracy in the early eighteenth century. Few accurate records exist about these law-breakers, whose lifestyles called for hanging. Fortunately, Anne Bonny was a notable exception to the rule, as she was caught off the Jamaican coast and tried by a court of law, whose records have fortunately survived.

So, who was the real Anne Bonny? A heartless prostitute, a bloodthirsty psychopathic, or a compassionate woman of faith and courage? Such a fundamental question has not been adequately answered by historians for 300 years. It is now time to take a fresh look at the life of Anne Bonny to present a corrective view into not only her story but also the seldom explored, but incredibly rich, field of women’s history.

The Anne Bonny mythology is today popularly told in Starz channel’s Black Sails and the video game Assassin''s Creed.

We recognize the names: Achilles, Odysseus, Zeus, and Apollo. We''re taught that The Iliad is a foundational text of civilization. But who has really read the text? Until now, The Iliad was hijacked by academics and used to bludgeon schoolchildren as a boring-yet- mandatory reading.

Poet, novelist, essayist, and former teacher John Dolan revisits this ancient tale and restores it to its ancient glory. The Greeks and Trojans are still fighting. The gods are still interfering. But in Dolan''s version, you''ll be amazed at how funny, raw, and terrifying this doomed world of war really is. He strips away clunky, archaic language to reveal the true meaning and themes that animate this tale of war and futility.

John Dolan''s work under the nom de guerre "Gary Brecher The War Nerd" has been met with both acclaim and controversy. Dolan''s version of The Iliad is sapped of the usual saccharine romance attributed to "heroes" and lets the action tell the story. Regardless of attributed name, Dolan/Brecher is an astute observer of modern warfare who now turns that keen analysis to the most classical of documented battles, The Iliad.

John Dolan now works with Mark Ames (of eXile fame) to produce the Radio War Nerd weekly podcast on military matters. Born in Denver, Colorado, Dolan currently lives in Macedonia.

The American anarchist, primitivist philosopher, and author John Zerzan critiques agriculture-based civilization as inherently oppressive and advocates drawing upon the life of hunter-gatherers as an inspiration for what free society should look like. Subjects of his criticism include domestication, language, symbolic thought, and the concept of time.

This book includes sixteen essays ranging from the beginning of civilization to today’s general crisis. Zerzan provides a critical perspective about civilization.

A People’s History of Civilization includes chapters about:PatriarchyThe City and its InmatesWar Enters the PictureThe Bronze AgeThe Axial AgeThe Crisis of Late AntiquityRevolt and HeresyModernity Takes ChargeWho Killed Ned LuddCultural LuddismIndustrialism and ResistanceDecadenceWWICivilization’s Pathological Endgame

In recent years, John Zerzan, co-editor of Black and Green Review, has successfully toured Europe to speak from his primitivist perspective regarding contemporary civilization. Zerzan calls Eugene, Oregon

“I was for a very long time passionately in love with her, as I’m sure she’s guessed. Every male in the world, and a number of females also were, and we all still are.” —David Bowie

“Françoise was the ultimate pin-up of most hip bedroom walls, and I know for a fact that Brian Jones and Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and many other pop stars were desperately interested in having Françoise Hardy become their girlfriend in some way.” —Malcolm McLaren

Françoise Hardy is best known in Europe for originating the famed “Yé-Yé” sound in pop music which began a cultural scene in the early 1960s. Her teenage success grew as she became a much-photographed fashion model and actress. Adored for her shy beauty and emotional songwriting, she sang hit songs in French, Italian, and German. In The Despair of Monkeys and Other Trifles, she bares her soul and tells the truth of her relationships, fears, and triumphs as well as the hard-won wisdom carved from a life well-lived.

This unusually-titled memoir has sold millions of copies in its French, German, Italian, and Spanish editions in recent years. This first English-language release is expertly translated by Jon E. Graham. The book contains dozens of images in addition to Hardy’s intimate recollections of her upbringing and career.

Françoise Hardy, an accomplished songwriter and lyricist also collaborated with accomplished songwriters such as Leonard Cohen, Serge Gainsbourg, and Patrick Modiano. Both her early pop work and later material in a complex and mature style helped generate a dedicated cult following. Both her husband, Jacques Dutronc, and son, Thomas Dutronc, are respected musicians in France.