TRUTH SERUM PRODUCTIONS

"events by and for big-brained people" since 1995


Information on Lisa Carver and her new book and also Dame Darcy

Drugs Are Nice A Post-Punk Memoir By Lisa Crystal Carver Coming September 2005

About the book: With Drugs Are Nice, Lisa Carver has created the first enduring memoir of her subculture and generation. Called one of Playboy's "favorite cultural observers" and Boston Magazine's "supreme culturalanthropologist," Lisa Carver's has written widely on popular music, art, and her own sex life (as a Nerve.com diarist). In Drugs Are Nice, she charts the birth of the movement she helped create, from the dizzying highs of European performance art tours to the genesis of the zine phenomenon. It's an extraordinary life, told by a writer only now coming into her own as a major literary voice.

In 1987 in the small town of Dover, New Hampshire, Lisa and her best friend Rachel--both seventeen--set up a punk show at the Veteran's Hall. When the headlining act got lost and drunk and never showed up, the audience was angry and the promoters hid in the bathroom. Then Lisa got an idea. The girls put on the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, mounted the stage, smoked cigars, caterwauled, took off their clothes and hit things and people. Suckdog--called "the most interesting band in the world" by England's Melody Maker--was born.

Lisa Carver left for Europe at the age of eighteen, quickly becoming a teen publisher (of the fanzines Dirt and Rollerderby), a teen bride (to French performance artist Jean-Louis Costes), and a teen prostitute (turning her first trick a few days before turning 20). Hustler called Rollerderby "quite possibly the greatest zine ever," and The Utne Reader chooses Lisa Carver as one of the "100 Visionaries Who Will Change Your Life."

But when her baby was born in 1994 with a chromosomal deletion and his dad--industrial music maven and rumored neo-Nazi Boyd Rice--became violent, Lisa began to realize the life that needed changing was her own. A story of lasting lightness and surprising gravity, Drugs is a book about the generation that wanted to break every rule. A definitive account of rules broken, left intact and re-written forever, it ripens into the classic account of an artist and a mother becoming an adult on her own terms.

About the author: Lisa Crystal Carver was born in 1968 to a drug dealer father and an English teacher mother. Instead of going to college, she toured the U.S. and Europe six times in the performance art troupe Suckdog. They put out three albums, including "Drugs Are Nice," which Spin called one of the best records of the 90s. Lisa Carver started the magazine Rollerderby, did a short stint as a prostitute, and has written for Newsday, Playboy, Nerve, The Utne Reader, Mademoiselle, Details, and Glamour. Her book Dancing Queen came out in '96 (Henry Holt). She's interviewed Courtney Love, Beck, Lydia Lunch, Sonic Youth, Anton LaVey, GG Allin, and Jon Spencer and was featured on MTV, VH1, HBO, and NPR - most recently on the May 7th 2004 edition of This American Life ("The Way to a Boy's Heart Is Through His Stomach"). Lisa Carver is a Nerve.com sex diarist. She lives in the small town of Dover, New Hampshire, with nine-year-old Wolfgang, and Mercedes, who is two.

High Quality jpegs are available on request. email aliza (at) truthserum . org

http://www.suckdog.net/
http://www.myspace.com/drugsarenice
http://www.softskull.com

here are some quotes by people:
Lisa Carver is one of our favorite cultural observers. —Chip Rowe, Playboy
The 31-year-old married mother from Dover may well be the country's supreme cultural anthropologist: part literary provocateur, part social analyst. She's been called everything from this decade's ultimate underground Renaissance woman to America's horniest optimist. Hunter S. Thompson in a miniskirt.� —Gretchen Voss, Boston Magazine
It's as if Carver is in perpetual twilight, her id chewing away with a superego's logorrhea. Often what makes writing great isn't an author's ideas, but the meticulous diagram of her pathologies. —D. Strauss, The New York Observer
With the same crass, clever prose that makes her homespun zine Rollerderby a counterculture classic, Carver likes to focus on life's pleasures [in Dancing Queen]. She is a postmodern knight of faith, gracefully transforming the awkward shifts between being and thinking into a disco dance. —Toronto Globe and Mail
Lisa is the laugh, the fart, the make out, the beauty, the LIFE. She is a messenger of God. —Thurston Moore (Sonic Youth)

About Dame Darcy: Dame Darcy won a scholarship to the San Francisco Art Institute in 1989. She majored in film and studied animation under Larry Jordan. That same year, Darcy self-published the first issue of her comic book, "Meat Cake." She also began her endeavors in freelance illustration and cartoon work for various Bay Area magazines, newspapers, and underground 'zines.

The Dame began her career as an actress with parts in local independent films by directors such as George Kuchar. She began her music career at the tender age of nine and has since been involved in various bands, solo projects, and cabaret. Darcy plays Banjo, singing saw, electric bass, and sings. Her albums have been released in the U.S., England, Japan, and elsewhere.

In 1991, "Meat Cake" was signed to Fantagraphics Books, the largest independent comic book publisher in the United States. In 1992 Dame Darcy moved to the East Coast. In June 1999 Darcy toured in the US opening for Michael Gira's current band, "Angels of Light." Later that summer, she went on a European tour to exhibit art and perform. In May 2000, Darcy toured with "Meat Cake The Play," which was staged in seven different locations on the East Coast.

In August 2000, "Dame Darcy and EZ Bake Coven Cabaret" was hosted by Ladyfest in Olympia, Washington. In October 2000, Darcy was invited to judge the animation segment of the New York Film Expo.

In December 2001, a Japanese gallery and record label invited Darcy to fly to Tokyo and Kyoto to exhibit original comics, paintings, and dolls. She also performed with her band, "Gem in Eye," and Victor Witch Dr. TNT. In April 2002, her solo exhibit premiered in the Richard Heller Gallery at Bergamot Station in Santa Monica. In July 2002, she was invited to do a doll crafting workshop, perform with Gem in Eye, and lecture about Women In Comics for the San Francisco Ladyfest.

In 2004, a CD compilation entitled "Dame Darcy's Greatest Hits," was released. It features murder ballads, sea shanties, and other experimental folk/death rock. Also, another CD compilation "My Eyes Have Seen the Glory," features Dame Darcy, and many other collaborators.

L.A.-based Symphony is soon to release a CD for Dame Darcy's second band, "Aye Aye Captain." This music will be distributed by K Records, along with Darcy's other art and products. Most recently, a Meat Cake compilation was released.

In the meantime, Darcy continues to hand-craft and sell her wares through various online outlets. In 2004, she premiered a line of tops, reminiscent of the Japanese Gothic Lolita trend, but wholly Darcy-esque. Even more stunning is her collection of couture. She is presently touring with her band "Death By Doll."

http://www.damedarcy.com/
http://www.myspace.com/dame_darcy