paper moon's birthday, hell yeah pubs, and a new project | capital ART

paper moon’s birthday! and a zine!

march 1st represented a year since paper moon opened it’s doors on 4th street, in a space joshua gruft, aka “josh” akaka “dj mercy” referred to as “irresistible.”

last thursday, i had the incredible honor of continuing our year long residency as the weird poetry people and, finally, putting a book of my own on the shelf. on sunday, i had the even higher honor of sitting down with josh to talk to him about his experience owning and running paper moon through it’s first year. that interview is available in full on our youtube channel, and embedded below.

josh and i can relate on many points — not being “big readers,” fully supporting john cena’s heel turn, thinking ghostface is the clear best wu-tang member — but the most important is a dedication and appreciation of the capital region arts scene. a latham-native, josh has played in bands and run dj sets all over the world. but something about the hometown is alluring. there is a scene here which is, necessarily, diy and punk.

if you want to party, throw a party; if you don’t want to throw a party, leave.

coming out of covid, josh was on a crusade against phones as he started publishing hypersaturation and distributing castle jackal. finding flea markets and trade shows too inconsistent, josh yearned for a storefront. when the space became available, he jumped at the opportunity.

you might know paper moon now for it’s many shows — you can catch folk punk bands, poets, and djs doing crazy shit — or it’s selection of vintage literature and dragon ball z tapes. when it started, though, josh was really looking to help build a home for zine culture in the capital region, which paper moon still does.

and you can tell, because we’re preparing to release the next issue of the paper moon zine right now. if you recently got an acceptance, hell yeah! if you recently got a rejection, sorry! it was about space, not quality. preorders are live now.

this scene and the paper moon location are a labor of love for the local scene, and we hope to see you all out even more now that it’s warming up again.

a book

on march 14th of 2024, i had the honor of hosting the first poetry night and the first post-opening show at paper moon.

josh and i had both run similar events before and felt that the moon would make a great home, but we expected it to be a slow build.

instead, it exploded.

we’ve since had small mics which functioned more like hangouts and shows that crawled out the door. we’ve sweat through summer and huddled around space heaters. we’ve made friends and family and built a routine zine which, may i say, fucks.

i was a writer before i was anything. then, i was a musician. a rapper.

when you’re making hip-hop, you might call a project an album or a mixtape. the difference used to be that the latter was free and the former cost money, then streaming happened.

these days, the difference is that a mixtape is a collection of songs that are, at best, loosely connected. an album has themes, motifs. a great album, in my opinion at least, is best read from start to finish; takes an energy from its starting zero cross to its final.

if i was going to put a book out, it was going to be an album, not a mixtape.

mid20s is a collection of writing from my college years, largely 2021 to 2024, which is known to cause existential dread but not weeping. it contains my thoughts, feelings, and experiences from breakups, professional remixing, falling and being in love, learning and relearning relationships with family and friends.

it is so titled because, while i recognize many of my experiences have been unique, i believe that i lived the mid-twenties that everyone in their mid-twenties in the mid-20s lived. it was fucked up by covid and the weird fucked up covid people and defined by codependent relationships and drugs and so on.

further, i had said previously that if i was going to put a book out it would not be self-published. and this… kinda isn’t.

while i do serve as the head, and largely solitary operator of hell yeah lit, the first book is my work because i believe, arrogantly, that mine is a strong lead and, humbly, because i didn’t want to ask anyone else to serve as a scapegoat.

if things go right, and they will, this will be the first in a series of books from new, local publisher hell yeah lit.

grab a copy on our website, at paper moon, or wherever else i can be found.

a sample from the book: snapshots and emo albums.

buy the book and preorder the zine at hellyeahlit.com!

closing out stacks

brushes & pens is a community focused mixed genre show we’ve been running since december. in that time, we’ve done incredible work in the community and also bought grabba. unfortunately, we’ll soon be looking to re-home.

join us this friday as we burn the bar down wistfully mourn the loss of venue and possibly dress up as me?

upcoming events

the rest of the month on the moon looks like this:
March 22nd: Groop Lab.

Dancing on the moon. Grinding on the moon.

March 23rd: Dicqbeats.

Electronic experiments traveling through your brain waves.

March 27th: Paper Moon Zine Release.

submissions are closed but the mic is open. get your copy and spit some poems live on the moon.

March 31st: Explicit Hard Beats presents Producer Night.

its like an open mic for the aux cord.

and the rest of the month at stacks looks like:
March 22nd: Vinny’s Board + Video Game Night.
There’s games and stuff.

March 28th: EDM DJ Showcase.

Come get your electronic dance on with DJ P!nk P!xl, Dogtoy, and Nicballs_

March 29th: KeepFit by Keisha Workout Party

Fitness coffee in your mouth.

March 30th: Troy Music Academy Showcase.

Music! Academics! Fuck yeah!

“what am i reading?”

this is capitalART, a new project that i probably have time for.

local media is growing again, but can’t cover everything. as hell yeah lit has received more requests for a calendar, to be on tiktok, etc, it was clear that we could do more with that then simply promote our own stuff.

while this issue is purely a test — and offering you all the ability to unsub — the future will be much denser.

this newsletter will collect weekly articles profiling local artists, local businesses, and events happening in the capital region. we’re going to seek to collect as much info as we can about what’s going on, what you might want to know about, and who the cool people behind all of it are.

tell your friends!

next time on capital ART

• an interview with ik.tomii.

• some notes on fuck city.

• digital poetry feats.

• more events from around the region.