The SideCartel is a small collective of writers, musicians and artists who distribute their work via publishing books and have a regular outlet for their musings at the esoteric, online pop culture magazine, outsideleft.com; a love letter to less-revered celebrities, featuring healthy helpings of mostly forgotten culture and pop-inspired opinion. .
The SideCartel published two books in 2006, which I wanted to let all you good people, whilst teetering on The Brink and testing the new layout here, know about. `Cos they contain some good stuff; leftfield, alternative cultural commentary has been collected in;

THE FIRST OUTSIDELEFT HARDY ANNUAL (SideCartel)

Containing snippets, comments and observations from such luminaries as Joe Ambrose, Kirk Lake, Alex V. Cook, Michael Alarcon, Andy Ellison and Erin Pipes, amongst others, ranging from anything that they feel demands and cries out for an interpretation, a context or analysis. They have culled mercilessly from the very best columns of outsideleft.com to fill the pages of this collection. It will make you laugh, cry, smoulder and may even, gulp, inspire and cajole your participation here on The Brink.
The Hardy Annual grows on you, trust me, I might be a............doctor?
LA based Painter and Writer Annemiek de Hann managed to bring in an eco-consciousness, hitherto undiscovered, saying of the Hardy Annual; " the OutsideLeft book compiles some of our greatest stories of the year into a compendium handy for reading on the bus ".
So go get a bus, save the emissions and read a cult publication at the same time ! Double your trendiness quota......................

The other book they published last year, in September, was an announcement of the arrival of " a new passionate voice in the world of rock journalism ", a certain Alex V. Cook. Entitled;

DARKNESS, RACKET AND TWANG - Essential Listening from the Fringes of Popular and Unpopular Music (SideCartel, 199 pages).

Cook dispenses slabs of vehement, contentious, salty and ardent insight into the often fleeting rapport between the listener/auditor, and, the music/artist. Cook ventilates that vapid of vacuum`s existing within most mainstream music journalism with, what Drive-By Truckers Patterson Hood concludes, is as " enlightening and at times (like any book about music should be) infuriating ".
That very sugar rush of refreshing friction (we too experience, my friends) is the essence of what Cook ably spouts in each article on the records and music that fringe the modern cultural twilight zone.
Cook scours the music of artists such as Ryan Adams, Bonnie `Prince` Billy, The Black Keys, Broken Social Scene, Roky Erikson, The Fall, fred Weaver, I Love You But I`ve Chosen Darkness, Nashville Pussy, The National, Ariel Pink, Lou Reed, Stereolab, Sunn O))), Ulver, Scott Walker, Gillian Welch and Yo La Tengo in his first book. Based in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Cook`s writing has been compared to Chuck Klosterman and he has the endorsement of Tim Westergren, Founder of Pandora and The Music Genome Project.
Author Joe Ambrose has this to say about Cook;
" Alex V. Cook is a music gourmet. His ears are tuned to the sound of America today. He must have more CDs than Imelda Marcos had shoes ".

The music-obsessed at last have a fickle analyst to sooth their furrowed and sweating brows.
AAhhhhhhhhhh, therapy.
Yeah, its that good !!

Paul H. copyriteon! 02/2007

Available NOW from the;
www.sidecartel.com, www.amazon.com and, of course, www.amazon.co.uk and all reputable and selected disreputable book shops

Culled always with loving care from;
www.outsideleft.com

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