ABOUT THE PROJECT
Three One G and Pioneers Press have joined forces to start a publishing house. Released under the name Three One G/Pioneers Press, the books will showcase artists connected to Three One G's two-decade history of housing misfit music that encourages discord (as well as discourse) in a community which tends towards uniformity or exclusivity. Bands such as Cattle Decapitation, the Blood Brothers, Holy Molar, Get Hustle, Antioch Arrow, Orthrelm, Black Dice, and dozens more on this label combat pre-conceived notions of what it means to be "punk rock" or "hardcore" through their own radical concepts of music and performance.
HISTORY
Three One G was founded in 1996 by San Diego musician Justin Pearson (The Locust, Retox, Head Wound City, etc) and has since released 86 titles. From square two-inch CDs to gory picture discs and a full array of colored vinyl (heart-shaped, blood-splattered, creamy gold, etc), the label has helped redefine the art and aesthetics of physical releases in an increasingly digital era while supporting some of the heaviest and smartest bands working today.
Pioneers Press was started in 2012 by wayward San Diegan Jessie Duke. As Duke set out on a career in independent and underground publishing, she held Three One G as a model for her creative endeavors, and her publishing house is informed and influenced by the world Pearson built up around his label. Throughout the hustles and pitfalls of running a book-based company in a time unfriendly to print media, Duke has maintained an unwavering commitment to punk ethics, inspired by the unrelenting dedication to music and art demonstrated by Pearson and other members of the San Diego punk community.
ABOUT THE BOOK
The debut release is Adam Gnade's pocket-size short novel Locust House, which features a (fictional) set of characters en route to a (very real) San Diego house show to see their favorite bands (The Locust, Blood Brothers, etc) play the housemates' eviction party. Framed in the fashion of one-night coming-of-age films like Sixteen Candles and American Graffiti, but inspired by gothic-as-hell authors such as Flannery O'Conner and Cormac McCarthy, the book adds an unsettling dark element to the formula, with themes of joyful post-911 anti-Americanness, crushing grief, and violence as catharsis. It's a love letter and a story of lost illusions, a rally cry for better living and a shout of mortal horror. Like the music of the bands featured in the story, Gnade's book is short, brutal, and life-affirming.
RELEASE AND PRE-ORDER INFO
The book will be released April 5th.
Keep tabs on ThreeOneG.com and PioneersPress.com for future titles to be announced.
