MIKE DAILY: ALARM

Mike Daily

ALARM

© 2007 Mike Daily (634479529351)

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ALARM by Portland author/recording artist Mike Daily is a 212-page lyrical novel (and accompanying double CD) of confusion, alienation, and rediscovery in the post-9/11 era that reads like a love letter to a friend and a promise to the future.

notes

[ABOUT ALARM]
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"ALARM is a fantastically real account of life as we know it--and especially succeeds at uncovering the humor and magic of our most normal days working, loving, and living."

--CRAIG FINN, lyricist and guitarist, The Hold Steady
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ALARM carries on the humorously visual narratives of fictional character Mick O'Grady, introduced in Daily's first published novel, Valley (Bend Press, 1998). Of that novel, RAY GUN MAGAZINE wrote, "Mike Daily packs so many stylish smash cuts into Valley, MTV dulls by comparison."

In ALARM, the humorously visual narrative engages another dimension. The novel includes two full-length CDs: one studio, the other a compilation of live performances featuring Mike Daily's spoken words excerpted from the book and performed with his band, O'GRADY.

ALARM finds O'Grady "settling into unsettlement" in the weeks after the hit on the World Trade Center. He's jobless, watching the news, shaky in his relationship, cautious with friends, curious with strangers. He's lost. But as the story progresses, his movements become more purposeful. He needs to eat. He gets a job. He gets two jobs.

ALARM is a stripped-down novel (and accompanying audio artifact) of confusion, alienation, and rediscovery of hope in the post-9/11 era that reads like a love letter to a friend and a promise to the future.


[ABOUT MIKE DAILY]
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"Your promotion of ALARM is fascinating. You've made its publication an act of performance art. It's a new dimension for fiction, and you're the first to enter it. O brave new world, that has such a writer in it!"

--JEROME KLINKOWITZ, literary critic and author
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Mike Daily is a novelist, recording artist, and blogmaster who frequently performs his work in Portland, Oregon, as vocalist for the experimental fiction rock band, O'GRADY.


[ABOUT O'GRADY]
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"O'GRADY is like a seizure--of music, of language. Mike Daily has created his own kind of conniption fit lit-rock, in which everything that occurs, even the smallest detail, takes on the texture of rapturous epiphany. It's nothing less than a thrill to watch."

--GARETT STRICKLAND, host of Portland's Phase One: Words + Music series
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O'GRADY is a mix of freestyle storytelling and improvisational music. In 2006, O'GRADY performed at the FC2 Writer's Edge event at Ash Street, at the Chiasmus Press publication party for Northwest Edge III at Disjecta Gallery, and as opening act for Kill Rock Stars artists Wooden Wand at Someday Lounge.

ALARM features: Jason Begin, A.L. Hungate, jDUB, Matt McCullough, J. Morales, David Moscovich, Francis O'Plague, Mia Payne (vocals), Chutz Ponderosa, Kevin Sampsell (reading), Luke Strahota, Emilie Strange (vocals), Sub-Sic.

All 36 tracks were mastered by Antreo Pukay, Tell Tale Recording.

The last major incarnation of O'GRADY was jDUB/drums, Adam Levi Hungate/guitar, Chutz Ponderosa/bass, Daily/fiction, Nora Robertson as "Jocelynn".


[PORTLAND PERFORMANCES]

O'GRADY (Mike Daily and Whitney Woolf) did a presentation of fiction/improvisational sound at MindBuck Media Salon on November 23, 2007. It was filmed by Mykle Hansen.

Mike Daily read at Reading Frenzy on August 22, 2007.

Daily rolled out O'GRADY with jDUB on sampler at the FC2 Writer's Edge student reading on Saturday, July 28, 2007, at Someday Lounge.

O'GRADY performed as a drums/fiction duo (jDUB and Mike Daily) with Nora Robertson as "Jocelynn" at Ash Street Saloon on July 26, 2007.

Daily read from ALARM at Powell's City of Books (Burnside location) on June 25, 2007. PDX hip hop artist Sticks Downey rapped dialogue bits from ALARM and contributed the beats.

Mike Daily performed with O'GRADY at Someday Lounge on June 20, 2007, for Phase One: Words + Music--along with Pecos B, Jackie-O Motherfucker, others. The show was broadcast live via Someday Lounge's "Virtual Stage" (and has since been archived) on www.somedaylounge.com.


[SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA APPEARANCES]

Mike Daily was the featured guest on "The Poetry Show" on www.kbeach.org, an Internet radio show hosted by G. Murray Thomas at California State University Long Beach on Friday, May 2, 2008, at 10pm. Most music is made to be lost.

Daily did a live performance and book signing at Chapman University in Orange, CA, on Monday, May 5, 2008. Daily/O'GRADY (Whitney Woolf on improvised electronics) was introduced by professor, novelist, screenwriter Mark Axelrod.

Daily returned to the coffee shop and all-ages punk rock venue where he was "the guy behind the counter" (as fictionalized in ALARM) and was Featured Reader at Cobalt Cafe in Canoga Park, CA, on Tuesday, May 6, 2008, at 9pm! Hosted by Lupert. Rick Lupert. This was the last performance of ALARM.

reviews

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  • exquisitely existentially neurotically honest.
    author: Matsunaga

    Mick O'Grady doesn't just drone through the day after day after day after the day before. He actually stops to think about it. And then his friend, Mike Daily, writes it down for him; they make a great team. With accompanying CD's musically mixing words spoken, ALARM is quite unlike, yet faithfully as honest, as Daily's previous effort, VALLEY. Though within these pages one may not find an answer to the all pervading question, "What is the meaning of this?", we average droners will find this puzzle posed in manners which we can pause our days to shed light on our own meanings to our own oft-overlooked experiences. And this is Encouraging.

  • author: Brad at CD Baby

    This double CD and accompanying 212 page novel is a package, a gripping excursion of spoken word and experimental sounds that delves deeply into the broken mess of a society that is all-consuming but seems to need nothing. Told from two different but simultaneously engaged perspectives, this lyrically dense and aurally compelling collection of songs is a soundtrack abstract, a cohesive yet jagged splicing of stark voices, flits, buzzes, instruments and found sounds that evoke time and place, while instinctively reflecting the ever-changing perspective of the narrator(s). The first CD is studio recordings, offering a more controlled environment that allows the density of the words to run free on the palate, jutting in and out while matching inflexion with the various percussive background elements. The second disc is a field recording, a live semi-improvised set that adds a raw element to the songs and provides ever ascending levels of grit and intensity. Filled with humor, wit, and a frightening comfort, this multifaceted collection is a spot-on dedication to modern life and its charmingly fastidious tendencies.

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