Customer Reviews

Sex and Guts, Vol. 4

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I've never seen anything like this. A kind of super-intense book-form interview anthology, with lots of fiction and articles tossed about, mainly focused on the angry, intense literature and movies. Wound up reading a friend's copy while she was on the phone, and by the time she hung up, I'd read most of the Margaret Cho interview and knew this was something WAY different. It's been a good ten years since I paid any attention to zines and the underground scene in general, I got out of college, bought a house, and took on "the adult world". Sex and Guts made me realize how much I'd left behind with my beach bum/slacker days, when my friends were all in bands and little magazines were all over. I actually used to know a few of the people in here. This book has a real kick to it, gets you reading, and every ten minutes laughing your head off. It got me interested in Lydia Lunch again, and Gene Gregrits is pretty hilarious with these interviews, I'll be looking for more from him. True, there's a lot of familiar names here, but they're handled in a fresh and engaging way that gets you thinking, with long conversation type interviews, with digressions and bickering and some really nasty, smart humor. It's a real gem, in a gonzo sort of style which is authentic and scathing at times. Might piss you off in sections but that's part of its charm. I loved it!!!!

Something for just about anyone interested in anything dark, lurid and unusual. I read S&G quickly cover to cover and now find myself, years later, still revisiting it one article at a time.

The review underneath is, unfortunately, biased. Well-written, but biased all the same. Reading the review, it becomes painfully aware that said reviewer is probably a friend of Lunch's or Gregorits'.

My appraisal will be short, but bitter: This book sucks.

Yeah, RE/Search isn't like this...but then again, V. Vale doesn't obsess over Britney Spears throughout his books.

I'd like it if it weren't as pompous as it is. If you can get it for 5 bucks somewhere, do so. Reading this is like a trainwreck meets a miscarriage.

Ladies and gentlemen...

Do not let the above review dissuade you. Don't let it corrupt you, footbind you, blind you, or cripple you. I'm not exactly sure what criteria said reviewer suckles or embraces... but it's obviously somehow misguided.

Allow a voice of reason to shout from the mountains: Sex and Guts no. 4 is, without a doubt, the best collection of interviews and articles that I've EVER had the pleasure to read. And I'll stand on record as saying that it's miles above Vale or Juno's most recent offerings. Think RE/Search with a speed charged pulse, the best parts of David Kerekes' Headpress, and a big spoonful of Jim Goad attitude.

Editors Gene and Lydia should be applauded for giving us this slice of cake. Warhol's Interview be damned! SG no. 4 makes everything else look like grade school scribbling...

John Szpunar
Barrel Entertainment

Pointless. I'd expect more from a Lydia Lunch project. This Gergrotis person conducts tedious, self-serving interviews and writes like an pseudo-anguished 16-year old. The rest of the writing is equally embarassing, mundane at best. I'd only recommend purchasing this in order to sell it as a collectable in 10 years.

This Gregoritis character sure fancies himself. Unfortunately, that makes for rather tedious reading.