Perpetual Motion Roadshow

The Perpetual Motion Roadshow was an independent-press touring circuit that ran monthly through the United States and Canada from April 2003 to March 2007. Founded by Toronto science-fiction novelist Jim Munroe and his company, No Media Kings, the Roadshow featured underground novelists, poets, comics artists, musicians and comedians. Its slogan was "NO BORING READINGS OR YOUR MONEY BACK!"

Munroe described the tour as "an unholy combination of a vaudevillian variety show and a punk-rock tour... running on pure volunteer power and dirty dirty gasoline." ["What the Hell?", Perpetual Motion Roadshow website [http://www.perpetualmotionroadshow.com] ] The tour typically looped the east coast of North America from May to October and the west coast from November to April.

More than one hundred writers and performers went on the tour during its run. ["Ten Lessons from the Roadshow", NoMediaKings.org [http://nomediakings.org/press/roadshow_lessons.html] , April 4, 2007.] Among the writers showcased on the tour were Bucky Sinister, Wred Fright, Jennifer Whiteford, Joe Meno and Todd Dills.

History

The first Roadshow was in April 2003, featuring New York spoken-word artist Corey Frost, Boston fiction writer Charlie-girl Anders and Toronto comic artist Marc Ngui. [Tinguely, Vincent, "Civic Loops", "The Montreal Mirror", April 17, 2003.] This tour went to venues in New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Boston, Toronto and Montreal -- often in independent bookstores or zine libraries.

The west-coast tours began the following autumn. Tourmates often performed in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Jose, Seattle, Portland and Vancouver.

In the last two years of the Roadshow's run, Munroe handed over the coordination duties to Roadshow alumni. Sean Carswell, Liisa Ladouceur, Megan Butcher and Jeff Cottrill each had a turn as coordinator of the monthly tours ["Ten Lessons from the Roadshow", NoMediaKings.org [http://nomediakings.org/press/roadshow_lessons.html] , April 4, 2007.] , although Cottrill received much criticism from some circles for filling the tour lineups with bad slam poets and bizarre performance artists rather than with the quality writers of previous tours.

Notes