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FANZINE (AND I MEAN IT!) REVIEW! VULCHER #1!

THE MODERN DAY FANZINE REFUSES TO DIE! I think Edgard Varese once said that after thumbing through a copy of ZAPPAFAN, but to be honest and upfront about it yeah, the entire fanzine concept does live on even in a day an age when it has been pretty much obliterated by the immediacy of internet and virtual blobs like myself being able to put our putrid opinions to "print" within the course of a mere click.

But for those of us who spent our formative years gobbling up all of the 'zineage that we could afford if only because doing so gave us an inside seat on the under-the-underground (and besides it was sure great not having to comb through a standard rock magazine to find that one brief mention of the Velvet Underground in an ocean of Christopher Cross), seeing an honest-to-goodness fanzine in our midst is certainly cause for celebration.

VULCHER borrows from all of the great rock 'n roll fanzines of the seventies and eighties which figures considering how some of the greats of the form have put their heart, soul and perhaps a few sinews into this initial effort (initial unless you count that VULCHER insert that popped up in a copy of [I believe] THE WIUS TIPSHEET that is). This shebang was put together by none other'n the backbone of not only a slew of seventies-era fanzines but the recently-reunited Gizmos, mainly Eddie Flowers and Kenne Highland, and if you dug their various seventies and eighties rockscreeding mania then I'm sure you'll have more'n just a passing passion for this particular publication.

You probably wouldn't have thought that the original under-the-underground rock flame re. the Gizmos and various other DIY cranker-outers would still be "relevant" (hippie word) a good forty years later but it sure is and each and every word pulsating from these pages is proof enough that the high energy express is still roaring away even if the engineers are now eligible for senior discounts and have green teeth. Really, if your tastes in reading veer closer to TEENAGE WASTELAND GAZETTE and NIX ON PIX than they do say, SALON then hey this is one magazine that'll keep you from slashin' the throat at least for a short while.

Speaking of TEENAGE WASTELAND GAZETTE, Adny Shernoff is not in these pages, And speaking of NIX ON PIX neither is Peter Tomlinson. And etc. of CAN'T BUY A THRILL's Russell Desmond. Neither are Richard Meltzer or Lester Bangs, though I wouldn't have expected anything from the latter. However, Jymn Parrett of DENIM DELINQUENT is (with a review of the Alice Cooper live '69 LP reish) as is John Bialas (BOOGIE) on Kitty Carlisle (who I thought looked tres sexy during her v. early Francaise days), Lindsay Hutton (THE NEXT BIG THING) on  Mowgil and the Donuts and yeah I don't know who they are either!, and of course Kenne Highland, Rick Coffee and Eddie Flowers on a whole SLEW of things...heck, it's THEIR magazine, they put up the moolah for it and they can do whatever they want!

(...an I do mean it, because like, surprises ABOUND! Take Mr. Flowers' article on Heavy Mother, a local [talkin' the days of Flowers' youth in Alabama] biker band the child prodigy first wrote about in the pages of the aforementioned TWG back when he was like a mere twelve or so. For years I thought this band had sprung from the fertile mind of Flowers...y'know, like they were just made up 'n all just to impress Shernoff enough to publish the entire gag, but it turns out that these guys were FOR REAL!!!! They even put out their own single too, and like if I hadn't read this article I woulda thought until doomsday that it was just a gag, and pretty funny one at that!!!!)

As far as eighties-era fanscrawlers go Byron Coley (thee ultimate rockscriber of that decade and beyond) appears as does Tim Hinely (on the Gibson Brothers!),  Gary Pig Gold (maybe he should be in the seventies division but eh!), Bruce Mowat on an email interview with Kitten Natividad (she of the big suckems) that is bound to never be, and David Laing on Daddy Cool pop up. Even some newer names from the likes of Sir Plastic Crimewave as well as some oldsters not necessarily known for their writing skills like Craig Bell  and his wife show up! That's a pretty good amalgamation of visual crunch ya got, and if you like I still yearn for the eternal throb of seventies bare-wired intensity put into print well man, you better latch onto this and do so with pride in your chest like a robin with a breastfulla worms as Don Van Vliet might have put it!

Subject matter includes, besides the previously mentioned enticers,  krautrock, punk rock top 100, Sonny Vincent, Simply Saucer, Zero Boys, Louie Louie (the group!) and Werewheels. Top that off with loads of crazy pix, comix, drawings, photos and little visual surprises (panels taken from PEANUTS, NANCY, KRAZY KAT and a Tijuana Bible put to perfect lysergic use) and you gotchaself a pretty hot fanzine for the ages there bub! Definitely one that will fit snugly within not only the rest of your 'zine output, but within your music addled psyche so like, get it and pronto!