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FANZINE FANABLA!

Reading old rock magazines, especially old rock fanzines written in the classic neo-Bangs/Meltzer "tradition", really makes me happier'n a twelve-year-old boy locked all night in an adult book shop. Not all of the following fanzines live up to the extremely high standards I use to judge a rock read of quality but hey, they are somewhat if not totally better'n most all of the music related dishout hackdom you've been reading since the early-eighties at least! Well, at least none of them had Parke Puterbaugh contributin' to 'em so you can read on with some sort of ease in mind.

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Let's start this 'un off with the return of some old favorites, the first of 'em bein' the tenth issue of that infamous "standby" O. REXTASY. This ish sees Solomon Gruberger and company headin' into that fandom-promoted punk underclass that alla these guys were dreamin' about way back inna early seventies and whilst making a pretty good whoop about it inna process. Thanks be to Meltzer that the like of Solomon Gruberger and company were still stickin' to their seventies pop and hard rock roots inna process, and once again thanks to the one called "R" that none of the writers involved come off like those types who are all up on the latest hip trends and coolness that usually abound in these rags. Believe you me, O. REXTASY comes off like the kinda mag I sure wish there were more of these days, though frankly given the state of the kinda music we gotta endure why bother?

Lotsa fun on lotsa pages that are maybe a li'l too faded to read with some entertaining hype regarding heavy metal, Bachman-Turner Overdrive, a dubious talk by Iggy Stooge himself, the Ramones, Nigel Olsson (!) and of course a sneaky plug regarding the then-recent O. Rex single. Another important entry into the annals of what the real "rock press" of the day was all about, an' I don't mean Yawn Wenner's outmoded concept of youth revolutionaries settling into radicalism for fun and money either!

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The other new faverave guaranteed to keep your mind off your usual toilet unpleasantries is the March 23, 1978 issue of Nancy Foster's NEW AGE. This issue is in the standard xerox fashion which might seem like a huge comedown from the earlier slick 'n offset one, but otherwise the same sorta power and stamina that pulsated through not only the other issues on hand but Foster's later-on GROOVE ASSOCIATES effort shines through.

Cover boys Fox Pass get the royal treatment what with a Jon Macey interview not to mention some additional wordson the group from Foster herself, while a gosh-all review of Lou's STREET HASSLE makes me think that maybe Lou Reed wasn't the creep Adny Shernoff made him out to be after all! 

There's also a review of Boston faves Reddy Teddy live at New York's Great Gildersleeves, a quote from Arthur Rimbaud and more of Nancy's poetry along with some snaps of her looking all goth placed next to one of The Count in his vampire gear. The mix of fun and personal sure makes me wish """""I""""" had a life, that's for sure! 

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English fanzines devoted to the more psychedelic of musics amongst us have been sprouting up and about for years. Most of them seem to be patterened after the early ZIGZAGs from way back when that mag was extremely situated with the usual headshop and crash pad strain of youth kultur of the day. Some of these fanzines like COMSTOCK LODE were worth their weight in patchouli because, even though the spirit of San Fran '67 seeped through the mag's very nerves, editor John Platt and his wife were still alert enough to note the importance of late-sixties Rokyisms and then-current rock underground concerns. Others were more staid in their adherence to the more sunshine grooves of the distant past to the point where one could only wonder if these guys were still seeing pretty colors even after fifty years of not being able to find any good windowpane. 

Dunno exactly where DARK STAR fits in with regards to this English fanzine canon, but on the whole I find the thing a rather staid and boring effort which doesn't have much if any of a spark to it. In fact in no way can I see this mag setting one's mind afire with thoughts of rock as that high energy form of pounce that still resonates lo these many years later (at least with crotchety old turds such as myself). But then again I have about as much interest in the likes of David Lindley and Buckingham/Nicks as I have of lopping my head off just so I can lose ten ugly pounds!    

Only the Flamin' Groovies piece featuring a rather extended and intelligent enough interview with Cyril Jordan made my purchase one of lasting worth. Other'n that I get the feeling that the intended audience that DARK STAR was aimed at tended to be that local hippie with the head band who was still stuck in some raging radical mindset fit on bombing buildings and sticking it to the man while a tape loop of the entire Grateful Dead catalog whirled in his mind. Seems like a lot has changed since those days of rage...or have they??? 

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And now for an "obscuro" that sure lives up to the good ol' tradition of a buncha kids inna barn puttin' on a show so they could get new uniforms for the high school felching team! An' yeah, it sure is great seein' a magazine named after a cool group like Count Five especially given the reams of horrid "spokesmen for a  generaiton" types like ROLLING STONE lifting their monikers from their fave acts while ruining the entire concept of teenbo sixties music in the process.

COUNT FIVE! may lack a lotta the snarl and venom that made the seventies rock fanzines so noteworthy even fifty years after the fact, but it still works wonders over those other eighties turdburgers who claimed to bare all for their musical generation but, once the veneer finally peeled off. only spoke for themselves. 

The proceedings start off with a well-timed editorial summing up just why the eighties in which this fanzine existed were so mealy (a situation we obviously never did recover from) and what was hot and exciting hidden in those little nooks and crannies you never did read about even in a then-vintage CREEM. That breed of gonz wildness in a rock scene where the powers that be were so intent on preventing any more Bangs or Meltzers is what makes something like COUNT FIVE! so appealing to someone who really suffered through those years (and beyond) like myself inna first place. And of course those treks into a funtime music past that pretty much captured the spirit and energy of the baby boom yet was rejected by the same breed of "boomer" sure make this a fanzine to plop onto the keep pile. 

Imagine the finer aspects of suburban slob teenbo existence being relayed to you without the condescending hippie gloss, a world where there is no shame or guilt over being happy and just trying to exist without perverted types hassling you left and right, and you'll really be in tune with this heretofore unknown fanzine effort that ranks pretty swell in my collection! 

COUNT FIVE!, another funzine trying to make sense outta an otherwise dire situation with the best resources it had on hand.

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First heard about MOE WORKS AT WAL-MART in the pages of WHAT GOES ON and left it at that thinkin' it was probably one of those new type mags that lacked a whole lotta the crude thought and execution that comes part and parcel with a good home-produced rag. Despite these misgivings I decided to snatch this particular issue up not only due to my fascination with the fanzine idiom which rivals Fred Wertham's, but because of the cover interview with none other than the star of the show herself who always was a good interview subject as the seventeenth issue of my very own crudzine will attest to. 

However, I gotta say that I don't find MOE WORKS AT WAL-MART to be the kinda product that really stirs up the fanzine lust in this particular piece of walking blood 'n guts. Oh, the publication is a good 'un alright and anyone who has taste enough to like everyone from Maureen Tucker to the Electric Eels ranks high in my book. HOWEVER, like a lotta the fanzines that I have come across these past umpteen years the "noise boys"-inspired surge is really nowhere to be found (and anyone who would style their publication on the legacy of Christgau as opposed to the aforementioned trailbusters ain't worth the effort). Not only that but the neat computer-pecked type makes this look more like some college course directory than a rock mag. Nice try, though maybe if y'all started this 'un a good fifteen or twenty years earlier it woulda been worth the time for me to pick this 'un up inna first place.

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A lotta these "post-punk" (yech what a term!) fanzines really don't flibben any jibs around here but a few of 'em do come off rather hokay. Such as THE STORY SO FAR, an English read I've written up before and, if I recall, rather snattily at that. This 'un (#4) is a pretty hotcha one as well not only for the usual fodder on alla those Rough Trade catalog faves we usedta drool over, but for a piece on the ever lovin' Barracudas as well as a Joan Jett interview which is about as revealing as these things can get without her getting into those really private things about her we already know about anyway. New York Dolls lyrics compiled by Nikki Sudden also pop up, and pieces on the Raspberries (written by the then-omnipresent Jeremy Traitor or whatever his name is!) and the Trashmen fill this mag out with a spirit that recalls the classic fanzines of the mid-seventies! None of that neo-hippie anarchopunk gunk here bud!

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Another fave around here is the Swedish fanzine LARM. I wrote another issue up at the time and if memory serves I believe I mentioned hos this 'un was sorta like a cross between BOMP! and ZIG ZAG with a little TROUSER PRESS thrown in. Or something like that, but anyway this particular ish has Elvis Costello on the cover (back in the days when he was still firmly entrenched in rock 'n roll territory) plus other biggies of the time like the Jam (eh!), Ian Dury (OK!), the Boomtown Rats (ew!), Tom T. Hall (?) and Jeff "Skunk" Baxter (???)....aww, the thing's still good even if it's written in Swedish and it's way more difficult to decipher than those French fanzines I'm still all agog over.

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I've always been a sucker for Syd Barrett fanzines and this strangeoid effort is no different. SYD BARRETT MAGAZINE is but one of 'em, although I gotta admit that the production level is quite higher'n a good portion of these homages to Syd that came out way back inna seventies and eighties. Still there ain't much new for the ol' Barrett fans amongst us to be found here considering how almost every article and interview presented was taken outta either some old British weaklie or TROUSER PRESS. If you haven't read the Nick Kent wallopalooza or Giovanni Dadomo's 1970 interview done long before the famed wopadago's entrance into the realms of gonzo rockscribing you will definitely benefit from this. I thought the NEWS OF THE WORLD update on Syd's condition back '88 way was good, especially since that paper was always known for its tendency to cater to the squarest of the squares!

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Ya'd think that a fanzine titled after the first Pink Fairies album and featuring a Velvet Underground history would be the bee's knees, but NEVER NEVER LAND doesn't quite dig up alla them old fanzine frolics that really get to me deep inside my brisket. Maybe it's the concentration on obscure mid-eighties English punk rock groups who surely did need the exposure but say nothing directly to me, or the overall writing which doesn't strike a chord in me the way alla those seventies English fanzine scribes who were slobbering over the various gonzoid attackers in the Weaklies did that makes me wanna yawn if anything. I actually went for the aforementioned Velvets piece which, although the latest in a long line of "NOW IT'S MY TURN TO WRITE ABOUT 'EM!" efforts which doesn't add much to the mystique or legend, was still fun enough in a low-budget fanzine sorta way. For serious Anglofanablas only.

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And finally, let me tell you about a couple of definitely non-music fanzines, both allegedly dealing with the subject of humor if you can believe it! The first title on the chopping block's this early-sixties "satire" fanzine entitled AARDVARK, which, as even a cursory look through can tell you, is just brimming with that beatnik-era hipster humor that was all the rage with college kids in those years between the World War and the hippy rabble rousing that this type of humor eventually led to. And as you'd expect AARDVARK is loaded with a whole lotta that snide (or is it snood?) attitude that these guys copped from way too many viewings of Steve Allen. An interview with Woody Allen pretty much tells it all, given that this pedo hasn't done a lick of anything worth noting in the past thirtysome years unless you're a SNOB, which you wouldn't be if you're smart enough to read this blog. 

I was sure hoping there would have been more of a Kurtzman-influence on this mag with comics and satire galore, but AARDVARK just flops about going nowhere fast. Well, if you're collecting late-fifties to mid-sixties satirical humor fanzines you might want this, if only to complete your collection that is.

Fast forward a good decade or so later and we got FANDOM FUNNIES to contend with. Again the thing's just not as funny as I would have liked despite its similarities to the fifties-era satire fanzines from which the underground comix scene sprang. Perhaps the mag's concentration on spoofing the comic fandom realm limits the audience somewhat, but overall the mag is filled with unfunny takes on such fanzine faves as the ROCKET'S BLAST/COMICOLLECTOR not to mention a horrible "spoof" of Steve Ditko's MR A which, like every other MR. A takeoff I've seen, gets way into the obvious without creating anything one could say was satirical or even funny for that matter! Really, something like Mr. A is just begging for some good playin' around with and you would think that a truly funny spoof coulda been cranked out with relative ease, but once again (remember the one that appeared in WITZEND which resulted in Ditko not sending them any more contributions?) the balls are dropped. And a good opportunity for what could have been a real belly-laughing story was most certainly wasted. I guess their idea of "funny" and mine are poles apart, though as I've said the only thing I can laugh at these days are those kids you see on those St. Jude and Shriners Hospital ads.

But that cover! Sheesh, you could never see anyone doing such cutting humor these days --- almost comes off like an A Wyatt Mann cartoon!!!