THE RETURN OF FANZINE FANABLA!!!
Lots of fanzines to brag about here, with an added emphasis on those of the
English variety which is sure peachy keen since England pumped out its share of good home-produced rags (in and out of the music idiom) that are worthy of documentation lest they become even more forgotten than I am. And if this article seems way too overloaded, too longwinded and too congested for you well, just read part of it now and another part later, and yet another part later onanonanonanonanism kinda like the way R. Meltzer said you should tackle THE AESTHETICS OF ROCK. And you know he's right.
***
I must admit that I'm prouder than proud over the fact that I have actually
obtained a copy of PANACHE #1 to have and to hold for my very own. Of course there are
a whole lot more important things that could have happened to improve my life
like being inundated with a bazillion dollars or finding a peephole at the
cute young girls who ain't overweight and don't have tattoos and metal doo dads all over their bodies nudist colony, but for now this will suffice.
But golly ned, the writing's so good you
don't mind reading about groups of a definitely non-punk variety because the vim and vigor that comes with these mags is just brimmin' full! Editor Mick Mercer really knew his turds when it
came to what the fanzine idiom was all about and like, if you want to see a true music fan at his humble beginnings I guess this
would be one of the better places to start.
The cover says it all from the snap of Iggy (not exactly the most original
thing a rock 'n roll fanzine coulda done at the time but a smart move since Iggy sure needed all of the
exposure he could get and better him than Gene Simmons!) to the large print come on which not only promotes a
number of recently-bootlegged acts but proves that when you're laying out a cover its best to plan ahead. But even that lends to a somewhat overall charm worthy of all of the block-outs on the cover of the first issue of FUTURE not to mention some incredible gaffes on my own part.
The innards ain't no slouch
either what with the loads of reviews of live shows, recent singles and
naturally the bootlegs which would figure since you gotta admit that the form
was starting to really take off at the time what with even legit record stores selling these wares out in the open for everyone to see! (Heck, the White Wing Records shop in Niles Ohio even had their own bin proudly emblazoned "bootlegs" which really does show how brazen record shop owners could get!) Of course this was at a time when legit offerings seemed to be lacking in the rawness and
low-fidelity needed to appreciate music so we could all thank the bootleggers for doing us a fine public service.
Mercer's late '76/early '77 views are shown to be about as much on (and off) target as
many of the upsprouts on the fanzine scene of the day. The Iggy live report
written by a fellow named "Graham" (undoubtedly a pseudonym for Mercer --- in fact Mercer's name is nowhere to be seen anywhere in this ish!) is somewhat lacking in the fine social
graces of a Murray, Ingham, Dadomo, Goldman or Kent but is still stimulating enough to pour through. The live takes on the Doctors of Madness and Ted Nugent are pretty much what one would have thought part and parcel to the whole mid-seventies fanzine drive, especially considering how the latter seemed to pop up in just about every home-produced mag of the day (at least those dedicated to the high energy creed in those pre punk unto punque times when loads of people sorta lumped Nugent in with the likes of Iggy!). It's obvious that some people were desperate for anything that wasn't Laurel Canyon way back when.
In case you're that blind that you couldn't/didn't gaze upon the cover above, maybe I should mention that the inclusion of some of the acts that appear in these pages would definitely seem alien to many seventies-era under-the-underground fanzines. Stranger still, these particular performers (if you can believe it!) tend to get the high holy praise while the ones who were usually given the red
carpet elsewhere are actually trounced upon! Sure there are plenty of writeups you'd would expect to get the ol' huzzah like a thumbs up for the Pink Floyd bootleg
entitled THE MIDAS TOUCH (one of the better platters documenting
the late-sixties Floyd available at the time), but seeing things like
Linda Ronstadt's LIVE AT THE ROXY getting raved about while Patti
Smith is demolished in a review of her then-recent SUPERBUNNY does tend to boggle my
mind somewhat. And sheesh, I thought that the Runaways'
LIVE AT THE STARWOOD would have been up these guys' somewhat
expansive ally but nooooooo....
And you should check out the singles reviews...Kansas's "Dust in the Wind" gets a positive mention which I must admit is something that shouldn't exactly make it easy for someone like you to go to sleep at nights. However, I sure do love the go against the grain creepiness of it all which should send me straight to the loony bin.
Back to the swift kicks right up the ass, David Bowie's LOW gets decimated which I would guess is
something to be expected from a mag such as this although The Sensational Alex Harvey Band Without
Alex's live appearance at the Marquee (they being an act that I was under the impression wasn't exactly anything to cheer about although the people who told me so could most likely be bonkers) was actually appreciated by whoever it
was that wrote it up. Like I said, anonymity seems to be the rule rather than the exception in this mag!
Of course I love this fanzine which really lays down that long gone seventies
vibe of new and fresh music, even if such sounds are sometimes lambasted in favor of old
and stale music you think a mag like this would stand against. A copy of PANACHE numbers two and four would be greatly appreciated,
although after that we were settling into a new and quite different rock era and like, sometimes I
wish the earth woulda spun off its axis and hightailed it into deep space at
that time.
***Do I already have this issue of COMSTOCK LODE in my collection? My mind must be getting rustier than the lock on a bedwetter's chastity belt if I can't even remember a simple fact such as this. Sheesh, I always thought I knew the fanzines in my collection just as if they were my own children, even better than I'm sure Screamin' Jay Hawkins knew who all his 57-plus offspring were which I most sincerely doubt!
And if you like all that you'll just
love all of the
interesting things that editor John Platt had to write about the new breed of underground
swing that was just making its name known, from the reconstructed Red Crayola
to their pals Pere Ubu (or so I think as far as the "pals" part goes---I heard
that David Thomas himself had some curt things to say about Mayo Thompson
later on!) and other wowzers of the day from the Soft Boys to Wire! Not only
that but there's part two of an International Artists discography which lays
down the line on all of those obscure singles the label unleashed, and you can
bet that there's plenty of Roky hosannas and praise to be found therein.
I wish a whole lot more fanzines of the day were as well-laid out and
informative as COMSTOCK LODE. This title will pop up for sale or auction on occasion, so if you scour the internet hard enough who knows, you
might latch onto the entire run which would be worth the time and effort. If you're one who is heavy duty on this
type of rock fandom that does go beyond the usual hagiozine antics that I tend
to get into you'd do yourself a favor doing just that!
***
The next two English fanzines might not be as professional as
COMSTOCK LODE but they're fine in their own everyday kinda people get
in on the rock music upheaval way. The first of these on the chopping block
is TEAR IT UP #3, a mag that does have the standard amateur
paste it up in the kitchen look that I like in a fanzine (who'm I kiddin' ---
I like fanzines whether or not they have glossy covers OR look like they
were quickly run off and collated in the dark!) and, like the best of the
batch boy does this one have that same sorta spirit that we'd find in all of
the better rock scribing that was seen back when even peons like these kidz
knew how to peck out a good article!
***
DIRT was in no wayshapeform a "crudzine" despite the lack of visuals and one-sided
printjob, but like with PANACHE it makes up for
looking oh so bare with some fantastic writing that could only have been laid
down by real deal FANS who threw
every bit of blood, guts and sinew into a mag that lived and breathed the rock underground throb. Believe you
me, the writing and general "aura" of DIRT really does make ones heart
palpitate as fast as the actual music itself.
Like with TEAR IT UP the writing here could easily have appeared
in any of the more professional rags that were willing to get down to biz. Too bad that this, along with a whole
smattering of worthy wonders, hadda drift off into total obscurity once the
eighties issued in the age of glitz and ultraslick showbiz jive that continues
to haunt us lo these many years later.
Like I said there are no illustrations to pretty up the pages, but this effort does manage to lay it on the line as
far as that youthful teenbo spirit that drove many a fanzine as well as many a
group as well. It's nice to know
that, even at a time when underground ideals and mores were changing right in front of our ears, there were people on this planet who
were young, gifted and could put two letters together without coming off like
a bunch of morons who even would make me look like Meltzer in comparison.
***
As you should know since I've mentioned it more often than I go through cans
of 1000 Flushes, the English rock fanzines of the early/mid-seventies were
so overtly influenced by ZIGZAG to the point
where I'm surprised there weren't quite a few lawsuits flying about.
Unfortunately, some lacked the same spirit of the original and tended
to come off somewhat arid, void of the adventurous and snide side of rock
writing that could easily enough be found in the fanzines emanating from a variety of other
nations at the time.
I could say the same thing about OUT NOW, yet another entry into
the English fanzine canon that looked fine enough but lacked a whole load of
snizzle and snide which this mag should have abounded in. I mean, they had
no excuse given that they were up and about in one of the better periods
in UK rock scribedom what with all of those great (aforementioned) writers working
for NME and SOUNDS doing for the locals
what the likes of Meltzer and Saunders were doing for us lunks over here!
Well, thankfully they DID learn since I reviewed a later issue here which was a marked improvement over this 'un, so at least these
guys did get the message. A message that
somehow unfortunately never managed to make its way to my own sense of fanzine
editing/published acumen but nobody said I was Speedy Gonzales when it came to mental speed and accuracy.
***
This is a "New York Special" though I don't know how coverboy Jim Morrison could be considered New York by any stretch of the imagination! But whatever, he's in these pages (in a roundup of recent Doors bootlegs) along with acts who did constitute NYC in the beautifully dank and dark 60s/70s. Groups like the Velvet Underground (in an article that doesn't really shed any new light but which ones have as of late?), Ramones, Patti Smith and how the Stooges got in there as well I dunno as well unless it's via their '73 Max's Kansas City appearance. It's an overall fun fanzine which was professionally (at least for this type of mag) laid out, reprinted the right things and at least gave us all a reminder of a time in rock 'n roll that was pure magic and soul/life reaffirming, at least until everything seemed to topple into the Gowanus Canal never to be seen again.
***
The mag covered a wide range of music, wide that is if your tastes ran towards the BOMP! school of past + present better equal future what with boffo coverage of our sainted forebearers (Paul Revere and the Raiders, Beach Boys, Monkees, Marc...) intermingling with the more appetizing portions of what was then prevailing (Fleshtones, the Antipodean scene...) and too bad the equation hadda end up the way it did but it still was a nice, if futile, try for all of us to overcome the Pantsiosesque dinge that permeated (and continues to permeate) music in general lo these many years later.
Kinda like a cross between a mid-seventies ish of BOMP! and THE NEXT BIG THING (whose editor Lindsay Hutton contributes quite some space), WHAT A NICE WAY TO TURN SEVENTEEN was a noble attempt to keep the seventies rock fandom spirit moving at a time when I just gotta admit that most of what was passing for (and still passes as) "rock 'n roll" is rather loathsome and, like people in general, to be held in contempt. A few ex-Swell Maps types help editor Chris Seventeen out so you can get the gist of what sorta squall is mentioned in them thar pages --- pieces on then-current up and abouts such as the Barracudas (a group who got plenty of fanzine praise at the time because, what else was there?), Alex Chilton and some of those south of the equator acts that never really appealed to me get more'n just a few lines of praise amidst retrospew on everyone from Beefheart to...Woody Guthrie??? Like the best of the Golden Age of Rock Fanzines out there you never could tell what you were in store for when you opened up them pages.
I do give WHAT A NICE WAY... a whole load of hosannas for giving it the ol' college try and succeeding rather well (B+ at the most) and like, maybe if the music situation was better and people were still flocking to THE BIG BEAT like they were during them wild and wooly sixties (the sixties of the 13th Floor Elevators, not Joan Baez) maybe it woulda gotten out more to the general populace. But when the populace's minds were (and in many cases still are) clouded by the sad taint of eighties-vintage MTV and Springsteen what else would you expect?
Hey looka here. Izza fan-a-zine from-a Italy. Izza call MAGIC-A FUZZ an' itta talkaboutta thingz-a like-a old-a psych-e-delic groups anna lotza
sixtie stuff like-a da Fugs, da Strawbs anna Amon-a-Duul notta fagettin' that
old pisano him-a-self Frank-a Zappa! Even bandz like-a the Syn a which one-a
dem guys from Si or somethin' like-a dat come-a from! Itta look good too, real
nice-a job they did a-here. Lotta udda good-a things-a here too like-a
thing-a on-a Lon-a Chaney an-a that-a comic book guy Jim-a Steranko (Steranko
--- watt-a kind-a name izza dat?). Itta be-a funna thing-a t' read, an' if
you don' like it you no fool-a me, you fool-a you-self! Now you wanna some ice-a-cream?
This issue of LIVING EYE features an all gal tribute which is
sorta like that issue of BOMP! with Cherie Currie on the
cover from back '76 way. If you liked that one you just might like this 'un as well. There's more on ish #1 cover gal Nancy Sinatra as
well as Jackie DeShannon, the Shangri-Las and even a buncha them English tarts
that musta seemed to exotic to the pube sproutin' boys o'er here at the time.
Whazzername from the Fuzztones (as well as Whazzizname too) gets interviewed
plus there's a ton of reviews of everyday garage bands, Texas garage bands, English garage
bands and surf garage bands singles (each with their own special section) that
were sorta like a continuation of those "Juke Box Jury Junior" columns in BOMP! It is nice to know that the rough and tumble fun aspects of seventies fanzines like DENIM DELINQUENT lived long enough into the eighties, and considering what a boring time that decade was it was no small feat.
As typical of these "small press" endeavors the quality is definitely local
print shop while the splodge layout is of the kind that would be put to
use by a zillion other "'zines" as the years wore on. And like I said, Bangs shows up with two
pieces in the fourth ish, the first being an article on the no wave group DNA
which I gotta say typifies the mad obsession Bangs had for the concept of
"horrible noise" that he would extrapolate on in the pages of THE VILLAGE (retch!) VOICE just a good year or so later.
The other one is a saga entitled "Trapped By The Mormons" which I get the
sneakin' suspicion would
NOT have been
published by the same sort of snoots who put this rag out even a good five
years later due to Bangs' use of a certain word to describe people of African
heritage, a word which I thought he wouldn't have used after that big
anti-racism heartbleed article he wrote a year earlier which was one reason
the noted rock journalist originally left NYC in fear of his life!
Although Bangs' scribing does not appear in the next ish VUAS founder and creative entity in
himself Philip Milstein's does with a piece on one of his then-current obsessions,
none other than the once-obscure but soon to be legendary Shaggs.
'tis a goodie too where he spills the legumes about the true identities of the
Wiggins gals who in fact were Jonathan Richman, Don Van Vliet and John Lydon engaging in their own Masked Marauders sesh!
The piece works out too unlike all of the sad attempts I've tried at humor and
satire ever since I was strong enough to pick up a crayon I'll tell ya.
Thank goodness for ebay because thanks to that modern miracle I latched onto
two more of 'em and I thought they were pretty boffo reads which looked and felt like a fanzine should. 's got it all from
underage hijinx during the Golden Age of Kiddie Crime to the sleaze and the books that documented it all and everything that surrounded it --- things
that never did get brought up in those nostalgia movies and
television shows that were all the rage back inna seventies. BAD SEED (or at least Miss Linna) has the
hots for the devious side of teendom past what with all of the details on kids gone
bad and the price they hadda pay for their downright
EVIL (remember that
word?) and after reading these mags you get the idea that she sure wish she coulda spent her teenbo years in such a criminally inclined fashion!
I must say that I do feel it a feather in my cap, or better yet a real wowzer
in my collection, to have a copy of NOPE! #11 intermingling with the
rest of my much-prized fanzine booty piled in the corner of my otherwise
farted up bedroom. The brainchild of 'zine regular Jay Kinney (who was a
pretty snatty underground cartoonist in his own right), NOPE! was
part of that burgeoning fifties/sixties satire mag trend that cropped up in
the world of comics fandom, and along with the Crumb
brothers' FOO!, Art Spiegelman's BLASE, Jay Lynch's
JACK HIGH and plenty more, NOPE! was one of them mags
that set the stages for various late-sixties things to come as far as them
comic books you hadda hide from your parents (or even wife!) go.
I never considered Skip Williamson to have been the same kinda underground
cartoon genius as Kinney and a few other miscreant scribblers out there, but I
will give him some thumbs up the ass for him being part of the
late-fifties/early-sixties comic fanzine scene that produced alla them other
satire rags that are in such short supply, at least in my collection.
SQUIRE was Williamson's own and even though it has some of the
perhaps hackneyed attitudes and invert snobbism of many of the fanzines of the
period (you know, the right attitudes and proper opinions...) it is rather
shallwesay a good effort that makes for interesting reading even
sixtysome years after the fact. But then again what
doesn't anymore?
Big beef with this one is the fact that some guy I never heard about who calls himself Blick Blickhan does a hefty portion of the cartoons to be found herein including a
spoof of THE BULLWINKLE SHOW as well as an extended saga about a
Joe Jitsu lookalike who repels a gigantic mugger. Neither of them are
particularly funny and look as if they were hastily drawn by a ten-year-old
(very similar to some of the stuff I was delineating at that age) with all of
the juvenilia that one would expect with such slapdash affairs. Williamson's
art was somewhat developed by this time and well, I sure wish that he had taken
up more space in this 'un than Blickhan but wha' th' hey. At least
Blickhan was well versed in the Sci-Fi/horror/fantasy tradition of edgy bad
taste as the cartoon on the right (which I reprinted only to offend you) surely does prove even if the guy
did misspell "Belsen".
***
***
And now, back to the good ol' red white and blue balls Amerigan fanzines that
I know you'll really get a nice and hearty kick outta. That is unless you're a culturally-inclined snob or something but then again who isn't these days, other'n me that is.
Anway, lemme tell you that I owe some of the knowledge regarding the fanzine
biz after extracting a little bitta information from Kenny Aronds, the guy who
put out LIVING EYE back in the early-to-mid-eighties.
Frankly, if it weren't for his sound advice my mag woulda turned out a whole
lot worse than
it had. I never got all of the issues of the mag at the time but over the
years have acquired a couple, this third one being just the latest and boy
am I glad I paid about twenty times the amount that I would have hadda had I
got this 'un back when it originally came out!
***
CONTEMPO CULTURE was one local outta-the-flow fanzine that seemed
to get more than its fair share of notoriety if only for the fact that none
other than Lester Bangs spent some time writing for these guys during his
brief stay in Austin Texas (terminally hip capitol of the state). Lester's in
both of these recently-acquired issues, one as an actual contributor and the
other via some snapshot (he had vamoosed back to NYC after a drunk 'n
disorderly) and for that these fanzines are shall-we-say all the more
important given their time and place. They really do fit in with the entire
seventies-unto-eighties under-the-underground musical upheaval, one that would
fizzle out once the entire
"movement" decomposed into self-centered mewls that I thought punk rock (in just about any wayshapeform convolution you can think of) stood
AGAINST!
One thing that bogs CONTEMPO CULTURE down is the lack of compatico
music that would have suited the rag's cuttier-than-cutting-edge attitude. A focus on the likes of Grace Jones and the B-52s
(who at the time were just beginning to heavily get into their overtly twee gay
campiness which didn't seem to grate so much at first) dampers things quite,
although I don't think anyone involved was privy enough to even know about the
existence of Von Lmo, Bernie and the Invisibles, Brian Sands and other acts
that were getting my juices flowing in the early-to-mid-eighties! But sheesh,
you'd'a thunk that these guys woulda had their finger up some sort of
nerve-grinding u-ground sphincter that might have been bobbing about deep in
the heart of... Well, there does appear an interview with PIL conducted by
Mary Harron which I assume is not a reprint and if true this piece was a major
ostrich-sized feather in these fanablas' hats.
'n of course, this being late 1980 and all, there's an anti-Ronald Reagan
commentary (complete with one of those typically doctored up pix of the dude
that was considered so haute by the creme de la fanzine personnel
of the day 'n I should know since I dabbled in some of it myself!), one that was
done up back when we all thought the ol' turdburger was gonna tumble us into
an atomic abyss and other creepy things that unfortunately never did happen. But
somehow I get the impression that the folk at
CONTEMPO CULTURE weren't as gung homo on the anti-prez bandwagon
as many of their compatriots in the rock fanzine game were...I mean, just read what
these people wrote about the guy: "He's against the ERA, abortion rights, gay
rights, and gun control. He's trigger happy, & pro-nuke in arms of weapons
and power plants. He's "outraged" at the way 52 Americans were mistreated in
Iran, but not at how the U.S.-imposed Shah had thousands of Iranians tortured
or killed, or at how the U.S. backed military government in El Salvador is
currently murdering countless thousands. He's against "government
interference" when it comes to a national health plan, a guaranteed decent
wage for everyone, or interfering with the oil companies' right to charge
sky-high prices. But as for a woman's right to control her own body, forget
it..."
All I have to say is, if these guys hated Reagan so much why were they
portraying him in such a
POSITIVE light?
***
Y'know, I do remember buying one or two issues of Miriam Linna's
BAD SEED, a fanzine devoted to the seamier side of pre-hippie youthdom...y'know, juvenile delinquents and the sordid doings they
were engaged in (as documented by the cheapo paperbacks of the
fifties/sixties) and I hadda do something with the credit I had from See Hear. I forget what
I thought of 'em and am too lazy to check my pile of back issues to see exactly what kind of drivel I did spew about the things but
anyway well, if I do recall I believe that I was somewhat disappointed that these mags
didn't have the same sort of sartorial finesse as Miriam's other fanzine
endeavor KICKS. But I get that way sometimes.
All the stories on lurid paperbacks and fifties kids gone wrong do have a strange appeal, kind of like looking at Andy Warhol automobile accident
silkscreens even though you know the people in 'em died horrific deaths and
you're getting your jollies at their expense. And if you like what the entire
KICKS empire gave us back in the eighties and nineties
BACK WHEN WE REALLY NEEDED IT you too'll enjoy getting your own throb
thrills reading BAD SEED. Only you'll be doing it in the
comfort of your secluded shack far from the carnage that kids that I'll never
feel sorry for in a millyun years continue to wreak on people who really never
did deserve it. Kinda makes me wanna go and read some old MR. A comic
where the kind of justice I sure wish there was a whole lot more of in this sick and sad (because of people like you) world prevails.
***
One bad thing about this NOPE!...too much text and not enough funny
har har satire to scarf up. Well, by the time this ish hit the mailboxes (no
actual date to be found anywhere though the reference to Lennon's "Instant
Karma"'s gets me thinkin' mid-1970) the underground comix scene was pretty
much in full flight. Perhaps Kinney was extending the satire fanzine format
just a little longer than necessary, but anyway it's no big
surprise that NOPE! comes off more like a personalist mag rather than
one that seems eternally indebted to the
fifties-era MAD comic book.
The GOOD things
--- the contributions from Lynch including the Nard/Pat cover as well as
Crumb (a spot pic but eh!) and Jonh Ingham, who not only was writing in but
delivered on two illustrations. The only actual cartoon done up in the old satire
'zine realm to appear here was by former ODD publisher
Dave Herring, a three-page tale about the day in the life of some
pseudo Sad Sack cum Ziggy (I guess) guy and the miseries he endures
throughout. A pretty good story too which makes me wish that maybe Kinney or
some of the other undergrounders woulda done more along these lines to
pepper up the mag, but I got a copy of NOPE! and right now
that's the only thing that matters in my sick and sorry life!
***
Further study of the 50s/60s satire fanzine realm is due for a sturdy
examination and who know, perhaps one just might be heading our way rather
soon (maybe with some choice examples printed en toto). So little has
been researched other than through THE COMPLETE CRUMB, a few Bill
Schelly fanzine collections and the underground comix history by Mark James
Estren that came out in the mid-seventies. You'd think by now someone would
have worked out a thoroughly researched book detailing of the various satire rags and how they
all intertwined to the point where an underground scene sprung forth but eh,
if nobody did that regarding the sixties/seventies rock fanzine movement why
would they even bother documenting
this???
***Gotta fanzine (old or new) that'cha'd think'd fit in with the types that I've been writing about for many a year on end? I'd sure like to read the thing, but knowing you you'd never wanna deal with scum such as I so why bother mentioning anything inna first place?
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