Get your own Free Home PageALL ABOUT D AND FRIENDS #9 (A5, 88pp) £1.40 inclusive from Dee Barnfield, PO Box 345, Chesham, Bucks, HP5 3DT
A long time in the making, this is another huge effort from Dee. It features two fab interviews with Mogwai and Lilys which are worth getting this issue for alone, and also includes chats with AC Acoustics, Agebaby, Juniper, Motor Life Co, Revelino and Ultrasound. Millions of albums, singles, demos and zines, as well as a few words in praise of This Life! Which like 'All About D', rarely lets you down! Buy
BIGGEST LIBRARY YET #8 (A5, 32pp) £1.20 inclusive from Graham Coleman, 106 Fleet Road, London, NW3 2QX
Tough as it is to admit it, this long running Fall fanzine is actually showing more signs of consistency than the live shows of the band it is devoted to, still, fingers crossed. #8 is as good as ever with loads of features including seven pages of Fall songs explained by MES (and others). Also check out our new boy Odran Smith's chats with John Peel (especially good) and Mark Radcliffe, as well as reports on MES's falling over disaster in Worthing and the cult of the Cut-Out Craig.
BOTRAMAID #4 (A5, 40pp) 70p +A5 SAE from Gail Douglas, 63 Lochside Road, Ayr, KA8 9LQ
This is a neat package, the format is very easy to read and it's packed with reviews and the odd interview - this time they feature chats with the Lunachicks (remember them?), MethOD and Space Kittens, reviews of loads of good stuff and some cool funny bits - like the perils of fanzine writing (the old guest list trauma), pictorial gig reviews and stuff on the Italian underground. Well worth 70p.
DAMN YOU! #2 (A5, 36pp) 50p +A5 SAE from Matt Newnham, 7 Harwich Road, Gt Bromley, Colchester, CO7 7UH
A neat follow-up to the tasty debut. Loads more interviews this time - Arab Strap, bis, Gizz Butt (of the Prodigy and English Dogs), Navigator, Pink Kross, Crest, Space Kittens, Placebo, Dawn of the Replicants, and a bit of incest with Lando and Teebo (cos they've just put out a split single by both these bands, but hey, that's allowed!) They've still got their sense of irreverence and there's no let up in the quality of stuff they include. Layout is a bit cramped but they've kept the cost down well, so no complaints.
EASY PIECES #3 (fold-out special) £2 from Jon Jordan, Stone Immaculate, 34-44 Tunstall Road, London SW9 8DA
Wonderfully illustrated and assembled, and like the previous two issues created solely with Staedler pens - it has a total absence of typography and is all the better for it. The layout is hard to explain but basically all the pages overlap and interact. Music-wise it's spot-on too, with interviews with Hood, Mogwai, Sophia, Run On, Calvin Johnson, Moby, Anton Fier, Built to Spill and J Church, as well as lots of reviews of good stuff. The best thing is the way the illustrations bring out more aspects of the music/ gigs or whatever. Very clever. Most likely sold out by now so write first for details.
FOGGY NOTION (A4, 24pp) free with SAE from 19 Pickwick Road, Corsham, Wilts, SN13 9BQ
Very up to date listings of fanzines, inie labels and a neat mail order service so you can buy stuff too! Feature-wise #1 has stuff on the Gyres, the fab Guided Missile records, Land Speed records, Slampt records and Fantastic Plastic (born in Newtownards, fact fans!) Write for the latest Foggy Notion and catalogue.
MUFFMONSTERS ON PROZAC #2 (A4, 28pp) £1 +A4 SAE from PO Box 44, Belfast BT1 e-mail muffmonsters@hotmail.com
OK I'm biased since this primarily the work of Ruth (who did this Weedbus cover) and Terry (of this very parish), but I must say this is brilliant. It's much more than just a queerzine, with loads of intelligent, opinionated and often totally hilarious features and cartoons. The layout is excellent and my faves are the comic strips - the Chums, Juvenile Boo-Hoo and Sister Rage and Novice Nun, although it's hard to pick highlights. Don't ignore the stuff on New York, Xena, Lydia Lunch and hypocritical christian literature. Every home should have one of these.
ORGAN #54 (A5, 28pp) free, from Unit 212, Old Gramophone Works, 326 Kensal Road, London W10 5BZ when you enquire about Org Records.
Officially it's no longer a fanzine - the last Organ proper was #51. Org Records have now dominated their lives to such an extent that they've made the publication less packed, more regular and more focused on Org bands (as well as few unknowns and demos of course). This one has stuff on their second compilation of UK hardcore (Organ Radio 2) -Assert, DBH, Cynical Smile, Meduall Nocte, FLS and Applecore). As usual, no space wasted, and a good intro to all things Org.
POCKET #2 (A5, 24pp) 70p +A5 SAE from Chloe, 74 Clay Lake, Spalding, Lincs, PE11 2QQ
Haven't seen this before, but it's yet another good music zine. Very unpretentious as Chloe just writes about what she likes - interviews with "the next Jim Thirlwell" Joince (Inca Eyeball etc) as well as Lillian and Inertia - and reviews of everything from albums and zines to books and theatre. Write with SAE for other fiction/ cartoon based zines from Pesky Productions.
SOUL JUNK #2 <(A4, 56pp) £1 +A4 SAE from Emmeline Walker, 10 Clarence Street, Stalybridge, Cheshire SK15 1QP
A bit of a bumper issue with loads of good interviews and reviews - four pages of zine reviews too! It all seems to be the work of Emmeline and she's obviously got good taste - featuring the likes of the excellent Make-Up, Magoo, Eska and Snowpony, plus Gold Blade, Lung Leg, Lillian and the fab Wurlitzer Jukebox records (A very interesting read this one) Loads of good content for such a new zine.
TOTALLY WIRED #27 (A4, 48pp) £3 from 137 Templemere, Norwich, NR3 4EQ
Not pricey at all when you consider you get a free CD with 16 bands (including Prolapse), 48 pages and a colour cover, never mind interviews with big names like Kenickie, Tindersticks and Gold Blade. This also interviews with Deadstar and the Walkabouts, info on all the unsigned bands on the CD and a load of reviews.
TRANSMISSION Summer/ Autumn '97 (A4, 12pp) free from PO Box 59 London N22 1AR
Our pick of the free record company zines, this time around it's from Southern Studios and features reviews of many cool records, as well as news on Make-Up, Blonde Redhead, Brainiac, Kepone, Karate, Skin Graft records etc. Nice design too.
VIBRATIONS FROM THE EDGE OF SANITY #3 (A5, 24pp) £2.50 from PO Box 288, Peterborough, PE4 7SU (pay C. Lovell)
It's been so long since the last one (two years?) that I had written this off, but happily Vibrations is back with a tasty free CD (Dekhan, Plastic Hip, Machismos, etc - hence the justifiably inflated price) and their best issue yet. Inside you get interviews with Sneaker Pimps, Mansun, Linoleum, Pavement, Charlies Angels and Heather Nova in a well produced gloosy package.
YOUR FLESH #36 (spine bound, 160pp) SAE to PO Box 583264, Minneapolis, MN 55458-3265 or e-mail yourflesh@worldnet.att.net
Not a fanzine either since it's been taken over by Fantagraphics (publishers of Hate comics etc) but we're not anally retentive about that sort of thing so we always have time for Your Flesh. Smartest lay out for a few issues and good content too. A huge interview with Cobra Verde (the new GBV line-up in other words), a really in depth chat with Michael Gira about the end of Swans, a tribute to Bill Hicks, plus stuff on In The Red records, prehistoric homicide, Mog Stunt Team 5, American Grindhouse, Edward Keinholz, Table of the Elements, and a ton of reviews.
Get your own Free Home Page