Last Updated on January 7, 2024
Originally published in Beat Motel issue 10 in 2008.
Jerk Store #5
Price unknown
A5 photocopied, nicely laid out and easy to read fanzine that used to be called Black Lesbian President. Interviews with:- Dear Landlord, Party Garbage, Lucero, Get Bent, The Abortions and Cold Ones. Two pages of columns and more record and CD reviews then you could possibly shake a shitty stick at. This one could keep you in lav reading for quite some time.
House of approval
Price unknown
I have no idea what all this is about. I did e-mail the people that made it to see if I could get any info at all about it, but they never got back to me. What you get is a plastic wallet inside which is a printed letter, a little booklet and five identical stickers. The stickers have a drawing of some kind of wolfs face at the top, then the word Cosmic on a banner across the middle and a cows face at the bottom with the words The Voices written underneath it. Your guess is as good as mine. The letter is written in the same way that Cardiacs tend to write all of their press releases, that is to say, in an overly wordy way which it is difficult to ascertain any kind of meaning from. I get the feeling that it’s intentional. The last sentence is
“With your credulous bravery open for the taking, many secrets will soon be revealed to you as you progress deeper into the Hive (There is a copyright logo after the word hive) to your eventual confidence reap-age from spiritual guru and Hive master Dr. Galgamesh Shamash.”
He sound’s like a Mesopotamian to me, but I’m still no wiser as to what it’s all about. The Booklet is titles ‘Batch 25 presents stories from the house of approval’ and thankfully at this point it stops being nonsense. It’s a 48 page booklet, very nicely printed, containing some really nice illustrations, three short stories (Faith no more the musical, Berlin Ghost Garden and conversing with wendell clonk) and a slightly longer story broken up into three chapters (The Special effects were good though). Most of the stories are only a few pages long, but they do all have a beginning a middle and an end. All in all it is quite readable. My favorite illustration though is a picture of a giant elephant, in shin pads looking mean and holding a bloody great samurai sword.
I don’t know what else I can tell you. If you can get hold of it maybe you can give me some information about it.
Runnin’ Feart #16
Price unknown
Runnin’ Feart is an A5 punk zine from Ayrshire in Scotland with a glossy colour cover and photocopied black and white pages. The layout is a bit sparse, but if anything that just makes it eay to read, too many zines are just full of clutter which pulls your eye away from the print, or even worse obscures it. There’s lot’s of really good quality photos and interviews with:- Silent Meow, Dirty Pickups, Goldblade, Spam, GBH and The Few. My only gripe is that Callum has a tendency to ask the same questions in every interview and bands often give the same answers. However, there are loads and loads of CD reviews, and a couple of pages of Zine reviews too. Ooh yeah, and this one comes with a free Scottish punk compilation that’s got some pretty good stuff on it too.
South London Mess #5
Price unknown
South London Mess is made by Dirty Joe from the Scaredy Cats (If you like ska and haven’t heard them, check them out, they’re good) and is a scruffy black and white photocopied cut and past type affair based (Surprisingly enough) in South London. At 50 pages it manages to get quite a lot in though, including a great many live reviews, a tour diary, a few rants and columns, loads of reviews, an interview with The Autonomads (It’s a really long interview too), vegan recipes, gig listings and various other things. Well worth picking up if you ever come across it.
Issue No 39
50p
Issue is more of an oversized info letter than a zine, it’s based in the Basingstoke area. I’m actually about a year out of date on this one as it seems to be the Halloween issue from last year, and I’m actually writing this on all hallows eve. There’s lot’s of good photos, and reviews of all the gigs that Niel has been to, plus C.D and zine reviews. I believe that he knocks one out every two months or so. It’s of most use if you actually come from the Basingstoke area, but it gives you a good overview of what’s happening in other areas of the country if you don’t.
Now or never #14
£2:50
This is an angry A4 sized zine that is very nicely laid out and appears to do it’s best to wind people up, and I have the utmost respect for that. This issue has articles on the new censorship laws about violent pornography which will also create problems for a lot of the old bad taste B movies, a hairy gay man looking for love, Skills… do hippies have any? The Cuntryside alliance, Is anarchism more viable since the financial crash, and the Cuban revolution. It also includes a (Tongue in cheek) questionnaire so you you can find out how masculine you are, and a run down of the most offensive movies of all time. There are no CD or zine reviews, but there are six pages of in depth book reviews. All it all it’s pretty heavy going and very left wing (Which is a good thing), but is still very readable. If you turn it upside down and flip it over it becomes a joke Maoist publication called Mao or never. I was questioning whether it’s worth 2:50, but it appears that you can get back issues for a pound which does seem very reasonable.
Barbies Dead #26
50p
A ten page A4 cut and past newsletter style zine from out of Cornwall.Lots of gig reviews, a fair few zine reviews and some C.D reviews. mostly reviews, maybe half an hours lav reading, but not much more. Still, well worth the 50p you’d need to spend to get a copy. Besides… What else can you do with 50p?
Alex Woodhouse
The Square
Gunnislake
Cornwall
This is Boston. Not Boston.
Price unknown
This is well out of date for review (They are reviewing the Visual offence album and the first Milloy album, that should give you an idea of how late this review is.) but what the hell. It’s an A5 photocopied punk zine celebrating 20 years of the Indian Queen (It’s a crusty punk pub) in Boston (Linconshire not U.S.A, hence the title) an dit’s a kind of superzine combining the talents of the makers of Gadgie, Initonit, Itchy Bum, Rum Lad, and Uglyman punkzines. The print’s tiny, and there’s little other than print in this zine, so it will give you hours and hours of lav reading, but id you’re only in it for the pictures I’d leave it at arms length. There’s loads of articles (Too many for me to go into depth with what they are all about here) an interview with Sammys Fatal Mistake, Loads of live reviews, and loads and loads of C.D reviews. Very readable, and it will keep you entertained for ages. If you can still get hold of it.
Tapeworm Zine
£2:00
This is a zine that is dedicated to pen and ink hand drawings and has been put together buy a guy called Alex who is only sixteen (Or at least was when this issue went to print). Credit to him he’s got together a few really god illustrators and printed up a zine that looks good. Contributors include French, Craig Scott, Dan Singer and Archie Fitzgerald. I’ve never heard of any of them either, but their work speaks for it’s self. The illustrations range from childlike squiggles to quite technical pen and ink drawings. I think my favorite of which is the Rams head by French. All round good work, I just question whether anyone would part with two pounds for it.
Work Work/Go.Get.Fucked.
Price Unknown
Work work is a short story about the futility of day jobs. It’s technically not the best piece of writing that I’ve ever seen, but it is quite readable. Go get fucked however is a more complicated beast. It is a random selection of rants, about anything at all (Hence the word random) Article headings include:- Zine-ing (Verb: Present tense), No-Aid, Harry Potter and the repetitive book formula, Slut is just a nice way of saying irresponsible, Shit about planes, The concise guide to God/Humans/Animals, How competitions work and Bums for Oil. Again, lots of writing, no pictures, but quite readable and at times quite funny too.
Talk to Andrew about where you can get your hands on one.
