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Nick Porentas from The Benandanti (a short story) |
Active Transformation |
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Active Transformation Active Transformation is an anarchist tabloid where "direct
action" takes the place of ideology. Active Transformation
keeps tabs on the growing police state here and the evils of
Amerikkka's foreign policy. -TS Gutless Gutless can be a seen as an "indie pop" fanzine.
Basically, indie pop means accessible, upbeat, pop-styled music
made outside of the music industry by bands operating under a
do-it-yourself ethic. The Fall 1998 issue I have contains road
diaries written by Stephen based on trips to Athens, Georgia
and Washington, D.C. to attend and participate in indie pop events.
Typically of a zine, Gutless contains numerous record and zine
reviews. Gutless also features several interviews. A few of the
interviews are with recognizable acts like Superchunk and Stereolab.
Also featured is a look at two, independent labels from Ann Arbor,
Michigan and Bloomfield Hills, Joan's Towne The steady theme through Joan's Towne is one of aliens and UFOs. The concurrent themes are religions and languages. The meat of this issue, The Cult Issue, is an interview with a reformed cult member on the lingo of brainwashing as the interviewer makes sly alien abduction jokes. In another article, a Jewish subtext is elucidated from "Star Wars." Plenty of goofiness and a few poems are included. -TS ___ Killjoy (#11; $1.00) Like the previous zine, this one seems to be the work of the
editor himself. This time, it's not quite as charming and there
aren't any fucking graphics in sight! Dude, I appreciate the
fact that you are a part of the underground publishing consortium—helping
to make our world a freer place and all—but what about style,
writing skills, sex and the like?! Yeah, the only thing he's
got going for him is attitude, but without the wittiness and
the high drama graphics, who the fuck cares?! Sorry, Luther,
but I just can't recommend ya. [F] KiT Zine (vol. 4, #8; $1 USA/$2
elsewhere) I'm trying to remember if I realized before that this zine
had such a religious bent . . . . Anyway, it's filled with religious
propaganda and some zine and music reviews for balance, I guess.
I'll give it to James; he'll review anything (including my stupid,
little fucked up zine), but he makes his position clear; that
without Jesus Christ in your life, you're fucked. I guess I can
dig the fact that he's upfront with all his preaching. What I
can't dig is the newsprint format—you get shit all over
your hands trying to read it!—and the fact that the design
for the whole kit and kaboodle is crappy (the art is cheap-looking
and he uses way too many fonts on each page for my taste). That's
not even counting the fact that there are pages filled with teeny
text with no graphics in sight! So that even if I was trying
to "get converted," he wouldn't sucker me in with this.
And to think that maybe all these years that he's been corresponding
with me, he may have been slyly trying to "save" my
soul . . . . It'll be a cold day in hell when that happens! [C-] Out of Order (#12 and the Out
of Order Goes Underground issues) One of my favorite zines strikes again (and again). Peter's short story work is the essence of his zines (alongside of the artwork of Alan Harvey, who Pete says, "dances barefoot in the kitchen of my imagination . . ."). But, in the Underground issue, there're a lot of city scape and architectural photos abound, all of which add a nice gritty flavor to the whole publication, AND complement the stories well. Actually, it's lines like "It's the zen of the electric current, pure harmony and serenity as I become lost within the folds of the city far beneath it's skin" that get me. And others, like "Apparently, it's the end of the world and I'm strung out on caffeine" that keep me. As usual, Pete has enough of himself to share that he doesn't need to scour the globe for writers (who, sometimes, incidently, must be handheld through the writing process and persuaded to share their work with the rest of the free world) to fill his space. He need only reach within and voila! I often envy you, Pete. [A-] ___ Sicko Sick is a large tabloid of sick, depraved and sometimes funny
comics. Tail Spins #31 ($3); #32 ($4) One of the huge names in big, newsprint indie band mags strikes
twice in my mailbox, boasting of hundreds of reviews and a ton
interviews. So much, in fact, that it's almost overwhelming.
I guess the idea is to give you more of what they charge the
big bucks for. (Actually, I'm not as impressed by the regular
zine as I am by the Zine Guide that they publish. That's probably
‘cause I'm a lot more into zines than I am into these kind
of indie bands). [C] Willzine Willzine is by a guy who went to Burning Man and walked around naked with his dick painted green. So, you know there is all sort of oddball stuff in it. Beside plenty on the Burning Man event, there are excerpts from a 50s sex manual sprinkled throughout. This personal zine is full of publisher Will M.'s observations on well-known assholes and aspects of suburbia that he loathes. Beside including poetry, Will even goes as far as to sing the praises of B-movie "Motel Hell." -TS ___ All reviews that were written by TS (Tom "Tearaway" Schulte) are from Outsight Magazine(www.detroitmusic.com/outsight) and Tom can be contacted at POB 1500, Royal Oak MI, 48068-1500, e-mail: outsight@usa.net. You can assume that the rest of the reviews, though unmarked, were done by little ol' me.
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