Flipside #58 (Whittier CA)

Although punkzines came and went with alarming regularity during the 1980s, two that I remember stood above the fray and realized national distribution – the legendary Maximum Rock & Roll, and the awesome, tho' often overlooked Flipside.

I remember that I used to have a bunch of copies of Flipside, but I think that I gave them all away to a guy that wanted to start a free zine library in the back of his indie record shop. I toted boxes of zines into Nashville to the guy's shop, and a couple of months later he closed up shop and sold what he could to The Great Escape, one of the local used music & comic book stores. Digging through their crates, I bought a few of the zines that had stuff in them that I had written...buying back the paper I had given away, as it were....

Anyway, I found this issue #58 of Flipside in a box somewhere, and it has some good stuff inside the pages. There's a lengthy vintage interview with Jimmy Pursey of Sham 69, another with Mike Ness of Social Distortion, and a third with the members of Sonic Youth. There are articles on Gwar, Government Issue, D.R.I. (Dirty Rotten Imbeciles), and Pussy Galore, among other bands. Like most punkzines of the era, you'll find a slew of record and zine reviews, live show reviews, and a large classifieds section, all printed on cheap-o newsprint but evincing an irrepressible punk rock spirit.

Oh yeah, this issue also includes one of John Crawford's hilarious and insightful "Baboon Dooley" cartoons. Ya just gotta love it....

(Click on the cover thumbnail to see larger picture)

VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #58
• Winter 1989
• B&W, 40-pages (plus covers w/spot color)
• Style: music zine

ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS
Jimmy Pursey/Sham 69 interview
Mike Ness/Social Distortion interview
Sonic Youth interview
Gwar article
Government Issue article
D.R.I. article
--> also reader mail, music & zine reviews

Motorbooty #3 (Ann Arbor MI)

Motorbooty #3, published by the anarchic offspring of Detroit's radical '60s, was a music and rock 'n' roll culture zine with a satirical bite and a love of the offbeat and fringe. As I remember, they always had a lot of great artwork in the pages, as well as editorial content that rested uneasily outside of what most of the alt-rock music zines were publishing at the time.

This issue includes a lengthy interview with irrepressible fringe artist Robert Williams, complimented by plenty of Williams' scatological artwork. Another interview features cult Minneapolis noise-punks Halo of Flies, and yet a third is with Markie Ramone of, well, The Ramones. There are also articles on Mudhoney, one of Seattle's most overlooked bands of the grunge era; industrial Goth terrorists Spahn Ranch; and incendiary author Kathy Acker. Throw in lots of cartoons, and some very cool psyche-styled artwork in the Rick Griffin vein, and you have a small, but entertaining issue of Motorbooty.

(Click on the cover thumbnail to see larger picture)

VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #3
• Fall 1998
• B&W, 40-pages (plus color covers)
• Style: music zine

ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS
Robert Williams interview
Halo of Flies interview
Mudhoney article
Kathy Acker article
The Ramones interview

Ben Is Dead #26 (Hollywood CA)

It was once said that zine publishers are a bunch of bitchy little girls (male or female), and by the mid-90s this was particularly true. Pre-worldwide web, zine people had only the alt.zines Usenet newsgroup to swap stories and such, and flame wars were persistent. I remember a cat named Robert who published a couple of zines out of Texas feuding with a few other zine publishers and, of course, by this time writer Bob Black had pissed off nearly everybody of note in the zine world.

Other zinesters, perhaps jealous of Darby Romeo's apparent success with Ben Is Dead, had launched various whisper campaigns and instigated several feuds with the notoriously prickly Romeo, who responded in kind. There can be no denying Romeo's success with the zine, however, as evidenced by issue #26.

A whopping 156-page collection, this issue featured the second part of the zine's immensely popular "Retro Hell" encyclopedia of '70s and '80s pop culture icons. From 7-11 stores and 8-track tapes through lunchboxes, each item is provided a funny and insightful description (M to Z are included in part three, I guess), better than a decade before VH1 produced its "I Love The 70s," etc series.

Issue #26 of Ben Is Dead also includes a lengthy, great interview with music satirist Weird Al Yankovic, the hilarious "Things We Ate" by Darby and Jen Garber (paste, crayons, etc), "The Squatter Scene Hollywood California" and "The Best Of The Wallace & Laomo Show," as well as the usual round-up of show, zine, and music reviews.

(Click on cover thumbnail to see larger picture)

VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #26
• Winter 1996
• B&W, 156-pages w/color covers, newsprint
• Style: pop culture zine

ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS
Weird Al Yankovic interview
"Retro Hell," pop culture encyclopedia, part two
"A Night At The House Of Mondo" article
"The Best Of The Wallace & Laomo Show" article
--> also live show reviews, album, zine & comics reviews, and lots of photos

Ben Is Dead #22 (Hollywood CA)

I probably have other issues of Ben Is Dead boxed up somewhere, but here I'm jumping from #19 to #22, Summer 1993. What a difference a year makes – over the course of three issues, Ben Is Dead grew from an impressive 80-pages to a whopping 148-pages, including the color covers.

Sure, there's a lot more advertising, and on the surface it may seem that the zine is doing quite well, financially, but a lot of the indie label ads might have been trades, low-cost (or free, as was the style at the time). Regardless, this is one of the thicker zines in the TMQ collection and there's a lot of content between these covers.

Maybe they did it from the beginning, but by the time of #22, Ben Is Dead had begun publishing around a theme for each issue, with articles exploring the various aspects of said theme. This issue's theme was "Modern Transmissions & Sensory Overload," which sounds like something you might have found in '90s-era cyberzines like Mondo 2000. Thus, there's a lot of mind-blowing, futuristic content in #22, articles like "Communicable Diseases: Infecting the Established Media," an interview with writer Douglas Rushkoff; "Alternative Communication & Social Oppression;" "General Magic" Corporate Polygamy Spawning Illusory Technology Designed to Change Our Lives;"

There's lot of other stuff in #22 as well, such as Reverend Al's hilarious "T-Shirt Lexicology of the Extreme Right," an interview with my old buddy and Bad Newz zine publisher Bob Z about his postering problems, an interview with poster artist Frank Kozik, an interview with Factsheet Five's Seth Friedman, a Skatenigs band interview, and an insightful piece on music conventions like CMJ or South by Southwest, among much more.

Probably one of the biggest coups for Ben Is Dead was this issue's cool interview with beat writer William S. Burroughs, while coverage of the Offworld BBS bust and articles on computer bulletin boards were right in line with the times. A fascinating issue, full of intelligent content.

(Click on cover thumbnail to see larger picture)

VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #22
• Summer 1993
• B&W, 148-pages w/color covers, newsprint
• Style: pop culture zine

ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS
William S. Burroughs interview
Douglas Rushkoff interview
Bob Z interview
Frank Kozik interview
R. Seth Friedman/Factsheet 5 interview
Skatenigs interview
Fastbacks interview
Ian Reed interview
--> also live show reviews, album, zine & comics reviews, and lots of photos

Ben Is Dead #19 (Hollywood CA)

Back during the mid-90s, Ben Is Dead was among a handful of zines that rose out of the late-80s punk scene to creep into the mainstream consciousness. Launched in 1988, over its ten-year run, as the zine brought in more advertising and contributors, it grew in size and importance on the zine scene.

Back in 1992, tho', Ben Is Dead was LA-centric punk and alt-rock zine with intelligent coverage of community and political issues. Published by the infamous Deborah "Darby" Romeo, the magazine was named after a dream Darby had about her then-husband Ben.

This issue includes a lot of comment on the recent L.A. riots, interviews with edgy bands like Cop Shoot Cop and Torture Chorus, and Darby's humorous and sometimes uncomfortable interview with her dad. The writing is intelligent, to the point of borderlining on intellectual, an unusual direction for what began as a garden-variety punkzine.

(Click on cover thumbnail to see larger picture)

VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #19
• June/July 1992
• B&W, 80-pages w/color covers, newsprint
• Style: pop culture zine

ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS
Corey Dubin interview
Cop Shoot Cop interview
Bigdamncrazyweight interview
Torture Chorus interview
"Defend The Los Angeles Rebellion" article
"The KROQ Conspiracy" article
"UFOs Over Los Angeles" article
--> also live show reviews, album & zine reviews, and lots of photos