Bad Newz #12 (New York City)

Since he was busy fighting with the NYC sanitation department through the summer, it took a while for Bob Z and his crew to get issue #12 of Bad News out on the streets of the Big Apple. It proved to be worth the wait, however, 'cause this issue had a lot of meat on the bone. To begin with, it was 76-pages of awesome punkature-styled lay-out with a lot of content crammed between the covers. There's a lengthy article on "The Gemstone Files" (a ubiquitous presence on the late-80s zine scene), the 'Holy Grail' of conspiracy theory that allegedly ties everything together with a nice, neat bow. It makes for fascinating reading, even if you have to take the most of it with a grain of salt. Of course, if even a few of the article's assertions are true, well....

Issue #12 also includes a lengthy and very interesting interview with Lainie "The Oyster" Duro, a prolific poet and zine publisher that all of us on the scene corresponded with, swapped ads with and reviewed each other's work. There is a series of articles on "Outlawing Abortion" that tackle the Christian rights' attempts to overturn the landmark Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court Decision. An interview with punk stalwarts the Dwarves and the bands Spongehead Experience and Dead Steelmill are complimented by loads of live show reviews, record and zine reviews, some fiction and a few poems, as well as a bunch of Ace Backwards cartoons. Oh yeah, there's Bob Z reprinted a letter that the Reverend sent to him about the city of Nashville's own fight against postering by local bands and promoters. It also seems that I sent Bob $20 for a zine sub ($7) and one of Z's cassette compilation tapes ($4) with the remaining funds a donation to his legal defense fund.

(Click on cover thumbnail to see larger picture)

VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #12
• August 1989
• B&W, 76-pages (including covers)
• Style: punkzine

ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS
"The Gemstone Files" article
"Outlawing Abortion" article
Lainie "The Oyster" Duro interview
The Dwarves
Spongehead Experience
Dead Steelmill
"Twisted Image" cartoons by Ace Backwards
--> also live show reviews, album & zine reviews