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.

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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

Motorbooty #5 (Ann Arbor MI)

Motorbooty is one of those zines that a lot of people know but few people have actually read. Much like similar zines such as Hitch or Chunklet, Motorbooty evinces a certain sarcastic attitude. Unlike those other zines, Motorbooty swaggered along with a Motor City vibe. Published out of Ann Arbor, Detroit's politically radical sister city (home of the White Panther Party in the '60s), the zine offered up an interesting combination of music and culture.

Motorbooty issue #5 features some great interviews in its section on the "Secret History Of Detroit Rock," including members of the MC5, Ron Asheton of the Stooges and poster artist Gary Grimshaw. This issue also includes interviews with free jazz giant Sonny Sharrock and gritty Southern novelist Harry Crews, articles on the Stooges Wax Museum and Ted Nugent as well as a number of full-page cartoons, including one by Peter Bagge, many of the others done in a '60s-influenced underground comix style. Altogether a very good issue of Motorbooty, a lot of fun to read and a welcome addition to the TMQ Zine Archive.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #5
• Winter 1990
• B&W, 72-pages (plus color covers)
• Style: music zine

ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS
MC5 interviews
Gary Grimshaw interview
Ron Asheton/The Stooges interview
Ted Nugent
The Stooges Wax Museum
Peter Bagge cartoon

Music From The Empty Quarter #4 (U.K.)

Say what you will about Tower Records (and I've said plenty through the years), the fact is that the opening of the Tower store on West End Avenue in June of 1988 opened the door on a world of possibilities for we naive Nashvillians. The store's presence quickly transformed the city from a podunk, backwoods cultural outpost into a sophisticated backwoods cultural outpost. Aside from the biggest and most diverse selection of music that we'd ever seen in town, Tower's zine rack would become the stuff of legend, offering a glimpse through the looking glass into culture and music from across the US and Europe.

Case in point: Music From The Empty Quarter zine. This British music zine was a digest-sized stick-o-dynamite with slick black covers and bright white pages. Ostensibly an industrial music zine, our meek familiarity with the genre (we had heard of Throbbing Gristle, yes, and artists on Chicago's Wax Trax! Records labels were well-represented on Tower's shelves -- besides, Nashville had Dessau, now didn't we?) couldn't have prepared us for the wealth of information provided by Music From The Empty Quarter #4 when it hit Tower's zine rack.

Although the articles and interviews in this issue -- which included pieces on Debbie Jaffe of Master/Slave Relationship, Chris Connelly of Pigface, Pankow, avant-garde musician Karl Blake and a great overview of Krautrock legends Can -- were certainly of interest, it was the album reviews that grabbed the imagination of my friends and myself. Music From The Empty Quarter would review damn near anything, briefly and concisely, from industrial artists like Clock DVA, Foetus, Non and KMFDM to Current 93's "freak folk," art-punk Lydia Lunch, Scratch Acid's "noise-punk," prankster John Trubee and the garage rock of the Gibson Brothers.

There were reviews of all of the usual suspects from Wax Trax! like the Revolting Cocks, along with a fine article on the label, and reviews of other sonic-terrorists like Swans, Nurse With Wound and Nitzer Ebb, records released by proto-industrial labels like Mute, Nettwerk, Play It Again Sam and United Dairies. It was all very esoteric to us at the time, very foreign, and it provided great sport for us all during a brief "industrial music" phase (1988-93) that included dancing (or, more accurately, watching the women dance) at Nashville's 176 Underground club.

My personal interest in "industrial music" waned as my tastes drifted back to various forms of good ol' rock & roll. In '92 grunge was still on the rise, Rage Against The Machine provided all the industrial-strength anger that we needed, and rap was set to commercially explode. I still pull out the old Dessau, Psychic TV, Throbbing Gristle and Ministry discs now and then, and reading through this lone issue of Music From The Empty Quarter that I found at Tower brings up fond memories of a noisier time....

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #4
• February 1992
• B&W, 80-pages (plus covers)
• Style: industrial music

ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS
Debbie Jaffe of Master/Slave Relationship
Pigface
Can
Numb
Pankow
Wax Trax! Records
--> also album & zine reviews

Punk Planet #5 (Hoboken NJ)

From my perspective down in rural Tennessee, Dan Sinker's Punk Planet zine was the East Coast response to left coast punkzines like Flipside and Maximum Rock 'N' Roll. Originally published out of Hoboken, New Jersey Punk Planet featured cleaner, more readable lay-out than most punk-oriented zines, and this early issue was printed in B&W on newsprint.

Looking over this 12-year-old issue and comparing it with more recent ones, Punk Planet hasn't really changed much in spirit or content. Regular columnists back in '95 included Sinker, Will Dandy, Julia Cole, Slim Moon, Darren Cahr, Dave Hake, Leah Ryan, Jim Connell, Kim Bae, Larry Livermore and Jersey Beat zine's Jim Testa. This issue's "scene report" was from Edmonton, Alberta Canada; interviews include Bikini Kill, the Queers and Huggy Bear. There are a handful of fictional stories, John Crawford's "Revolutionary Fetus" cartoon and record and zine reviews.

Punk Planet is still kicking out issues today and making a difference in the punk community.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #5
• January/February 1995
• B&W, 80-pages (including covers)
• Style: music zine

ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS
Bikini Kill
The Queers
Huggy Bear
MC5: The End Of An Era
--> also album reviews, reader mail, columns, record and zine reviews

Nothing But Record Reviews v2n2 (NYC)

Okay, here's the deal...Maximum Rock 'N' Roll columnist Mykel Board published this zine called Nothing But Record Reviews back in the early-90s, but since he also reviewed cassette and videotapes sometimes, he would change the zine's name however he felt like at the time. Since he also threw in articles like this issue's Roger Ebert interview, he would add the disclaimer "Almost," which made the name of this particular issue Almost Nothing But Record (and tape) Reviews. Board also had his finger on the musical zeitgeist at the time, putting Nirvana on the cover and adding the tagline "(Almost) Nothing about Nirvana in this issue" (and there's not).

Board crammed a lot of reviews between the covers of this issue, starting with video reviews. He writes that while he was living in Japan, in the suburbs of Tokyo, "there wasn't much to do except rent videos." That means that readers get well-written reviews of obscure Japanese fare like Bio-Therapy, Robot Ninja and Pretty Body alongside films like SS Experiment, She-Male Reformatory and Maniac Cops. The aforementioned interview with film critic Roger Ebert is pointed and interesting.

As mentioned in my other Nothing But Record Reviews entry, Board's musical tastes were quite diverse, and this issue's album/tape reviews run the gamut from notorious and/or well-known indie artists like G.G. Allin, Snuff, Band Of Susans and Roky Erickson to the truly obscure like Iron Prostrate, Drop Acid, Dr. Gonzo and Naked Violence. Throw in early-90s era advertising from labels like Lookout Records, Bomp Records, Alternative Tentacles, Dischord and ROIR and fringe musicians like John Trubee and G.G. Allin and you have a valuable print relic of a bygone time....

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Vol. 2, No. 2
• Winter 1992
• B&W, 32-pages (including covers)
• Style: music zine

Mykel Board official web site

Mykel Board MySpace page

Nothing But Record Reviews (NYC)

Published by former Maximum Rock 'N' Roll columnist and all-around scenester Mykel Board, (Almost) Nothing But Record (And Tape) Reviews was a sporadically-published zine that featured, well, mostly record reviews, with a smattering of other material as per Board's whims and interests at the time. This issue included a flexi-disc of some sort that I didn't receive because I traded zines with Board (thanks Mykel!), but otherwise the zine is a lot of fun.

Ten years after the compact disc had raised its ugly head, Board was still reviewing only vinyl records and cassette tapes, focusing exclusively on indie labels and artists. Board had pretty diverse tastes, so (Almost) Nothing But Record (And Tape) Reviews covered everything from punk to heavy metal to Japanese pop. This issue includes reviews of such disparate fare as Pentagram, Rocket From The Tombs, Swans, Nuclear Assault and Mudhoney alongside more obscure stuff as Kyofushimbun, Osgood Slaughter, Kicking Giant and Nick Riff.

Board had spent two years in Japan previous to this issue so most of the video review section covers films like Tetsuo, Kurasawa's Dreams and Japanese animation as well as Hollywood releases like Pet Cemetery and Child's Play. This issue also includes "Letters That MRR Wouldn't Print," which outlines the feud between that zine's Tim Yohannan and cartoonist Ace Backwards. One of the things that is the most fun about revisiting (Almost) Nothing But Record (And Tape) Reviews are the ads for indie labels like Dischord, Alternative Tentacles and ROIR which help provide a snapshot of the era.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• No number on issue
• January 1992
• B&W, 32-pages (including covers)
• Style: music zine

Mykel Board official web site

Mykel Board MySpace page

Kicks #6 (New York City)

It took about a year for Miriam Linna and Billy Miller to put together the average issue of Kicks, but as shown by #6, it was always well worth the wait. The cover feature is a lengthy story on Bobby Fuller, including an extensive discography; other articles include pieces on Sonny Burgess, Chicago garage bands, movie "star" Arch Hall Jr. (Wild Guitar), Ronnie Dawson, Elroy Dietzel and the Rockin' R's from Peoria, Illinois. Issue #6 also includes a Drew Friedman cartoon, zine reviews and the usual album reviews. With this issue, Kicks also jumped up in price to $4.50 per issue but they also checked in at a healthy 104-pages with a cool color cover. Given the range of early rock music that Kicks explored with every issue (a field they had almost entirely to themselves), one wishes that they could have put out issues more frequently.

To be entirely fair, however, Linna and Miller had their hands full during the mid-to-late-80s. Aside from Kicks, they also published a zine called Bad Seed, which I unfortunately never got a chance to see. They had also launched Norton Records and over the following 20 years would release seminal recorded works from great rockers like Hasil Adkins, Roy Loney, the Flamin' Groovies, the Sonics, Link Wray, the Dictators and many more. They're still going strong today with Norton, and aside from CDs and vinyl, they also sell books and zines. They also still have a limited number of copies of Kicks issues #6 and #7 available for sale through their online store. Because the subject matter is timeless and obviously well-researched as a labor of love, Kicks is a zine that is well worth the investment to find and add to your collection.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #6
• 1988, no month given
• B&W with Color cover, 104-pages (including covers)
• Style: music zine

ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS
Bobby Fuller
Sonny Burgess
Ronnie Dawson
Arch Hall Jr.
The Swags
The Rockin' R's
The Rumblers
Sparkle Moore
--> also album reviews, reader mail, book & zine reviews, lots of smaller articles

Kicks #5 (New York City)

A year after discovering Kicks at the Nashville Tower Records, issue #5 popped up and soon ended up in my greedy little hands. Linna and Miller had obviously found an appreciative niche audience and the zine grew by a third to a whopping 100-pages. The subject matter did not suffer from the growth in size and popularity of the zine, and if you'll forgive the pun, this issue kicks ass!

Kicks #5 kicks off with an exhaustive eight-page article on Hasil Adkins, who by this time was also a Norton Records recording artist. The piece includes a page with pictures of the labels of Adkins' self-released 45s, a very cool visual addition to the artist's discography at the end of the article. Other articles in this issue include a piece on the Rivieras, Joe Clay, the Pyramids, rockabilly legend Dale Hawkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and a cool "bull session" with Ed "Big Daddy" Roth. There's also a one-page "Hollywood Hell" cartoon by noted artist Drew Friedman, titled "Ugly White Guys – They Like Television"; and a funny four-page cartoon strip called "Milestones Of Teendom" by Jane King and artist J.D. King.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #5
• 1986, no month given
• B&W, 100-pages (including covers)
• Style: music zine

ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS
Hasil Adkins
Jerry Lee Lewis
Joe Clay
Ed "Big Daddy Roth"
The Rivieras
The Pyramids
--> also album reviews, reader mail, book & zine reviews, lots of smaller articles

Kicks #4 (New York City)

One of the benefits of Tower Records moving to Nashville during the '80s was the ill-fated chain's liberal newstand policy. Although the "zine revolution" was already a few years old, the ready availability of zines – like most cultural advances on the "Music City" – took a catalyst like Tower to bring the phenomena home.

Kicks was one of the zines that I first picked up from Tower. Published by Billy Miller and Mirriam Linna, who was an early member of the Cramps and the Zantees, Kicks celebrated the roots of rock music. This undated fourth issue, from sometime during 1985, features stories on roots-rock idol Wanda Jackson, hillbilly rocker Hasil Adkins, the Fort Worth Music Scene and more. The zine was published a magazine-sized 8.5"x11" with a hurried punkture graphic style that crowded a lot of text and photos (some random clip art) into multiple columns. The writing was top-notch, especially Linna and Miller's work, and this issue also includes articles by Greg Prevost and Nick Tosches. The subject matter, while narrowly focused, was nevertheless interesting to anybody with a love of music.

Linna and Miller would later launch the well-respected indie label Norton Records as an outlet for the kind of music that, while respected during the '80s, was still pretty hard to find (even at Tower). These days...forget about it! The pair were also the biggest boosters of Hasil Adkins' career, releasing albums by the West Virginia madman and making his work available to a wider audience.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #4
• 1985, no month given
• B&W, 76-pages (including covers)
• Style: music zine

ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS
Wanda Jackson
Ronnie Self
Hasil Adkins
The Tempests
Trixie Norton
Freddie Blassie
Link Wray
--> also album reviews, reader mail, book & zine reviews, lots of smaller articles

Blitz #38 (Detroit / L.A.)

Either I have copies and just haven't dug them out of a box yet after our recent move, or else I never had them in the first place, but I'm missing three issues of Detroit's Blitz (they dropped the "!" somewhere during the year) from 1980. Sometime during the year, health problems caused Blitz publisher/editor Mike McDowell to forsake the cold, snowy winters of southern Michigan for the warmer, more attractive climate of southern California. With this issue, Blitz had successfully relocated to Los Angeles and increased the size of the zine from its traditional 7.5"x10.5" to a more-professional-looking 8.25"x10.75" magazine size. Unfortunately, the editorial decline that had begun during late-79 had obviously followed Mike to L.A. as this issue is the weakest (in my estimation), editorially, of any in my admittedly small collection.

Blitz issue #38 features a cover story on the Four Preps, including an interview with Ed Cobb, and a piece on the Jan & Dean 1980 summer tour. On the plus side, this issue includes an interview with Detroit rock legend Mitch Ryder, who was staging a "comeback" at the time. I remember Bob Seger's massive, nine-night sell-out of the Joe Louis Arena in Detroit during the summer of '80s where he brought in Ryder to open for him. My brother Greg and I got lucky enough to see three shows during the stand and Ryder kicked ass! This issue of Blitz also includes an interesting interview with Jimmy O'Neill, the host of the TV show Shindig!

With this issue, McDowell also expanded his "local scene" coverage with reports from Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, Boston, Toronto and Chicago, which was written by my old buddy and music biz PR wiz Cary Baker. Blitz also continued to cover 45rpm vinyl, this issue featuring reviews of singles from the Clash, the Barracudas, Cub Koda & the Points, the Undertones and the Zantees, among others. LP reviews this issue included Blotto, SVT, the Pirates, Teenage Head and the Tremblers.

This is the last issue that I remember seeing of Blitz, since I later moved back to Nashville from Detroit in mid-81, just in time to catch the initial stirrings of a growing Music City rock scene. I recently dug up this blog for the zine, created by Mike McDowell, who has evidently been publishing in some form or another, since launching his original Ballroom Blitz! music zine back in 1975. Overall, I've enjoyed Blitz! as much or more than many of the small-press music zines that I've run across or have been associated with, and I've gone back to the handful of issues that I have for reference time and time again. I have to applaud McDowell for sticking by his guns and continuing to publish Blitz! through the years, bringing his own individual rock & roll vision to the pages of the zine.

Mike McDowell's Blitz!: http://blitzmag.blogspot.com/

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #38
• November-December 1980
• B&W, 28-pages (including covers)
• Style: music zine

ARTICLES
Mitch Ryder
Jan & Dean
The MNM's
Luxury
Ed Cobb/The Four Preps
--> also album reviews, reader mail and local music news from Detroit, Boston, Chicago and L.A.

Blitz #34 (Detroit)

The new decade found Blitz! continuing its mandate to be "The Rock and Roll Magazine For Thinking People." Editor/publisher Mike McDowell found a lot to like with the fledgling "new wave" and pop scene of the early-80s, and this issue of the zine showed it with articles/interviews on Paul Collins of the Beat, Ian Gomm, the Invictas and Boston garage rock faves the Lyres (written by Miriam Linna of the Cramps, Kicks Magazine and Norton Records).

McDowell further expanded his "scene" coverage with a report from Cleveland, while local Detroit rock coverage includes a piece on the Reruns and reviews of 45s by the Mutants and Coldcock. Dunno why McDowell included a lengthy piece on Bobby Vee -- I guess that he really dug him -- but he did it right, including an exhaustive Vee discography.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #34
• January-February 1980
• B&W, 28-pages (including covers)
• Style: music zine

ARTICLES
Ian Gomm
The Beat (Paul Collins)
The Lyres
The Reruns
Bobby Vee
The Invictas
--> also album reviews, reader mail, local music news, reviews of "classic songs"

Blitz #33 (Detroit)

Overall, Detroit's Blitz! music zine offered up pretty interesting music coverage through the years of its publication, mixing classic and typically overlooked artists with new faces in a way that only Greg Shaw's Bomp! zine and Ira Robbins' Trouser Press were doing at the time. Every now and then, however, publisher/editor Mike McDowell would wimp out with a piece on a questionable artist like Bobby Vee, or this issues piece on schlock-rocker Robert John. McDowell partially redeems himself with a fine interview with soul giant Solomon Burke (who was off everybody's radar in 1979) and a piece on pre-fame John Cougar (Mellencamp).

A piece on Little Buddy & the Kids performing in NYC includes photos by well-known zinester Mykel Board, and vinyl reviews feature 45s from the Action, the Cars, the Headboys, the Inmates, the Lyres and local Detroit rockers the Vampires and Nikki and the Corvettes. An extensive LP review section this issue includes Blondie, Chuck Berry, the Crawdaddys, Cheap Trick, David Johansen, the Records, Carolyne Mas, the Rubinoos, the Shoes, the Residents, Tom Verlaine and, for some reason, the Captain and Tenille. Ouch!

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #33
• November-December 1979
• B&W, 28-pages (including covers)
• Style: music zine

ARTICLES
Gary Lewis (of the Playboys)
John Cougar
Solomon Burke
Robert John
The Neighborhoods
--> also album reviews, reader mail and local music news

Blitz #32 (Detroit)

Blitz! scored a major coup, in my eyes, when they landed an interview with country music legend Hank Williams Jr. for issue #32. Sure, in '79 ol' Hank wasn't quite the giant that he is considered today, but he had definitely moved out from under his daddy's considerable shadow to forge his own sound and larger-than-life musical legacy. Much of the rest of this issue paled by comparison, but McDowell still delivered the goods with a strong piece by Al Wagenaar on great lost '60s Michigan band the Fredric, pop-rocker Nick Gilder, LA rockers the Zippers and '60s-era folk-rock band the Last. Reviews of 45rpm vinyl include the Human Switchboard, Graham Parker, Roy Orbison, the Records and Detroit band Stirling. LP reviews include a diverse bunch o' punters, including Devo, Nick Lowe, the Kinks, Dave Edmunds, the Flamin' Groovies, Sleepy LaBeef, the Knack and more...wowee zowie!!!

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #32
• September-October 1979
• B&W, 28-pages (including covers)
• Style: music zine

ARTICLES
Hank Williams Jr.
The Fredric
Elton Duck
The Last
The Zippers
Herman's Hermits
Nick Gilder
--> also album reviews, reader mail and local Detroit music news

Blitz #31 (Detroit)

Blitz! music zine rolled on through 1979 with its usual coverage of overlooked rockers, past and present, issue #31 including a lengthy piece on cult faves Question Mark and the Mysterians. This issue also includes an interview with Miki Zone of the Fast and the Miki Zone Zoo, a piece on American blooze-rockers Canned Heat and a long piece on Detroit's own favorite sons, the Mutants. Singles reviews include wax from the Crap Detectors, Kenny and the Kasuals, the Gizmos, the Electric Prunes and Wazmo Nariz. LP reviews include rockabilly wonder Robert Gordon, the Boomtown Rats, Cheap Trick, the Jam and Bram Tchaikovsky. My copy of this issue was cut wrong, resulting in some strange page placement but, luckily, no lost content.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #31
• May-June 1979
• B&W, 28-pages (including covers)
• Style: music zine

ARTICLES
Question Mark & the Mysterians
Canned Heat
The Miki Zone Zoo
The Mutants
--> also album reviews, reader mail and local music news

Blitz #30 (Detroit)

Issue number 30 of Blitz! offers a nice balance of local Detroit rock coverage and coverage of classic early R&R bands like Danny & the Juniors and Paul Revere & the Raiders. This issue also includes articles on out-of-towners like Boston's Moving Parts and Cleveland's Human Switchboard. It was around this time that I met Blitz! publisher Mike McDowell somewhere around town (maybe at one of the many weekend record collector's conventions?) and talked to him about writing for the zine.

I never got my chance to contribute to Blitz! but that didn't dampen my enthusiasm for the magazine. This issue included features on two of my favorite local bands, punkers Flirt (as I remember, mainstays at the New Miami club in the Cass corridor) and Nikki Corvette & the Convertibles (who should have been big stars in the vein of Katrina & the Waves, the Go-Gos or the Bangles). The reviews section is flush with reviews of Motor City rock, including 45s from Destroy All Monsters, the Ivories and Master Cylinder, and Elvis Costello's This Year's Model takes the top LP spot in the Blitz Awards For 1978 listing.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #30
• March-April 1979
• B&W, 28-pages (including covers)
• Style: music zine

ARTICLES
Phil Volk of Paul Revere & the Raiders
Flirt
Nikki Corvette & the Convertibles
The Nightcrawlers
Moving Parts
The Human Switchboard
Danny & the Juniors
--> also album reviews, reader mail, local music news, reviews of "classic songs"

Blitz #29 (Detroit)

With issue number 29 of Detroit music zine Blitz!, publisher Mike McDowell includes two excellent articles, the first being "The History Of Hamtramck Rock," covering local bands the Mutants, the Reruns and the Romantics. Hamtramck is a city-within-a-city located near the center of Detroit. Home to a large GM plant, Hamtramck was a mostly-Polish community with some of the best restaurants that you'll ever eat in. A microcosm of the high-octane Motor City rock scene, the little city had a long musical legacy of its own to brag about.

The other cover article worth noting is McDowell's piece on Radar Records, including a label discography. At the time, aside from the odd article in Creem magazine, only Ira Robbins' Trouser Press was really covering what was going on in England. McDowell's article included Elvis Costello & the Attractions, Ray Campi and his Rockabilly Rebels, the Good Rats, Nick Lowe, the Soft Boys and other artists that were still a good year or five away from becoming well-known in the United States. Other articles in this issue include a piece on cult band Kenny & the Kasuals, the Neon Philharmonic and the Belmonts as well as the usual well-written and diverse album and 45 reviews.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #29
• November-December 1978
• B&W, 28-pages (including covers)
• Style: music zine

ARTICLES
"The History Of Hamtramck Rock"
Kenny & the Kasuals
The Belmonts
The Neon Philharmonic
"Dangerous" Diane Spodarek
"The Radar Records Story"
--> also album reviews, reader mail, local music news, reviews of "classic songs"

Blitz #27 (Detroit)

Back in the late-70s, the "zine revolution" had yet to explode. Sure, there was an abundance of mimeographed science fiction "fanzines" that made the rounds at conventions and by mail, but the concept of the all-purpose photocopied zine had yet to really take off in the creative imagination.

Punk began the popularization of zine publishing, as a number of small-press publications began to pop up on the coasts. Greg Shaw's Mojo Navigator was probably one of the first while Punk in NYC and Search & Destroy in LA tacked down the coastal music scenes. In Detroit, the zine of choice was Blitz! Published by Mike McDowell with a heavy debt owed to Shaw's Bomp!, the pages of Blitz! were filled with a wonderland of local punx, classic pop-rock coverage and the odd outcast. The writing was good, the local coverage was all-inclusive and the lay-out was clean, kind of in the style of Ira Robbins' Trouser Press.

Issue #27 of Blitz! wasn't the first that I had picked up, but it was the first that I found in a big box o' stuff that I hauled up to WNY from Tennessee. Looking through this issue, I was delighted to find long-lost articles on Detroit rockers like the Reruns, Cinecyde and the Zooks. A cover story on soul legends Sam & Dave made for great reading and a series on the Monkees included an interview with David Jones in this issue. More in the spirit of the aforementioned Bomp! or Trouser Press than, say, Mike Stax's Ugly Things, Blitz! is an obscure but quality small press pub.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #27
• July 1978
• B&W, 28-pages (including covers)
• Style: music zine

ARTICLES
Sam & Dave
David Jones of the Monkees
The Reruns
The Zooks
Cinecyde
Brad Long
--> also album reviews, reader mail, local music news, reviews of classic songs