Bad Newz #14 (New York City)

This might be the last issue of Bob Z's Bad Newz punkzine that I have buried away in the vaults. I would be remiss if, over all of these reviews, I didn't mention the overall quality of writing to be found in Bad Newz. Bob Z was a decent punk-poet and some of his free verse was reminiscent of Bukowski in its street-smart style. Bob could write pretty well when he had a lot of passion for the subject, and his band interviews were generally entertaining. Although almost always presented in a Q&A format – not my favorite style – Bob always tried to coax something interesting out of otherwise less-than-glib subjects. Other Bad Newz scribes, like longtime supporter Chris Caggiano or frequent contributor Holly Day, wrote decent-to-great copy, and the zine would regularly publish the works of the usual suspects from the underground, writers like Feral Faun and Mike Gunderloy.

Issue #14 of Bad Newz includes an interview with the phenomenal underground musician Eugene Chadbourne, as well as conversations with Alien Sex Fiend and hardcore punk legends Murphy's Law. Articles include "A History of Scum Rock," "Touring Europe: One Person's Experience" and "The War On Drugs: A Kinder, Gentler Vietnam." Of course, there is the usual glut of live show reviews, album and zine reviews, poetry and fiction, and "Twisted Image" cartoons by Ace Backwards. A lot of folks consider Maximum Rock 'N' Roll, Flipside or Punk Planet to be the best punkzines ever published, and they each have a unique voice and loyal following. But in its day, Bad Newz walked the walk and talked the talk, Bob Z and crew refusing to get too slick, too lethargic, or too far removed from the street.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #14
• Spring 1990
• B&W, 66-pages (including red-colored covers)
• Style: punkzine

ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS
Eugene Chadbourne
Alien Sex Fiend
Murphy's Law
Carrion Dog
"The History of Scum Rock"
"Touring Europe: One Person's Experience"
"The War On Drugs: A Kinder, Gentler Vietnam"
"Twisted Image" cartoons by Ace Backwards
--> also live show reviews, album & zine reviews

Bad Newz #13 (New York City)

Bob Z and friends delivered another fun read with Bad Newz #13, their "Death To The '80s Issue." Included in this hefty collection is an interview with punk band the Dickies, another on Chicago alt-rockers the Effigies, a lengthy interview with Johnny Puke, lead singer of punk band Stinky Finger and the publisher of Wrong Conclusion fanzine, Jenifer Blowdryer of the Blowdryer Experience band, and performance artist Fucia Doll of Bloodsuckers From Outer Space. There is a great article by writer Randall Reid, "If This Is How Life Makes You Feel..." that outlines the 1984ish turns taken by the Bush administration (shit, the old man was a piker compared with W's assault on civil liberties!), as well as an update on Bob Z's problems with the "sanitation police" in New York City.

Bob Z always published a lot of letters from readers and fellow zinesters in Bad Newz, every bit as many as Anarchy zine has always published, tho' maybe not as many as you can find in The Match anarchist zine. Bad Newz #13 includes a lengthy letter from Fred Woodworth, publisher of The Match, on his battle with Madalyn Murray O'Hair and her atheist organization, another letter from Gordon of WDC Domination and the usual batch of live show reviews, record reviews and a slew of zine reviews, not to mention a little poetry and, of course, "Twisted Image" cartoons.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #13
• No month given - late 1989?
• B&W, 68-pages (including red-colored covers)
• Style: punkzine

ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS
The Effigies
The Dickies
Chumbawumba
Stinky Finger
Jenifer Blowdryer/The Blowdryer Experience
"Twisted Image" cartoons by Ace Backwards
--> also live show reviews, album & zine reviews

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.

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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

Bad Newz #11 (New York City)

The Reverend had to dig deep into the back of the filing cabinet to find these earlier issues of Bob Z's legendary Bad Newz punkzine. Issue #11 was published while Bob was still located in New York City, during his infamous battle with the "sanitation police" that first brought him and his fine zine to my attention. The deal went like this: after NYC had passed an anti-postering ordinance, inspectors with the city's sanitation department went kookoo-bananas, grabbing whatever "evidence" they could from posters stuck to city lamp-posts and then fining the "culprits." Their brilliant Holmesian investigation found Bob Z's phone number on posters for punk shows that he was promoting, and they fined him $3,100 for his transgression. Bob fought this injustice and, in the process, spent thousands of dollars that he didn't have on legal fees and promotion.

This issue also includes "A Jaded Look At NYC Clubs," a follow-up of sorts to a similar line-up published in issue #9. As the writer states, the Big Apple club scene changes rapidly, and most of the clubs discussed in this article were probably history a year later (and certainly almost all of them are gone now). Nevertheless, it is an interesting read from a historical perspective. There is a short Bob Z. interview with Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, just prior to the time of the band's signing with Geffen Records; as well as interviews with Chicago bands Screeching Weasel and Sponge Tunnel.

Amidst the eye-popping "punkature" styled graphic lay-out, you'll also find the zine's usual mix of political commentary, records and zine reviews and lots of funny cartoons by ubiquitous underground artist "Ace Backwards." You'll also see a lot of ads for other zines (Bob used to swap ads with everybody...he was cool like that) and low-budget indie labels in the pages, resulting in a trip back through time to a simpler, much more civilized era of alt-culture.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #11
• February 1989
• B&W, 56-pages (including green-colored covers)
• Style: punkzine

ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS
Screeching Weasel interview
Sponge Tunnel interview
Sonic Youth interview
The Unsane interview
"Polish Punk" article
"Twisted Image" cartoons by Ace Backwards
--> also live show reviews, album & zine reviews

Punk Planet #15 (Chicago)

Sadly, I recently heard the news that Punk Planet is ceasing publication with its latest issue, its 80th over the last 13 years. The usual suspects are to blame – a dwindling number of subscribers, fewer advertisers and, perhaps the deepest cut of all, distributors that rip them off. The zine's web site mentions a problem over at McSweeney's, where that publication lost $130k with the bankruptcy of one of its larger distributors. I seem to remember Punk Planet having a similar problem a few years ago.

Here's why this is such a problem: distributors are a necessary evil in publishing; the good ones will get your magazine or book out on local shelves across the country and pay you for those you sold. However, bad distributors will take your product, duckwalk it half-ass it onto a few shelves, and "lose" your payment. I'm convinced that many magazine distributors, in particular, are mob-styled operations much like a lot of record companies once were. They're formed as limited liability corporations, they fleece as many of the publications they distribute as they can for as much money as they can, and then they file for bankruptcy and/or simply go out of business, leaving indie publishers like Punk Planet or McSweeney's holding the bag. Many publisher just can't recover from the loss....

Looking back at healthier, happier days, Punk Planet #15 features a wealth of content over its 120-pages. PP took a strong political stance early on, this issue featuring extensive and interesting (punk-cum-anarchist) coverage of the Democratic and Republication conventions from 1996. There are also interviews with punk bands Rhythm Collision, Cheescake and Chamberlain and with Action Girl comic creater Sarah Dyer. You'll find the usual columns and more record and zine reviews than you can digest in a single sitting.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #15
• October/November 1996
• B&W, 120-pages (including covers) on newsprint
• Style: punkzine

ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS
Sarah Dyer/Action Girl comics interview
Rhythm Collision interview
Cheesecake interview
Chamberlain interview
Democrat & Republication convention coverage
--> also reader mail, columns, music & zine reviews

Punk Planet #9 (Chicago)

It's unusual, for any publication, but Punk Planet found its voice very quickly, issue #9 showing the same independent spirit and developing the basic editorial direction that the zine would pretty much follow for the next dozen years. Editor Dan Sinker had moved from Hoboken, New Jersey to Chicago, where the zine would be published for many years. This issue is a fat one, growing better than 20% in page count from #5 in our archive.

There are interviews with the Mr. T Experience, the Lunachicks, Reverend Norb and Earth Crisis, as well as MR&R style columns from folks like Sinker, Larry Livermore, Julie Cole and David Hake. There are a slew of record and zine reviews, some fiction and the issue's "DIY" column is offers up a dated view of the Internet and web. This issue also includes a 7" flexi disk bound in the zine with tunes from the Mr. T Experience, Squirtgun, the Queers and the Hi-Fives. For you youngsters out there, a flexi disk (or "sound sheet") was a paper-thin square of vinyl that was grooved like a 45RPM single that zines during the '80s and '90s used to hype their favorite bands. Much likes zines themselves, the flexi disk is a media relic of a quaint time long passed.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #9
• September/October 1995
• B&W, 112-pages (including covers) on newsprint
• Style: punkzine

ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS
Mr. T Experience interview
Lunachicks interview
Rev. Norb interview
Earth Crisis interview
--> also reader mail, columns, music & zine reviews

Bad Newz #17 (San Francisco)

Bob Z bounces back after a fractured issue of Bad Newz with a slightly bigger, but much more focused issue of his erstwhile punkzine. Issue #17, from sometime during 1992, includes interviews with Greg Sage of the Wipers, Gifthorse, the Lie Detectors, Internal Malfunction Institute and an older-but-still-cool interview with Fred Frith from 1987. There's a lot of stuff on the death and attempted rebirth of the legendary zine Factsheet Five, and lots of poetry crammed in between scores of album and zine reviews.

Bob gets more political with this issue of Bad Newz as well, running the anti-corporate satire "Union Of Time Thieves #00," another piece on unrest in Yugoslavia and, ahem, my rant on the Ice T and Body Count controversy from the time. The "punkature" styled graphics are still present, and although not as busy and claustrophobic, still delightfully crowded on the page. Altogether another enjoyable issue of Bad Newz courtesy of Bob Z.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #17
• 1992, no month given
• B&W, 34-pages (including purple-colored covers)
• Style: punkzine

ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS
Greg Sage/The Wipers
Fred Frith
Gifthorse
The Lie Detectors
Factsheet Five zine update
--> also live show reviews, album & zine reviews

Bad Newz #16 (San Francisco)

A year or so after moving to San Francisco, my buddy Bob Z (a/k/a "Robert Beaper") has fallen on some hard times. Benefit shows for Bad Newz have barely broken even, bands have backed out of their support, and it seems like Bob's just not having a very good time on the left coast after leaving NYC. That doesn't stop him from putting out another issue of his fun-to-read punkzine Bad Newz, though, even if issue #16 is smaller, somewhat disjointed, and offers up confusing pagination and lay-out.

Nevertheless, Bob includes the second part of his interesting Mike Gunderloy interview; by the time of this late publication, Mike had sold Factsheet Five and gotten out of publishing, but there's still a lot of interest for zine people to read. There are also interviews with New Mexico punk band Red, White & Black and with Debbie Jaffe of Master/Slave Relationship, some cartoons by Ace Backwards, and the usual bunch of album and zine reviews. Bob rails against the local SF scene with a couple of well-placed rants and there's your usual, invigorating "punkature" styled graphics as only Bad Newz could do it! By this time, methinks, Bob Z was spending more time and focus on his poetry and less on the zine, but this issue still provides a lot of value for a couple bucks.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #16
• 1991, no month given
• B&W, 32-pages (including purple/blue-colored covers)
• Style: punkzine

ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS
Mike Gunderloy/Factsheet Five
Master/Slave Relationship
Red, White & Black
--> also live show reviews, album & zine reviews

Bad Newz #15 (San Francisco)

With punkzines mostly a relic of the past by 1990, and with grunge about to jumpstart a new zine revolution in a mere year or so, my buddy Bob Z's Bad Newz kind of fell in the middle. Bob took late-70s "punkature" styled lay-out to the extreme, and this issue of Bad Newz, #15 from some undetermined month during the fall of 1990, was his biggest and best to date, a visual feast of cut-n-paste columns, "found" art, mind-blowing graphics and punk attitude.

Zine publisher and show promoter, Bob Z. was a well-known fixture on the NYC punk scene for several years before pulling up stakes during the summer of '90 and moving lock, stock and barrel to San Francisco. Z had won a decisive victory over the NYC "postering police," who had cited him for littering with show posters and fined him $3,700; when the authorities found out that Bob was campaigning against the postering laws, they jacked up his fines to over $22,000 and took him to court. "Bob Z vs the Postering Police" became the underground "cause celebre" during 1988 and '89, and Bob raised money and received support from dozens of zines (mine included), some as far away as Poland. In the end, Z won his battle on appeals and the city's anti-postering law was found to be unconstitutional as it was being enforced at the time.

Bad Newz #15 was the first issue Bob published from San Francisco, I think, and Bob put some good stuff in these jam-packed pages, including interviews with Mojo Nixon, the Fixtures, Bloody Mess, the Amateur Gynecologists, 8-Bark and Steel Pole Bathtub. Bob also provided some pretty in-depth coverage of the era's underground zine scene through interviews with Factsheet Five's Mike Gunderloy, Maximum Rock & Roll's Tim Yohannon and cartoonist Ace Backwards. There's also a slew of album and zine reviews crammed into every free corner of each and every page.

I always enjoyed each issue of Bad Newz and corresponded regularly with publisher Bob Z at the time, trading zines and sharing war stories about the battles fought just to get our zines in print. These days, with the resources of the Internet providing anybody that can string together two sentences a potential audience, people forget (or don't know) just how hard it was to publish something...anything...back in the pre-web days.

Besides the arduous and time-consuming work of physically typing up and preparing a zine for printing, you had to worry about money and advertising (which mostly came from bands and indie labels – the sort of people who would support a zine were unfortunately also those who wouldn't or couldn't pay for their ads) and, finally, the possibility of censorship. It was a free press minefield, to be sure, especially for good folks like Bob Z who would push the envelope of free speech and free expression with every issue of Bad Newz.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #15
• 1990, no month given
• B&W, 54-pages (including yellow-colored covers)
• Style: punkzine

ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS
Mojo Nixon
The Fixtures
Steel Pole Bathtub
Mike Gunderloy/Factsheet Five
Tim Yohannon/Maximum Rock & Roll
Ace Backwards
--> also live show reviews, album & zine reviews

House O' Pain #10 (Nashville)

It took a while for them to get it out on the street, but with issue #10, Nashville's House O' Pain continued to grow both in size and influence with the growing local underground rock scene. House O' Pain's Donnie and April Kendall were working with Mary Mancini at Lucy's Records to promote some great all-ages shows, the zine was landing very cool artist interviews (like Green Day two years before their breakthrough, or legendary punkers Jawbreaker), and the HO'P record label was expanding with released by Teen Idols, The Fixtures and Load. This issue came with a 7-inch vinyl compilation that included Teen Idols, Lethargic, Floor and Cannibal Holiday.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #10
• August 1993
• B&W, 68-pages (including covers)
• Style: punkzine

ARTICLES
Green Day
Jawbreaker
Mudhoney
Brainiac
Hammerhead
My Name
Insect Syren
Lethargic
--> also album reviews, live show reviews, local music news

House O' Pain #9 (Nashville)

With issue number nine, Nashville's House O' Pain began to grow in size as well as importance. The Metro would soon evolve into Bone Music Magazine and just didn't cover the breadth of alternative and underground music that was covered by the HO'P crew. This issue covers more of the ongoing saga of The Pantheon and the purchase of the club's lease by Nashville rock's favorite scoundrel, Gus Palas. Lots of good interviews in this issue, covering a wide spectrum of musical diversity.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #9
• January 1993
• B&W, 64-pages (including covers)
• Style: punkzine

ARTICLES
The Jesus Lizard
The Melvins
L7
Cows
Spitboy
Buzzoven
Citizen Fish
Man Or Astroman?
Babes In Toyland
They Might Be Giants
--> also album reviews, live show reviews, local music news

House O' Pain #8 (Nashville)

This issue included lots of coverage of the ongoing saga of The Pantheon club in Nashville where the House O' Pain troika promoted their all-ages shows. In one of the most pathetic episodes in the history of the local rock music scene, club owner Pan Doss had booked the infamous G.G. Allin to play The Pantheon in November 1991 only to run headfirst into opposition by city leaders. An "anonymous" phone call to the police brought a legion of codes inspectors to the club, temporarily closing it down and costing Doss thousands of dollars to make right. To this day, I still feel that it was one of the city's notorious church groups that made the call. This issue of HO'P also covered the final chapter of the feud between myself and Gus Palas, publisher of The Metro and my launching of the local music zine R Squared.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #8
• August 1992
• B&W, 44-pages (including covers)
• Style: punkzine

ARTICLES
Helmet
Cop Shoot Cop
The Accused
Porn Orchard
The Wedding Present
Skinny Puppy
Bedlam Hour
--> also album reviews, live show reviews, local music news

House O' Pain #7 (Nashville)

House O' Pain was a punk-oriented zine published during the early-90s by Donnie and April Kendall and Troy Pigue. Donnie was a pretty well-known musician on the local Nashville punk scene, a member of the legendary Rednecks In Pain and Fun Girls From Mt. Pilot. Donnie and April also promoted some really cool all-ages shows, dubbed "Migraine Matinees," first at the Pantheon Club and later working with Mary Mancini at Lucy's Records.

My relationship with House O' Pain started off rocky but got better as time passed by, and I became friends with Donnie and April (still dunno about Troy, tho'). Like most small local rags at the time, HO'P came out with an editorial against The Metro, Nashville's local (commercial) music magazine. Their anti-Metro bitchlist consisted of the usual complaints -- not enough coverage of "alternative" music (i.e. punk), too much advertising, blah, blah, blah. So it goes...I disagreed with their perspective (which also amounted to a criticism of my work with The Metro) and we went back and forth for a few months. We later buried the hatchet, however, and I did my best to support House O' Pain's efforts, including the indie record label that they launched and their all-ages show.

Like most punk-oriented zines of the time, the lay-out for HO'P was heavily indebted to '80s-era "punkture" graphics, i.e. lots of white print on black pages, strips of text laid on top of photos, pages that appeared torn, etc. Unlike most of the punk zines I remember seeing at the time, however, HO'P had a better quality of writing and criticism, and Donnie, April and Troy went out of their way to grab interviews with some important musicians. Shortly after this issue, number seven, came out in February 1992, local FM station WRLT ("Radio Lightning") purchased The Metro and converted it to a much slicker, even more commercial music mag. It was left up to House O' Pain to write about the edgier artists that I had been covering for The Metro and they did it well, influencing a generation of young Nashvillians.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #7
• February 1992
• B&W, 44-pages (including covers)
• Style: punkzine

ARTICLES
Henry Rollins
Firehose
The Fixtures
U.K. Subs
Trusty
The Shindigs
--> also album reviews, live show reviews, local music news