Friday, November 21, 2014

TOP 5 with Attila (Chiller Than Most Fanzine)

I figure it's time to give a little mic time to some of my friends and cohorts over the years. Attila is legitimately my only Hungarian friend, but he's been a Drug Dogs supporter since #1. Nowadays, he puts out an excellent fanzine called Chiller Than Most (peep my back cover for issue #2 and a forthcoming design for #3). I figured I'd give him the floor to outline his own personal Top 5. Read, enjoy and scroll to the end of the interview for links to purchase his zine or contact.
Ati's collection
FIVE THINGS THAT I MISS by Attila (Chiller Than Most Fanzine)

1. CREATIVITY WHEN IT COMES TO CASSETTE TAPES: I honestly think there is a rightful place for formats like vinyl records, cassette tapes and fanzines in this digital age. Aside from the respect for traditions I don't think I have to explain how much better it is putting on a record and looking at the cover art than listening to music on a laptop, or how much better it is to read a fanzine by the river/in the bath tub/on the toilet than browsing on a computer. 

That being said, most of the time I am also listening to music on my computer, I rarely turn on the tape deck. This is exactly why I don't like most of the recent demo tapes lack of creativity. It does not satisfy my collector nature anymore if the European and American editions have the same cover, the first press and the second press have the same cover with a different colour. There are so many gifted illustrators out there, tons of pictures from shows, let's use them! Let's not put out a demo tape without a lyric sheet! Don't call a lame piece of paper an insert. Why can't we get a one page photocopy fact sheet with every tape?



2. TICKETS: I have been collecting tickets and stubs alongside records, tapes and fanzines for a long time. I organize them in a separate folder, like I do with everything else and my favourite tickets I carried around in my wallet for years. During my last move a few of these old tickets came about, all of them a tiny slice of hardcore history. The thoughts in my head were racing around and took me to 2003, good memories of travels, shows and stories. I remember there was one guy in the Hungarian hardcore scene up until the mid 2000s whose duty was to design tickets. From the past 5 years I probably only have one or two tickets, they were substituted by lame stamps and online tickets receipts. The stamp fades away and you will throw away the receipt. Attention, people booking shows: please bring back real tickets at least for the small shows holding 50-100! It's not important if they are not printed quality, it will suffice if they are Xeroxed, just let there be something physical to keep as a memory. 


3. BANNERS: I can not play a note, therefore I never had a band. If I had one there is no way we wouldn't hanging on the back of the stage of every show. Other than making the presence of the stage better (think about the legendary Underdog banner, or Side by Side or Justice in the 2000s) a flag serves as an important symbol. It resembles unity, the togetherness of the scene. Aside from a few great exceptions banners have vanished. It would be nice if more bands put up banners.


4. EUROPEAN FANZINES: I am not against webzines at all but the printed material is the real thing. It is good to see more and more hardcore fanzines coming out in the USA and Canada, the fanzine subculture is thriving again. I personally miss European fanzines though. 10 years ago there were tons of amazing fanzines all over the European scene (Wake Up And Live, Crucial Times, Wise Up, The Ghent Decontrol, Send In The Clones etc.), there was a time when I could order 3-4 zines a month from Belgium and the Netherlands, nowadays I can not order 3-4 from the whole continent! 


5. LYRICS ON SLEEVE PRINTED T-SHIRTS: Since the introduction of the legendary 4 sided t-shirts in the 80s, less and less bands print lyrics on the sleeves. We could encounter the words "A Journey of a Thousand Miles" on The First Step's early shirts, but mostly it is only the label's logo that gets printed on the sleeves. I miss these 3/4 sided shirts resembling the iconic t-shirts and classic hardcore designs. Fortunately Mosher's Delight is trying to change this recently. ("Scream for tomorrow", "No thanks, I don't need your drugs", "There are none as blind, as those who will not see!", "Care enough to do something, know enough to do it right!", "Straight on view", "Wake Up And Live!", "Drugs & Booze the sure way to lose")

KUDOS FOR CREATIVE IDEAS: Moshers Delight Records 4-sided t-shirts ("Only showing what's worth knowing!" / "Find the strength within!") Sike and Bluesbreaker postcards, Unified Right fact sheets, Straight Truth fact sheets, Flowerheads newsletters, Antwerp Hardcore Collective card, Control Records stickers, Powered Records posters, New Instinct Records card, Moshers Delight Records liveset tapes with interviews, Moshers Delight Records fact sheets, Fineprint Records liveset cassette...




Antwerp Hardcore Collective card / "Congratulations, you have just met the AHC (Antwerp Hardcore Collective)" - The Inter City Firm (ICF) is an English football casual firm mainly active in the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s, associated with West Ham United. The name came from the use of InterCity trains used to travel to away games. One of the most feared firms of the heights of football violence, the Inter City Firm was famous for leaving a calling card on their victims that read 'Congratulations, you have just met the ICF.'

Attila (Chiller Than Most fanzine) 
chillerthanmost.bigcartel.com
www.facebook.com/chillerthanmostzine

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