The Flex Snoopy (Logo Power #3)

Snoopy slept on top of his house. He was a true renegade. He wears a punk collar. Taken from the newest tape by The Flex. 

Gratitude Fanzine #1 + Ride the Fury #3 (Weekly Seizure - 11.24.13)

I got to live out a middle school obsession and see Monster Magnet this week. If you happen to be a fan of the Magnet, get in touch. I'm thinking about starting a usenet forum. This week I got a few zines, namely Edgegazer and Gratitude, and the ever growing stack on my desk of things to review just keeps getting less and less tamed.

1) Ride the Fury - Pro Wrestling Zine #3

I caught this one on the last go-around and liked it enough to order again. Many of you already know I'm a wrasslin' fan across the board, and I'm glad that there's some ink being dedicated to the similarities between the cultures. I'm also prone to buy things which have "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan on them.

USA! USA!

The zine also came with a homemade Ring of Honor DVD which I haven't watched yet, but is from a good era of that promotion. I'm stoked on this zine but have a few gripes. There's some really great purely wrestling zines right now (Atomic Elbow here in the states, and Calling Spots in the UK). The layout is a little too "indesign" ish, to the point where the interview with Jam of Code Orange Kids is almost unreadable due to weird spacing errors. However, it saves itself with a few gems. One being an interview with Tom Sheehan in which he tells a story about Indecision touring with Milhouse and Silent Majority and how they gave a shirt to Perry Saturn at a rest stop. I'm also a big fan of the question "If your parents said you could bring back one wrestler who passed away to come back to life to eat Thankgiving with you, who would it be?" Bummed no one said "Ravishing" Rick Rude though. That's my answer, no question.

Nope, that ain't NYC Mayhem-era Tommy Carrol. RIP Brother

Overall, it's sick, the DVD is a nice flourish and I loved issue 2. The fuzzy layouts may seem like a persnickety gripe, but my eyes suck and it was kind of a stumbling block here. Much respect to the back cover image though, a full on HBK tribute mural.

Barbershop Window

DVD's, zines, demos and anything else related to Ride the Fury records (including the above reviewed zine) at their bigcartel. 

2. Gratitude #1

I don't feel even remotely hyperbolic by calling this the best zine of 2013. As a means of disclosure, I actually contributed the Rampage centerfold, but my bias isn't any issue. Gratitude takes after the zenith-era of brilliantly written core culture zines Lockin Out #1 Fanzine and Trumbull Escapades. These zines were insular, obsessive and academic in ways few other zines were, and at times even genius. I won't sell this one that hard. You're either into the aforementioned zines and therefore 'get it' or you don't. I am going to leave this, my favorite quote in the entire zine because it absolutely articulates my position on Metallica better than anything I've ever managed to pen...and i wrote an entire 60-page senior capstone project on them in college. (Not a joke:

What's cool about Metallica is: everything. I revel in seeing them bum people out by doing things they sincerely think are great. Sometimes I don't even know if what they're doing IS great, there's just too much history there for me to make heads or tails of it. The world's finest authors couldn't make up a character like Lars Ulrich if it was their life opus - the closest we have is Pete Campbell from Mad Men. God bless them both. --Leah Geragosian (@diahleah)

Top notch content and contributors, excellent art, footnotes (!) and the best Free Spirit interview I've ever read. There's a few of them here at the Mosher's Delight bigcartel. Get on the right wagon, bunko. 

Me and the dog will show you who's hard

Neutral Accents Fanzine (Weekly Seizure - 11.17.13)

Filthy Lucre

Greetings, groin grabbers. Got a huge order of things to read and listen this week, coming in from all corners of the world (see above). Great stuff. Particularly chuffed over The Flex Live at Mongrel fest tape, courtesy of my euro friend Fabian.

Fly the flag

1) Neutral Accents #5
I'd be remiss not to mention my favorite fanzine in America, Neutral Accents, and I recently snagged #5. 

I basically put Neutral Accents in the same camp as those "lad culture" mags (Think Loaded) that popped up in the UK throughout the 90's. They were mags which glorified a culture more than anything else, vying for the ribald interests of the modern English male through slick coverage sex, drugs, rock n' roll and copious amounts of SOCCER (erm...football). Perhaps NxA is the calloused, cynical and wholly depraved successor to these magazines, feverishly scraping into the corners of the modern male psyche. Pornographic illustrations, old rock n' roll, selective amounts of hardcore (none o' that B9 nonsense) and a series of film reviews (Grim Cinema) that rivals anything "The Academy" could put together makes it, in my opinion, the best fanzine in America. 

One for the freaks. For the rockers. For the knuckleheads who have Think I Care next to Thin Lizzy in their iTunes. 

#5 comes out swingin' with my favorite back cover image of all time (see above), a great interview with Hoxton Tom McCourt, "Captain Drack" (great raunchy comic about a Duke Nukem type with a mean streak), a guide to home brewing and an always great Grim Cinema section (side note: the review of Only God Forgives was so good, it convinced my girlfriend to rent it at Redbox. Thanks Neutral Accents, you saved our evening!). Plus, great layouts, funny pics and great reviews. If you're not on the Neutral Accents wagon, than you're on the wrong wagon entirely. Rectify it. There's still some zines available at their bigcartel! 

It speaks for itself

The Skaggs Savage Rhythm (Weekly Seizure - 11.10.13)

As we whittle down into the nitty gritty, meaty big and bouncy center of the winter holiday sandwich, remember to think about the things that really make life's casserole sweet: zines, riffs and the seasonal pumpkin flavoring of various desserts and hot drinks.

Plenty of fare to report this week (including a copy of the new Neutral Accents fanzine), but I've still gotta chew my way through it. 

I had a friend that used to smoke

1) The Skaggs - Savage Rhythm Demo Tape

I got this one through a euro internet friend (Unionwiththeabsolute) is the only name I know off the cuff, but the point is, he had the decency to send me this (and Lost in Space) zine, even after I totally failed at getting him a Get Down demo on Ebay. Good dude who's been a big supporter of Drug Dogs Zine. The Skaggs take their name from country music singer Ricky Skaggs and play a crooning style of early 2000's Wal-Mart Country...just kidding. They're a German band who take cues from the gritty likes of 86 Mentality, Void and I hear a little bit of SSD in the vocals. There seem to be a lot of european bands playing this style (maybe it's just my misplaced excitement for the Violent Reaction/The Flex tour that's supposed to hit Yankee shores soon) but I don't have any complaints about it. The demo itself sounds like a moderately crisp boombox recording (wish the drums were louder, but it makes the guit sound kinda fuzzed out so that's cool), and they take some stylistic cues from the "drawing Iron Maiden logos on my pee-chee folder" school of artwork (see also: Peacebreakers). Pick one up here because you could do far worse. Shout out to the Freaks and Geeks sample in "Wise Ways," weirdo/spooky guitar lines in "White Lies" and the screamed expletive which caps off "Sorry State." Ultimately, I don't care if you dig my comparisons. I like this tape, and think you should check it out if any of the aforementioned bands flip your cookie.

You know what he's up to now? He's Dead

Chiller Than Most Fanzine + Activate Fanzine (Weekly Seizure - 11.3.13)

Hey howdy ho. Nothing much to report except for that I still have a ton of zines to read! Thought I'd share some thoughts on a few that've come my way.

Activate #1

1) Activate #1
To shoot perfectly square, this one kinda fell flat on me. I'm not a huge fan of the layouts and the huge print...makes me feel like I'm getting screwed on content. I also didn't like that I was promised "reviews" and there were only 2. The questions tend to be of the surface variety ('who are your influences?' 'Who plays what?') and remind me of zines like It's Your Choice (which I did not like). That being said, there IS some cool content. Poder Absoluto is a band I've been interested in lately, and the interviews with Intent, Disapproval and Freedom were decent. Oh, my art was also reprinted here on the Dog Years interview. There's certainly potential with this zine. My honest opinion is "quality over quantity," so maybe trimming down on the number of interviews and digging a little deeper in the interview process would help? This could've been so great with a better layout and some reviews...
Looks like they're sold out, but keep your eye on their bigcartel here for future updates.

Team Tapir

2) Chiller Than Most #1
Incredible zine offering from a longtime internet buddy Atilla. The zine comes out of Europe (Hungary) and is completely cut n' paste for an incredible layout (peep the photo below). Nice, thorough interviews with Zach from Intent, Stand Clear, True, Unified Right and Rich Perusi's new band Garbageman. Great reading, great to look at. Definitely worth your time. Again, it's sold out, but maybe pay attention to their bigcartel and hope for a reprint.

LORDY that layout. Looks like a Ninja Turtles action figure package.