One Chord Wonder

Regular readers of this column and of Sassy may have noticed that the new issue of the latter, which hit the newsstands yesterday, picks Heavenly for the "Cute Band Alert" box. Assuming you read FM the day it came out, it's safe to say you "read it here first." And (making the same assumption) you might remember that the word of the week this week is "zine," which is a contraction of "fanzine," which was coined sometime in the 70s from "fan" plus "magazine"; the missing "maga" (yes, I'm making this up) stands for "mega," since fanzines are by definition produced not by megacorporations intent on market shares, but by individuals (or small groups of people) who basically want to tell you what they like and dislike, and why. There are probably several thousand such publications devoted to one or another flavor of what I've been calling "underground rock," and 10 or 12 that I read "religiously"; the few zines I'm going to talk about here are distinguished not so much for their slavish reflections of my particular taste, but for their widespread availability (i.e. you could walk into Newbury Comics or In Your Ear or even Tower Records and buy one); their breadth (i.e. there are lots of bands and records covered in each issue); and their high entertainment value.

POPWATCH. Thick, multi-colored, eclectic, based in Somerville, and put out once or twice a year by my friend Leslie Gaffney (who lets me write reviews for it, but that's not the basis of my recommendation, nor is it more than a page or two of the last 90+ page issue). Most "real" magazines could learn many things about graphic design from the inset photos and graphics and various display faces Leslie deploys; the art (last issue had cover art by Chris Knox!) is neat, too, but the meat of the magazine is interviews--with Peter Jefferies, Barbara Manning, Madder Rose, A. Snail, Crystallized Movements, S. Moxham and various lesser lights worth learning about. Other record reviews are by one or more members of Sebadoh. If I've convinced you to check out one and only one commercially available fanzine, Popwatch should probably be it. Can't find it? Unlikely, but if so, write to P.O. Box 440215, Somerville MA 02144.

ABLAZE! Enthusiastic and sometimes venomous scribes from Leeds (England) whose tastes intersect with mine only every so often, but who are so much fun to read that I don't much mind: thick heaps of raw information about (largely) noisy records from all over the globe, with bizarre slogans Jenny Holzer would kill to have coined liberally "mixed in" (in the ice-cream sense of the phrase "mixed in"). Nirvana and Sonic Youth were in here early on; the latest issue has the most articulate, most convincing (pro-) "Riot Grrrl" think-piece/manifesto I've seen, plus interviews with Moonshake, Sugar, Tsunami, Nation of Ulysses, Huggy Bear, several unheard-of British bands, and that guy who used to sing for the Pixies. Tower and Newbury Comics stock it, or send f3.90 to Karren Ablaze! at 17 Wetherby Grove, Leeds LS4 2JH, England.

PTOLEMAIC TERRASCOPE Run out of London, by the Bevis Frond and his friends, who--both in the records they make and in the zine they write--are mostly concerned with 60s psychedelia and its 80s-90s direct descendants, of whom there are many more than you think. Graphics are elaborately medieval, etched, antiquated and well-crafted. The Loud Family, talented Australian songwriter and ex-punk Ed Kuepper, and the former bassist for the Jimi Hendrix Experience are featured items in the "latest" issue; the 7" record inside sounds good too. Look for it at In Your Ear, or send f2 to Nick Saloman, Woronzow Records, 75 Melville Rd., Walthamstow, London E17 6QT.

CHICKFACTOR A lighthearted and, oh, twice-yearly B&W mag by and about "women in pop," whose latest edition includes Barbara Manning, Tiger Trap, the Bats and "quiz questions" asked of dozens of independent-popmusic somebodies, like "where are the cool places to go in your town?" and "what was the first concert you went to?" It's a neat introduction not so much to the musical universe of American independent pop as to its particular social universe, which doesn't make it less worth reading, just more gossipy. The record reviews in the back pages are refreshingly and inspiringly non-snide. Write 245 E. 19th St. #12T, NYC, NY 10003.

INCITE! Free, and done by my friend Tim, and one of the biggest influences on the way I think or write about music; accurate reviews share the pocket-sized spaces with graphics approrpriated from Victorian magazines and with offbeat autobiographical bits (like "Out of the Way First Names: A History of People"). Write to P O Box 649, Cambridge, MA 02138; you may be a slightly happier person after reading Tim's zine, which is more than I can say for my own work. See you next year.