It wasn’t but two months ago when we talked about a different issue of the Alright! fanzine (#4), put out in Los Angeles by Rich, a.k.a. McKinley Richard of the band Jackknife. Rich, he was in love & lust with the garage punk of the day, both as a practitioner and as a true fan. This small missive from 1992 spans a mere twelve pages but it’s a terrific snapshot of where much of my head was at the time, mainly gawping and gaping at Royal Trux, The Bassholes, ‘68 Comeback, the Cheater Slicks, the Blues Explosion and so on – though I never saw this magazine at the time & I can’t imagine any more than 50-100 of them were ever printed. I just got this copy in the mail from JS, who gifted it to me like a true mensch. We sincerely appreciate his generosity at Fanzine Hemorrhage!
Rich makes his swelling admiration for The Trashwomen’s Danielle known right from the off, and it got me digging through my own physical archives….yeah, I know there’s a picture somewhere….yes, there it is! Before any of us knew her as a musician, she danced go-go style for The Phantom Surfers and (I thought, but I’m probably wrong) The Mummies. It was likely 1991 when she was summoned over to our clan of idiots in order for Nicole Penegor to take this photo of her and myself.
Then a year later, she turned up in a new all-female trio called The Trashwomen, at first playing instrumental surf music only, and then adding tracks with vocals as they improved – and they did improve. I recall that they let Danielle – whom I’d never met before this photo was snapped, nor after – sing one song and one song only, and it was fingernails-on-chalkboard fantastic. She was later in The Brentwoods, and therefore lives forever in our hearts.
Alright #2 is like watching an unfolding snapshot of the time we all first heard The Chrome Cranks; when the final Gibson Bros album came out, and when “Larry from In The Red” had young America’s ear. Or being able to nod knowingly when Royal Trux tells Rich that Matador gave them an advance for an album, but that they “inadvertently spent all the money”. Oh, snap! Does that all sound pretty inane to you? Yeah, it does to me too from this vantage point 31 years later, but there were some good times, some mighty good times, and Rich was right there on the front lines stirring the drink.
Fanzine Hemorrhage 