I believe it’ll serve the world and the ultimate digital historical record in some meager way if I take a crack on this site at each of the three Z Gun fanzines that came out toward the end of the 2000s. I talked about Z Gun #1 a year ago here. In Spring 2008, Scott Soriano and Ryan Wells sprung a second issue upon us, one they manifested as Z Gun #2. Like its predecessor, it was probably the best print fanzine that came out in its year, and I suspect I’d be hard-pressed to find examples to the contrary.
For instance, it contains one of my favorite interviews in any fanzine, ever – one with Australian duo Fabulous Diamonds. Not only was their dubbed-out experimental delay some of the absolute finest music of the day, the band were a male/female non-couple who seemed to cultivate this bizarre, right-out-in-the-open sexual tension that made them hate each other. In this too-brief interview by contributor DX, they talk about how they love to yank people’s chains about the sex they’re having with each other; how Jarrod wanted their record cover to be them actually 69’ing, and Nisa giving him tons of crap about how “if it came to the crunch I think he wouldn’t do it”, and Jarrod riposting that he wouldn’t be able to perform if it was with Nisa. Just a total gem of a chat, almost entirely about how much they loathe or fake-loathe each other, with nothing at all about their music.
There are Sightings and Ceramic Hobs interviews as well, with none of the interviews here having any photos of the bands whatsoever, a clearly deliberate anti-fanzine choice that I’ll have to ask one of these San Franciscans about one of these days if we ever find ourselves on the same cable car. Monty Buckles interviews Mike Doscocil of Drunks With Guns, and quite memorably says their band’s guitar “sounds the way burning plastic smells”. Bravo! This was never more apparent than on “Wonderful Subdivision”, one of the late 20th century’s most towering and majestic works of art. Doskocil admits that seeing Flipper in Kansas City at the local VFW in ‘83 or ‘84 had a major impact on his band, as you’d have expected it might have.
Rich Kroneiss, bless him, does an overview and survey of Amphetamine Reptile Records, which honestly, in 2008 was probably a label we were all a little too long in the tooth to pretend had any lasting power beyond its ability to fry the severely underdeveloped synapses of 19-year-old male faux misanthropes and colored-vinyl fiends. Hard for me to even get excited about Halo of Flies any more, much as I’d like to. Cosmic Psychos, sure. I’d have to really think beyond that, but nothing’s coming to me, and I saw just about all of them live at one point or another (King Snake Roost were a total blast).
2008, wow. A ton of underground records were still coming out on 45 and LP. In Z Gun #2, was the era of Eat Skull, Billy Bao, Black Lips, Eddy Current Suppression Ring, Hospitals, Mayyors, Pissed Jeans, Sic Alps and Slicing Grandpa. As I rather belatedly came to sort of realize putting out my own fanzines, reviewing everything that comes into the office helps no one – not the readers that have to wade through a plethora “it’s alright, I guess” reviews; not the bands whose work is given the cursory once-over and the tepid, “highly qualified” endorsement; and neither does it serve the writers, who spend some of life’s finite time padding the fanzine with mediocrity when it could have been perhaps better spent giving another 5 pages each to the Fabulous Diamonds to fight with each other, or to more stories from Mike Doscocil. This was the Art for Spastics era for me, a radio program I used to listen to religiously online made by DJ Rick of KDVS. His aesthetic fit neatly in line with that of the Z Gun editors, and even with my griping about too many reviews, when you get to the end of them you come to realize/remember that 2008 was actually a pretty healthy time for the scene.
We could use more Soriano and Wells in print right about now, couldn’t we? But hark! Scott Soriano has a new fanzine, Record Time, about to drop any day now. Pre-orders here!
Fanzine Hemorrhage 