So let’s be clear – I wasn’t shuckin’ and jivin’ in the Chicago clubs in July/August 1981, and I only became aware of Chicago’s Coolest Retard fanzine from that era this year, 2024. Thank you Todd N. Once I got the lowdown on it and was allowed to see – and touch! – a couple of copies of the thing, I resolved to track down a copy somehow, and Coolest Retard #15 is the one I chose as “the one to grab”. I mean, that cover, right?
Somehow the tribute piece to Mark E. Smith as “Retard of the Year” is even better than expected. Grotesque is the newest Fall record at this point, and like Kickboy Face, editor Craig Schmidt totally gets it. (At least I think it’s Schmidt – the piece is uncredited, but it’s the best writing in here, and who else but the fanzine’s editor gets to bestow the honor of coolest retard?). Who knows Craig Schmidt’s story out there? Schmidt, you there? Drop us a note in the comments, anyone, or contact me via electronic mail so as to further my societally valuable and highly desirable fanzine scholarship.
“Quite frankly The Fall are the only group I listen to at times. Not because they are so smoothing and soothing, but because there are so many loose ends to tie up…..They throw together their album sleeves, and chock them full of stories and myths about R. Totale and his son Joe. Mark indulges in hit and miss vocals (I dare you to try and replicate his vocal on New Face in Hell), kazoos pop up in songs, not as clever additions but as prominent keynotes in the song. Production aspects travel the gamut of the control board, definitely pass the level of ‘good’ taste”. Yep. How great was it to hear and enjoy The Fall for the first time, folks? I heard This Nation’s Saving Grace first in ‘85, and it’s fantastic – but I had the pleasure after that of diligently working my way backwards, and right or wrong – and there are many opinions here – had the liberty to not care much of what came out after 1985.
Coolest Retard #15’s most distinguishing characteristics beyond this, and I say this with zero malice, are its Anglophilia and the sheer number of ads from local clubs and businesses they were able to hustle into the thing. Profit margin on this cut/paste/staple job must have been immense! Schmidt, you out there? Anyway, touchstone bands beyond The Fall in this one are Gang of Four, Stranglers, Echo and The Bunnymen and the Au Pairs, among others. Even some early synth-poop like Heaven 17 – not the Canadian one – sneaks in. There’s some talk of punk and nascent hardcore, with news shared that The Fix are about to play the west coast with the Dead Kennedys. I just blasted a bunch of Fix in my car the other day – just an absolute onslaught and easily one of the ten great true HC bands of all time. At least that’s what I say. There’s some early coverage of Chicago locals Naked Raygun and Strike Under and the Busted at Oz bands.
Another interesting piece and very of its era is “That African Sound” by Johnny Von Damen, which looks at how African polyrhythms are sneaking into all sorts of rock and rock-adjacent music right about now, from Public Image Ltd. to Bow Wow Wow to Brian Eno. “Von Damen” welcomes the trend, and recommends, and I quote, that you “give it a spin!”. Whoever reviews The Cramps’Goo Goo Muck/She Said 45 believes that new guitarist “Kid (Congo) is no Bryan Gregory but a hell of a lot better than Julian”. Julian! Julien Hechtlinger, aka Julien Grindsnatch, was in The Cramps for about five minutes in 1980, famously playing second guitar on stage in the song captured for Urgh: A Music War, one of the greatest moments of historical culture ever recorded. No shade thrown to Julien, please. Finally, we learn in Coolest Retard #15 that Black Flag will be playing at local club Tuts on Wednesday, July 15th – and the next night at the same club, The Fall with locals Da. If you’re up for the threepeat, the next night you can go see The Psychedelic Furs. “Knowing what I know now”, I’d have been at all three for a back-to-back-to-backer the Summer of ‘81; hangovers, school and the fact that I was 13 and living in California and not reading the ‘Retard be damned.
Fanzine Hemorrhage 