This is a high-concept fanzine from our current times undertaken by one Coco Brigitte. She selects one obscure, underground, punk-adjacent pre-internet band, and then goes to town in compiling the ultimate print-only, perfect-bound historical record of said band: articles, interviews, fanzine reprints and photos galore. She did this in Research & DocumentFanzine #1 for Japan’s Non Band, a band I’m ashamed to say I’m not even familiar with, and now she’s done it for San Francisco’s The Trashwomen, a band I’m quite familiar with, for Research & DocumentFanzine #2.
I’d never fob myself off as one of the overexcited hordes who went nuts for The Trashwomen when they emerged around 1991, but I certainly saw multiple early shows of theirs. I’d been effectively going to every Mummies show in the SF Bay Area for the previous 24 months, and a few Phantom Surfers things as well, and this new all-female garage band was a part of a crop of raw, talent-optional bands that emerged quickly from that scene. I knew guitarist Elka Zolot because she’d been in 8-Ball Scratch; I didn’t care for them much, but they’d ably opened a few shows I’d gone to. Her easiness on the eyes was certainly commented upon by more than one young cad of my acquaintance during those years, but it was her utterly ripping and highly distorted surf guitar chops that kept both girls and boys rapt and standing at attention.
Danielle Pimm had been the go-go dancer for The Phantom Surfers (or The Mummies? or both); now here she was playing bass for the first time, and (be still my heart) sometimes singing too. (Some called it caterwauling; I called it “learning to sing”). Tina Lucchesi worked in a local record store, was at pretty much every garage punk show I saw, and was always great to talk to. Here she was playing drums! Three stars were born. The Trashwomen converted skeptics quickly, and jeez, by the last time I saw them a couple years later they were really, really good. What had started as almost 100% instrumental was now primarily vocal-driven surf/garage/party rock, really reverbed-out, bashing and and distorted. And the freaks who were part of that scene – man – all the screaming you hear on their live record, or other live records from this scene? That’s what these crazy garage punk kids did: just screamed and screamed and sloshed their beer all over each other. Sometimes, I was one of them.
Coco, the editor of Research & DocumentFanzine #2, saw some stuff I’d written online about early 90s fanzines that spotlighted the band, like this, and asked if I could supply some scans. As most punks know, I’m always willing to lend a hand to help unite the scene. So I even get a ‘lil thank-you in this thing – how about that? But let me tell you, folks – this is an exceptionally well put-together book/fanzine, perfect bound and on heavy paper, full color and laid out in a great combination of absolute professionalism and total fanzine who-gives-a-fuck-ism. There’s even a totally black page with nothing on it – “uh oh, we don’t have enough material for a multiple of 4; but we’re close enough – let’s just make a blank page”. (And honestly, besides a few typos, the rest is first-rate graphics and layout and, um, content creation).
So you get the wild sights, sound and smells of San Francisco’s clubs circa 1992-94 here, along with dozens of color and B&W photos from their Japan and European tours, as well as ephemera from other jaunts. You’ll come to know as much about The Trashwomen as there probably is to know beyond the memories of the band members themselves – and those are in here too, including a new interview with Tina. (it seems her new band might actually be called TINA! – I really hope so). Honestly, you don’t even really have to dig the band all that much to be highly enthusiastic about this fanzine; it’s certainly making me want to get her first issue and sign up for the ones to come, the bands being researched & documented being of little consequence. (Wait, how about Sally Skull??)
Fanzine Hemorrhage 