After the seminal purchase of my first two punk fanzines in 1982, recounted here, the purchase of any and all underground music-related fanzines became a habit, shall we say. The tack-on of one or more fanzines to my Tower Records or Universal Records or Streetlight Records bag for another buck or two, if I had it, became something of a de rigeur move. It’s why I’m still blabbering about those exact physical copies here. I also was working the counter and/or the drink machine at San Jose’s Wienerschnitzel twenty hours a week at $3.35 an hour, so I absolutely had the extra cash for whatever the fuck I wanted.
BravEar became a regular early buy. It wasn’t really because I loved this particular fanzine all that much, but because it was a visceral connection to San Francisco, a near-mythical, club-packed, punker-filled city located one long hour to my north. I wanted to be there so goddamn much. I’d read about shows at the Sound of Music, the I-Beam, the Mabuhay and elsewhere and curse my birth year and inability to drive. So I’d buy BravEar and Puncture and live it all vicariously instead.
However, and I’m just going to say it – when BravEar sucked, it really sucked, and in 1982, issue #3, it really sucked. I got this issue after the fact – just this year, as it happens. I’d never even cradled it in my hands. These are actual adults reviewing records and live shows from ABC, the Stray Cats, Bananarama and Oingo Boingo as though they’re worth dissecting, people who’ve got a foot in the true underground but instead have already bought into the corporate story of funny-haircutted dandies playing disco being the next link in the new wave. They’re also doing a lot of half-baked shitting on 1982 bands like first-EP Dream Syndicate. I mean, 1982 was an absolutely fantastic year for underground music, maybe the last truly great one in a six-year run, and you’re writing about the majesty of Thomas Dolby? (“I enjoin you to have a listen, preferably while reading the words”).
No wonder nearly everyone’s hiding behind some godawful pseudonym here (“Ohr Well”, “Dogtowne”, “Velvet Thistle”). BravEar did get a lot better in later years, despite some remonstrance here and here from me on issues #10 and #12 respectively. And hey, they give some space to Bill Christman to write about, yes, San Jose’s own hardcore punks Los Olividados! SJ pride all the way. Now I get confused sometimes about the fellas who did the hardcore punk rock shows on KFJC back then, but the one that blew my mind every Monday night was Bob Gibson’s “White Noise”. I listened every week, despite being a little intimidated by ‘81-’82 hardcore. He played Los Olividados for sure. I think he’s a distinct person who’s neither Alex Morgan (“Vinyl Rites”) nor Bill Christman, but maybe Morgan and Christman were the same person? Does anyone know what I’m even talking about? No?? OK. let’s move on.
I’m bummed this issue was so flaccid more out of the sense of them missing an opportunity and blowing it. It’s just music of course, and a fanzine, and both are kinda dumb – but you people don’t pay me for milquetoast takes, right? Lorry Fleming, who was managing editor for this issue, would later go on to write a great fanzine column in the otherwise avoidable BAM. Perhaps she was, like, 18 years old here? And that’s why she greenlit the poetry, the politics and the Wilhelm Reich piece? I mean, you should see the crap that I personally allowed in the KCSB Livewire in 1988, and I was editing at age twenty. So I’m going to stop dumping on BravEar #3 out of immense respect for the process, if not the results.
Fanzine Hemorrhage 