I don’t have a social media presence any longer – wait, have I said that before? Look at me everyone, wow, look at me, I’m not on social, so incredibly brave, wow – and therefore this site is my quote-unquote “public face”. Thus, it’s where I shall inform you about some things:
*** After five months of slumber, my Agony Shorthand music podcast – once called Dynamite Hemorrhage Radio, then Radio Dies Screaming – has a new episode out. You can go listen to it if you like music.
*** I have a Fanzine Hemorrhage column in Record Time #4 fanzine. It’s now out, and I’ve seen it. Ignore how the layout cuts off some of the text and punctuation – you didn’t need to understand my sentences anyway, right? The mag’s great. Order it here.
Now, on with our programme.
I was probably in a condescending, holier-than-thou, nattering-nabob-of-negativity headspace when I read Sniffy Linings #1 last year. I mentally filed it as “yeah, it’s okay”. And yet something obviously brought me back, and it wasn’t an interview with Itchy and The Nits. No, I’ve always dug what Rich at the Total Punk label’s been about; his label is class, and he just seems like a great fella. We got to bantering the lone time I met the dude about Teddy & The Frat Girls, as one does. He puts together the new Sniffy Linings print fanzine from his Portland, OR home with a set of bigtime punk rocker contributors – folks like the other punk rock Rich (Kroneiss, who did Terminal Boredom); Mitch Cardwell; Miranda Fisher, who does The Bible; Joe Chamandy and others. Even Gerard Cosloy – yeah, that one – lends a hand.
So last night I dove into Sniffy Linings #2 and I went full “cover to cover” on the thing. I walked away inspired, refreshed and with a far better outlook on the scene than I had two hours previous. To wit: the chitty-chat with Matthew from Black Time & Midnight Mines by his fellow Englishman Chris Taylor is highly enjoyable, despite my only being marginally acquainted with the man’s work. It’s fun to see just how obsessed this guy was with Crime, the band, from an ocean away, and get to hear his stories of meeting up with Johnny Strike and Hank Rank in California years later. I remember being pretty fucking stoked myself when I found myself in person with them a couple times.
Better still is Miranda Fisher’s “I did it for the article” trip to a Roseville, CA sports bar to see Greg Ginn’s new Black Flag, the one with the female singer. Loved reading about the crowd in their Papa Roach and Tool shirts getting bummed every time the band played anything post-Damaged; loved the story of the show being listed as an 11am show, rather than the 7pm it actually was; actually, I love everything about both Fisher as a comedic writer and about a brain-friend Ginn playing live gigs as “Black Flag” with three kids.
Three of the guys from The Lavender Flu are interviewed as well, and man, I feel like I’m the only person in whatever cohort I’m in to not get the love for this band at all. Everything they say here makes me think that they’d be phenomenal – despite the fact that I nearly walked out of the room when I saw guitarist Chris Gunn’s Hunches long ago, but that was mainly due to the singer making a Stiv Bators-esque ass of himself on the floor of the club. You keep writing the songs and I’ll keep trying, Lavender Flu, okay?
So many other things to consider here. There’s a now-recuring “I Don’t Get It” column where the writer gets to gratuitously bash a band of his or her choice, which is a blast. I tried my hand at this sort of tomfoolery on a blog over two decades ago – Waylon Jennings, The Dictators, The Pop Group and so on. So fun, and as you might imagine, I received my very best “fan mail” about this series of articles. (Note: I’ve subsequently changed my tune on The Pop Group). Anyway, in Sniffy Linings #1 the takedown was on Redd Kross, and it was great. This time it’s Randall Cummings carving apart Guided By Voices, and while I don’t quite agree, I love that he’s only heard Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes – their two best records – and feels that’s already more than enough. “Maybe it’s not fair to write off an artist with 400 plus albums because you’ve partially listened to two of them, but how bloody does your nose have to get before you decide to stop punching yourself in the face?”.
I’ll leave it there to let you “do the needful” and get your own copy here.
Fanzine Hemorrhage 