Bruce Russell – Fanzine Hemorrhage

I’d wanted a copy of New Zealand’s Alley Oop for years, and so hats off and a big thank you to Brendan, who made it happen. Aside from Garage, which I’ll likely never see an original copy of, it was the NZ mag I’d most seen quotes pulled from and reviews swiped from, and upon the evidence presented here in 1988’s Alley Oop #5, there was ample reason for doing so.

While no formal editor is presented on any masthead here, at least judging by the amount of content contributed, it looks like Paul McKessar helmed the fanzine or at least was very deeply involved. He apparently got #me-too’ed a few years ago. Right away there’s a very NZ-centric gossip page, with some excited early Xpressway news. Heads-up is provided about the Dead C’s forthcoming The Sun Stabbed EP, and there’s some celebration of the fact that “sales of the Xpressway Pile=Up compilation have already exceeded some expectations”. Remember, if it sells 100 copies in New Zealand, that’s like 4 million in the United States. They also talk about an upcoming Xpressway tape of 1983 recordings by Christchurch’s The World, which didn’t actually happen until Unwucht put the stuff out in 2013.

This gossip column also hipped me to a Bill Direen & The Bilders comp from 1988 called Divina Comedia that I’m only just learning was a thing now. Then comes a trio of interviews; first up is the Jean Paul Sarte Experience. This is undertaken by Ian Henderson, brother of George, and the guy behind Fishrider Records, a terrific small label who has put out several records by Emily Fairlight, one of my favorite artists the past ten years. You’ll definitely want to check her raspy-voiced gothic Americana out, and move on to this one once you’d bought that. Snapper are talked with by McKessar, and Stones by Chris Heazlewood, an artist of deserved renown in his own right.

The reviews are fairly minimal in number, but of course the kiwis have outstanding taste. I was dazzled to see the rave for Tripod Jimmie by Bruce Russell (Xpressway/The Dead C); he loves the excellent and highly underrated A Warning To All Strangers, which he rightly says is going to be very hard to find. I barely saw it here, where I live in California, and they were from San Francisco. There’s some Pixies love from McKessar, and some slightly overwrought praise for Public Enemy too. Have I ever written about the time Public Enemy was playing UC-Santa Barbara when I was in college, around this very time, and “Flava Flav” was spotted in the middle of the afternoon, walking down Hollister Avenue in the neighboring town of Goleta wearing his big stupid clock around his neck?

McKessar talks about local live shows you’d have killed to see from Sneaky Feelings, The Puddle, Verlaines, Steven and Plagal Grind (!!). There’s a deep dive into The Clean’s Oddities 2 tape, something I actually once owned (along with an original Xpressway Pile=Up) and sold, because I totally hate cassettes. And perhaps best of all is K B Tannock’s obituary for Nico, who’d just passed away at age 49. It’s exceptionally informative, focusing mostly on her final ten years, and a little harrowing, as it contains a description of his (her?) interview with Nico in 1985. Our heroine is ravaged by heroin, as well as suffering from an inability to communicate, to hear in one ear, and to go five minutes without complaining about how badly she needed smack. We’ve written some about Nico’s interview foibles before on this site (here and here), but she really was something special and strange. (I still have yet to read this book about her, but I own it and will get to it one day).

In all, Alley Oop #5’s about as front-and-center a seat as you’d imagine getting to take at the Flying Nun & Xpressway tables as these labels were at or close to their heights. May they all eventually be lovingly collected somewhere as Garage was.

18 months ago was the first time I gave the once-over to an issue of Marc Masters’ excellent 1990s fanzine Crank, and I suppose I already provided my main introductions to its subtleties there. That one came out in 1991; three years later, we’ve got Marc publishing Crank #4 from Syracuse, NY. Was Masters an Orangeman? So was my mom! Lou Reed, too. Why else would anyone live there, right?

This issue came with a 45, a rather landmark single in my world to be honest, because it was the first time – the very first and quite frankly one of the only times – that a pure, no-doubt-about-it “noise” composition pierced my consciousness in a highly pleasing manner. It was, and remains, Alan Licht’s blistering “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” – the first noise track to really zonk me. Maybe it’s an unlikely one, but there it is. Still sounds great to this day. The flip was by Bruce Russell’s project A Handful of Dust, and it didn’t pack quite the punch.

The interview with Alan Licht is the centerpiece of this issue. Licht, in high school, was listening to Beefheart, free jazz, The Fugs, Minutemen, Stooges etc. – now this is a guy I’d have wanted to have been hanging with, rather than the Night Ranger and Foreigner-loving morons who clogged the halls of Gunderson High in San Jose. I appreciated the part where he and Masters banter about how Licht’s college band Love Child enraptured the fanzine cognoscenti at the time with their early demos, your Byron Coleys and Chris Stiglianos and what have you, and then sort of fell off a cliff critically – at least with that crew – once they put out proper albums. Licht even compares Love Child’s “Church of Satan”, from their first album, to “Bitchen’ Camaro”. Harsh. I remember this too, the Forced Exposure mania for early Love Child because they had a track called “Crocus Says”, as in Crocus Behemoth from Rocket From The Tombs. Licht, man – this guy totally knew what he was doing, didn’t he?

He also says what I was very much fretting about at the time: “Improv has become the thing that jaded punk rock record collectors are into” – except rather than playing actual improvisations as he was, I took this fact personally, almost, and dove deeper into garage punk and “KBD” knuckle-draggers instead, turning my back on the improv/noise underground almost entirely aside from whatever Siltbreeze was putting out. Licht, in 1994, also wanted to write a book on John Cassavetes. Perhaps he still shall.

There’s a shorter interview with Bruce Russell to complement the other side of the included 45, and then a meaty section with 7 different Sun City Girls reviews. And then into the reviews – what a great 1993-1994 roll call: Bassholes, 68 Comeback, Free Kitten, Harry Pussy, Palace Bros, Brainbombs, Blue Humans, Arthur Doyle, Fly Ashtray, Alastair Galbraith and many more. Marc is very excited about most everything reviewed, then as now not a guy ready to serve heads on platters. He even loved the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion as much as I did that year – whoops!