After two years of writing this site, I’m chagrined it took me this long to pull an issue of Jeff Smith/Jo Smitty’s Feminist Baseball out of the boxes and give it another gander. Fanzine Hemorrhage did look at his early 80s Attack #8, but that was some time ago. By the early/mid 90s, Feminist Baseball had strong enough distribution that I was able to pick it up at Tower Records, but I never saw one of these until Issue #12, I’m pretty certain. I do believe he was doing these in the 80s despite a disclaimer in this issue that, in 1985, “lots of smart people closed off from music and missed the last half of the 80s, mostly ‘cos 95% of everything done in America sucked WILDLY. I’m only truly sorry I missed Pussy Galore and The Smiths”. So I’m really not sure what was actually going on in those 80s issues, if they even actually existed.

This issue came along in Spring/Summer 1995, and it’s pretty obvious from the word go that Smith is well-read, well-studied and scathingly cynical and opinionated in a way that I didn’t remember. His opening editorial is about shitty indie music, the cost of CDs, mass distribution of potato chips, farm subsidies and “the Clinton Crime Bill”. Now that’s taking me back. It’s followed by a long interview with 60s/70s actress Pamelyn Ferdin, whose work I’ve never seen, though I suppose I heard her voice as a child on Charlie Brown cartoons and Charlotte’s Web. Smith seems to be in a personal animal rights moment, which may not have been a “moment” at all, and Ferdin, as a current activist in this space, supplies him with some grist for the mill.

Also from the get-go is just a phenomenal cross-section of independent and major label advertisements from the overloaded mid-1990s. On one page spread alone we find terrific ads for Siltbreeze and Claw Hammer’s horrible-selling major label debut Thank The Holder Uppers. So Interscope did actually advertise that record amidst that glut of indie-turned-major label bands at this time! Here’s a fine article about this era you can read. Then – and I just read all of this from word one to the final sentence – there’s a Blue Cheer history lesson, albeit nothing about V. Vale’s surprising time in the band – then a really great conversational Randy Holden interview about his tenure in Blue Cheer; in The Other Half; his album Population II and much, much more. 

While the cover touts a “History of Krautrock” piece, it’s actually a short 2-pager called “Figuring out Krautrock?” I suppose many of us were back then. I’m still working on Faust to this day. I like the “LA is the New Seattle – an Informal Chat With Jackknife” interview as well. Jackknife really had all the right moves; superlative taste; a cool look and a real hustle ethic with their label “Star Fuck” – it just didn’t translate all that well onto record, except the few times that it did. “Originally our name was Drag Strip ‘69 and then all these drag records started coming out, like Gearhead + all that shit!”. Love it. The core of the band were a couple named Rich and Super Sandra; I have talked about them and their Alright! fanzine before here and here. Sandra is compared with Traci Lords in the interview, and she not only takes it in stride, she admits to resembling her “only in bed!!”. 

Smith then produces a quote-laden piece called “Is there a cure for rock criticism?” and interviews a bunch of current scene figureheads and actual critics like Byron Coley. He then lists 10 essential rocknroll books, a list that I find pretty pedestrian, honestly: Greil Marcus, Dave Marsh and Peter Guralnick. For real? There’s a heaping helping of live reviews, including Monoshock’s 1/12/95 Seattle debut: “they played fun, flat-out hard punk/prog “L.A. Blues” Stooges/Hawkwind punk. After a decade or so of lousy California bands it’s a real windfall to get some decent music outta The Golden State”. (I’ll add self-referentially that the band was “touring” on this 45 I’d recently put out). Later on, he gives their first two records, including the one I did, a frothing endorsement. I’ll post that at the bottom of this piece, the one I’m writing now – see below. Since he talks about “the bears” I’ll post that back cover, too, along with the insert I proudly worked with Rubin Fiberglass to put together.

Then, SO many record reviews. Smith, despite complaints about the glut of music coming into his home every day, is in the regrettable “review everything imaginable” camp, popular among some mid-1990s fanzines. Except for Smith’s reviews are great! His explorations of the records of the day are far more informed and educated than those of his peers, and are laden with insider ephemera and references to past releases. This is a man who’s listened to – and loved – some music in his life. For instance, he loves the Man-Tee-Mans single, as he should. In reviewing an Oblivians record, Smith says “Under the influence of the Blues Explosion, which while not at all a bad thing to be, isn’t really where these guys do their best work. (The problem with this band is that it’s taking Eric away from Wipeout, the best US fanzine”). 

In a review of The Queers, he says “no one hates Seattle as much as I do but there needs to be a nationwide moratorium on grunge jokes”. For the Thinking Fellers Union Local 282’s Strangers From The Universe: “I swear I’ve tried to be ‘objective’ re: this band, as any number of smart folks love ‘em, but all I can think of is “Helmet”. Stop. Start. Wacky, forced art that gripes me no end!”. And there’s a great vicious review of a book called Babes in Toyland: The Making and Selling of a Rock and Roll Band, which looked so awful in 1995 that I couldn’t bring myself to crack the cover when I saw it in store. Finally, I especially love how the Alternative Tentacles ad on the inside back cover is printed so poorly it’s completely and totally unreadable. Sorry, Jello!