Break the Chain, Volume 2

 A5, 44 black and white pages

£2.90 (+£3.62 p&p)

The second volume of Break the Chain is a battle cry from the Jacksonville punk scene. Sequels are always tricky, and so I was eager to see if zine maker Matt Sessions could pull it off.

The first interview is with Dawn Ray’d, a black metal band from the north of England (my neck of the woods, how exciting!). Reading through this interview, I was a little disappointed with myself; my surprise at the band’s articulation and love of poetry (their band name comes from a poem by Voltairine de Cleyre) spoke volumes about my own preconceptions of heavy metal bands. Much of their interview was an exploration of the power and beauty of words, and yet it ended with a reminder of the anarchy at their core - “Fuck the pigs, smash the Nazis”.

This volume also offered fantastic artwork from Matt Jaffe. His images have been created with thousands of dots, each one carefully placed, each one a crucial part of a bigger picture. Jaffe’s artwork is sharply evocative, but more importantly it teases one’s curiosity – each image bears a strange caption (“alienergy”, “sickened”, “radiate”), none of which make sense straight away.

It’s clear that Sessions has held onto the same punk ethos that birthed the fist volume of Break the Chain, and he’s built on this significantly in the second volume. The pages are crammed full of content, each item fitting well within the theme of angry protest whilst offering their own distinct point of view.

Sadly, some items fall a little short. Ed Dantès’ essay “In Prisons We Trust (part one)” is full of angry commentary, but unfortunately offers very little depth or intelligent examination of the points he is criticising. I was really rooting for Dantès – his argument started off well, gained momentum, but the deathblow never came (perhaps it arrives in part two).

This volume is a gripping read, and I think this has a lot to do with Sessions’ obvious love for the music scene in his area. It’s clear that he doesn’t make Break the Chain for profit or notoriety (you won’t find his name anywhere in these pages), but because he loves the Jacksonville scene.

On the whole, the second volume of Break the Chain is a triumph. It it builds on the themes of protest and angst introduced by its predecessor and the result is a zine which is polished and cohesive – clearly, Sessions is finding his groove.

Volume two of Break the Chain can be bought here 

Review by J.L. Corbett

Break the Chain: Volume 1

 A5, 28 (mostly) black and white pages

£3.76/$5.19 (+p&p)

The first volume of Break the Chain (created by Matt Sessions) is an anarchist’s guidebook to the punk rock underbelly of Jacksonville, Florida. My perception of Florida has come almost exclusively from the images on my television screen; endless sunshine, orange juice aplenty, home of Disney World – everything that my dreary British life is not.

It was quite the surprise to find that this Floridian zine is gritty, anarchistic and in grey scale. The overall appearance of Break the Chain is dark and distinctive. Particularly strong is the artwork from Stacey Matchett, a sort of grunge expressionism wherein the figures in all her drawings share the same tired gaze. Their eyes haunt and resonate.

The first interview is with Woven In, a surf-rock regular on the Jacksonville music scene whose responses to standard interview questions are refreshingly intellectual and offer a surprisingly deep contrast to her “beach-goth, post-punk dream-come-true” music. Not long after reading her interview, I was listening to her music on Youtube.

Also interviewed are black metal grindcore band, Wørsen. Whilst they do seem somewhat excited about the release of their newest album, the theme of their interview appears to be apathy. They say “[the gigs] tend to run together after a while”, and when speaking about their songs they make comments such as “It’s also one of the newest songs we’ve written, so I’m not burnt out on it just yet”. It’s a shame – had they been a little more enthusiastic about their own music, it would have been a lot easier for the reader to get on board with them. I found myself more interested in finding out about Sickmark, the German power-violence band briefly mentioned at the beginning of the interview.

All sense of apathy is quickly forgotten with the zine’s final interview: an in-depth conversation with Penelope Spheeris (director of landmark punk films such as The Decline of Western Civilisation and Wayne’s World). How on earth did the creator of Break the Chain pull that one off? It doesn’t matter, of course (but I need to know!).  Spheeris speaks with great articulation about the punk rock aesthetic, the importance of dedication and devotion to one’s work and the controversial impact of The Decline of Western Civilisation, which was banned after just one screening in Los Angeles. It’s a strong end note and an impressive coup for the first volume of Break the Chain.

Break the Chain is definitely worth a read. As someone across the Atlantic I enjoyed the zine as a brilliant showcase of the talent in Jacksonville’s alternative community, and I expect Jacksonville natives will enjoy it as a token of pride for their hometown.

Volume one of Break the Chain can be bought here .

Review by J.L. Corbett

Grimm Memes

Grimm Memes
44 pages including covers, 1/4 size
$3.50? Postage?

A collection of memes that were previously posted on the web site for the God Bless Generica Project. Subversive shit. Some of it's funny.

I wondered why someone would print a bunch of memes when you can just go look at them on line, but after flipping through it I realized that it's a good way to get your message right up in someone's face.

For example, I have heard for a while now about how Jimmy John Liautaud, the owner of Jimmy John's sandwich restaurants, is a sleazy big game hunter of endangered animals. I've never eaten there so I just made a mental note not to start. But actually seeing that fat fuck sitting on a dead elephant smiling and giving the thumbs up sign made me want to go out and start fire bombing Jimmy John's .

http://www.snopes.com/jimmy-john-liautaud-hunting-photos/

Extra points for what looks a very young, very wasted Matthew McMonaughey.

Jack Cheiky

http://syndicatedzinereviews.blogspot.com/

All You Anarchist Fuckers...

Chelsea from the Zine Archive Project at the Long Haul in Berkeley writes: "Please post (us) on your site and list us as a zine archive..." also "Can you clue us in to where all the zinesters go on the internet? Especially ones that might live in the SF bay area? Specifically, people who are into anarchist/ political zines?" and "We need help setting up an online catalog with Drupal and the Long Haul website (needs to) get spruced up."

Zine Archive Project Orientation Tuesday September 13 6pm

The Long Haul Zine Archive Catalog Project

Posted on July 17, 2011 by thelonghaul

About the Long Haul Zine Archive

By our calculations, the Long Haul has about 15,000 (!) zines in its archive. They are kept in magazine boxes on shelves lining one of the walls of our space. They are loosely organized alphabetically.

About the Catalog Project

Our goal with the catalog project is to create a searchable catalog with a record for each zine. Records will include information like title, author/ publisher, date, location, list of subjects, and volume/issue number. Ideally this catalog will help to make our zines accessible to interested parties that might include: anarchists, zinesters, enthusiasts, independent media, and beyond.

We’re also attempting to reorganize our zines by subject, because we want to prioritize making our archive browsable, and we figure that it might be harder to come across something you like when they’re organized alphabetically. We realize that we can’t effectively capture what many zines are about with one subject heading, but we can enter multiple subjects for each zine in the catalog which hopefully will make up for it. The list of subject headings we use for organizing our zines is a modified version of the Anchor Zine Archive’s (Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada) box category subjects, and is of course up for debate and input.

How you can plug in

The bulk of the work of this project involves looking through every zine in our collection, deciding what subject to put each zine in, and creating records for each zine in our catalog, which currently takes the form of a spreadsheet in google docs. Additionally, we have been trying to figure out the best way to put the catalog online. So far, we’re thinking using Drupal might be the best idea, but that’s as far as we’ve gotten.
We try to meet at the Long Haul every Tuesday 6-8pm to work on the Zine Archive. If you want to come another time, email longhaulzinearchive@riseup.net to set up a time. Once you learn our process, you can come any time the Long Haul is open to work on it!

Any comments, questions, or ideas please email to longhaulzinearchive@riseup.net as well.

Love, Rage, and DIY publishing!

The Match! #109

The Match! #109

from Blackguard

80 pages, 17.5cm x 24cm, donation (cash or US stamps), Fred Woodworth, PO Box 3012, Tucson AZ 85702, USA
It would be an understatement to say I found out about The Match! a little late in the game - at issue # 109, this zine has been around since 1969 (the year I turned 2!). I'm just glad I discovered it, thanks mainly to a review in Randy Robbins's Narcolepsy Press Review. Fred is a printer by trade and prints these up on old printing machines, no computers are used at all. I've never seen any print publication like it. Aesthetically, it fucking rules so hard you'll wanna kill yourself, because you and your punky xerox zine are not worthy. The Match! outclasses everything else by light years.

But what about the content? Subtitled 'A Journal of Ethical Anarchism', it redefined what I thought anarchist publications were all about. Namely that they were created by lazy, glue-sniffing crustoid retards who simply reprinted anti-McDonalds rants ad infinitum, never coming up with anything original of their own, never actually doing anything but being loser fucking douchebags whose main energies seemed to be directed at ranting about cops busting them for shitting on cop car bonnets, or else whining about how their anarchist pals were now former anarchist pals who had this Anarchy thing all fuckin' wrong and arse backwards, the cunts.

But getting back to The Match! ...

The feature of this issue is Fred's report of his active protest against an exhibition from China, called 'Bodies'. The exhibition featured plastinated bodies of deceased Chinese in various amusing poses. What Fred was protesting about was that some of these bodies were probably those of executed Chinese 'criminals'. He spent three months out on the corner of the museum and the story of how people, and museum staff, responded to his protest was utterly compelling.

There's a huge letters section - unsurprisingly, since The Match! has been going for so long - but the letters themselves are great reading, from people like librarians and cartoonists (Dennis P. Eichhorn is a regular in these pages).

One regular column is cleverly titled '(Who The) Police Beat' and features reports of police abusing their powers, hurting and sometimes killing 'civilians' while getting off scot-free (one frequent example seems to be drunk driving - OK for cops to do, but if you're not one, all of a sudden the law applies. Haw!).

Another column, 'Islam: The Religion of Peace At Work', features reports on such wonderful, progressive movements as the push for Sharia law, and the blowing up of girls schools (like in Pakistan), since women must be kept locked at home as sex slaves and baby-making factories, never let out of the home unless accompanied by a male relative.
It was also cool to read that Ayaan Hirsi Ali has a new book out (if you wanna learn more about the 'value' of women in Islam just read her book 'Infidel').

There's so much more in here, but all you need to know is that you must get a copy of The Match! Put it at the top of your list and DO IT.

Of Martial Traditions & The Art of Rebellion

By Seaweed

Sometimes I find writing this blog really strange. I mean, the concept of zines is so vague that I really can review anything I want as long as its printed on paper. (Or even if it's not!) Since I review everything that I've received this leads to me reviewing comics where Godzilla and other monsters review movies one day, and an anarchist treatise on the importance of learning martial skills the next.

The whole idea of using physical force to achieve your ideals is something I struggle with. I feel that the things happening in the Middle East are pretty important and exciting, but there are many different things you have to consider before you start a revolution in your own country. This zine actually takes a pretty pragmatic take on the whole thing, and there are two quotes I thought were important enough to write down.

The first is "all rebels who want to overthrow the present social order[...]need to ask themselves what success means for them" and the second is "[...]it makes absolutely no sense for a minority of revolutionaries in North America to contemplate attemtemping an outright military contest against the police and army. The states [sic] combat power is simply overwhelming.".

These two pieces of information answer some of the questions I had about the idea behind this zine. The author may want societal collapse and a new system in place, but they know that there is no way for that to happen now (and if the economy hasn't collapsed after everything that happened in the last few years I don't know if it ever will), and so they advise people to take the long view. That is you must stay in one place, gain local support, create communities, and eventually you may be able to create real change in the way that people live. It's kind of depressing, but it also makes a lot of sense.

However, there are lots of other ideas in here, and at times the author seems to be arguing themselves in circles. I mean, how do you create "an anti-authoritarian culture that values martial skills" yet doesn't have warrior aristocracies? The only way to prevent a warrior aristocracy seems to be to train everyone in the community in weapon skills, which leads to the fact that you are taking away the ability for people to _not_ do something if they don't want to.

One thing the author references are tactical works, such as The Art of War, and how it is important to know about these even if you don't plan on using them. Seaweed explains that this is because those you are confronting on issues will be aware of them (think about how many business people read those books).

There are definitely a lot of interesting ideas in here, and there are also a lot of things that I don't really agree with. I'm not really down with using physical violence to achieve my goals, but at which point does violence become justified? The zine asks these questions, though doesn't give me a satisfactory answer.

The zine is well written (unlike this review!) in a somewhat academic style, and if you are capable of dealing with that and are interested in the idea of rebellion and revolutionary change it's probably worth reading this and discussing it with others.

(This review was originally published on 365 Zines a Year.)

Anarchist New York 2010

By Michael Duckett
http://wemakezines.ning.com/profile/MichaelDuckett

I really love traveling. Exploring other cities, going to events, meeting new people: all of these are fun (if scary) things to do, and I do them as much as I can (and then make zines about them!). When I can't, I like reading about other people's trips. I love looking at incredibly old guidebooks, and one of my favourite types of zines are those that are about other people's adventures.

I love seeing cities I've already been to through other people's eyes, and I love reading about people experiencing cities I haven't been to (yet), so I was looking forward to reading Duckett's zine about his trip to New York.

The first thing you notice when you open up this zine is that the extra piece of paper that tells you this is an (accidentally) interative zine. It seems that it got stapled in the middle (as you would expect zines to be stapled) by accident, and so your first task is to pry them out, flatten the zine, and then find something to tie the whole thing together using the supplied holes (I used sparkly ribbon stuff from a present or something that someone sent me).

While this format is certainly neat, it does create a few problems, namely that at times the text of the pages goes all the way to the edge, and you can't actually read everything without difficulty.

Of course the greater problem regarding reading comprehensibility is the journal style used by Duckett for this zine. The pages combine illustrations, hand written text, typed text, collages, and photocopied text and images from other sources. There's a lot of information here, and at times it can be hard to figure out who's talking, and what bit you're supposed to read next.

This is a problem I had with Duckett's last zine, where the haphazard way the material is all collected at times just confused me. This one is certainly more coherent, and the asides about anarchist history in New York are both relevant and interesting (though it does assume you already have some knowledge of who some of these people are and why they're important).

One bit I really enjoyed, and this is incredibly nerdy and stupid, was when Duckett just recounts the plots of various Marvel comics in between other pieces of history, treating them as though they really happened.

During a battle between the mutant team X-Factor and their enemy Apocalypse on board the Super Villain's flying head-quarters, the ship struck the Empire State Building, causing the building's antenna to fall off

Stellar! Overall Duckett's zine is definitely interesting, and gave me some new information, but I sort of wish it was laid out in a less cut 'n' paste style.

(This review was originally published on 365 Zines a Year.)

Beat Motel #10

Beat Motel zine issue #10

The juice...

Wow, we made it to the big 'one-oh'! We've been sitting on this issue for a bit longer than we intended, but after getting 'zine of the year' in Big Cheese magazine and then a nice bit of hype from The Metro newspaper we decided we probably ought to give the world what it (apparently) wants - a new issue of everyone's favourite home for knob gags and shoddy belief systems.

Buy this issue of Beat Motel and you will be treated to:

• Feckin' loads of smart/ funny/ dumb columns from our talented and (mostly) housebroken contributors
• More release reviews (CDs etc) than you can shake an oil covered BP branded stick at
• Interviews (yes really) with The Thermals and a few other bands
• These Arms are Snakes tour diary
• Mum Locked in Castle tour diary
• An interview with an independent horror film director
• Facts about farting
• Misguided and partially stolen humour
• All kinds of other random bits of bobbinous stuff that you've come to love and crave like the salivating dogs that you are

So there you have it, a clear rational argument about why you should invest such a pissy amount of money to buy issue ten of BEAT MOTEL (oops, sorry for shouting). And if you buy it and don't like it then you don't stand a chance of getting your money back, but as we print using recycled paper you can at least wipe your arse with our pages without getting nasty rectal paper cuts.

YOU CAN'T LOSE!

No One Rules Ok! #2

Zine Review | No One Rules Ok! #2

£1.00 for 40 A5 printed pages

I’m blogging this fanzine review because I’ve just put out a new issue of my own zine Beat Motel and gawd knows how long it’s going to be before the next issue comes out (if ever).

I’ve never heard of ‘No One Rules Ok!’ before and in what has become a very small and cliquey zine world that’s reassuring in its own right, what’s more reassuring is the fact that this zine is well-written, well thought out, intelligent and full of personality.

The biggest feature in this issue is a very long (but very cool) interview with Steve Ignorant of Crass – I’ve never been a fan of Crass but (as with any well written interview) there’s plenty here to hold my attention. Steve Ignorant comes across as still very much having something to say, and zinester Justin is respectful, keen, but not in any way sycophantic. It’s a tone of interview that works well throughout this issue of ‘No One Rules Ok!’ and makes the whole issue really enjoyable.

This music heavy fanzine (and thank god zines like this still exist) is also peppered with a few thoughtful paragraphs on various topics, all with the anarchic attitude that keeps me interested in punk rock based fanzines (as apposed to arty farty shite zines). Bands featured include Drongos For Europe (surely the most zinester interviewed band ever), The Warriors, The Sex Pistols experience (surprisingly enlightening) and a hilariously excellent mini-history of Fire Exit. Features include bits on Glasgow punk, Ulster punk and a smattering of book reviews.

I’m always a bit disappointed when zines don’t contain reviews of other zines as it seems a little ‘unhelpful’ to the cause, but then if I’m starting to expect anything at all from zines then I’m kinda missing the reason they exist in the first place aren’t I?!?

Grab a copy by emailing musicisloud@hotmail.co.uk or by sending a quid (and fifty pence for postage) to Justin, 30 Humber Ave, Brickhill, Bedford, Beds, MK41 7EL, United Kingdom.

Posted by Andrew Culture

Blair Mountain

Welcome to Flavor Country #10

Welcome to Flavor Country #10

40 Pages, Digest Size
$1 or some stamps

This is a thick perzine with commentary, fiction, poetry, art, and some reprinted stuff about the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW.) Much of this issue revolves around work related issues. Kurt talks about his job as an environmentalist, and his personal journey into corporate America, while trying to hold onto his punk and anarchist roots and values. Kurt’s strong suit is his first person narration. His writing about his thoughts and feelings is intelligent, concise, sensitive, and honest. I both agreed and disagreed with parts, but I felt throughout that this was someone I could sit down and have a worthwhile conversation with. In comparison the fiction isn’t bad but not near as seamless. While the writing shows promise, here he is reaching to find expression, whereas his first person writing is already spot on.


Kurt Morris
8820 Stone Ave. N. #301
Seattle, WA 98103
welcometoflavorcountry*gmail.com