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

The Match! #116 [Summer 2017]

68 pages, 9.5" x 7", THE MATCH! Post Office Box 3012, Tuscon Arizona 85702, USA. Subscription: Free.

Quote from Page 2: "Published since 1969, this journal exists solely to criticize authoritarian society and religion in order to argue for the many humane advantages of freedom and rationality. We are not affiliated with any group or organization. Any publication of this same general orientation may reprint anything herein. DONATIONS: We welcome them and need them. But please: no checks; just cash or stamps only. Seriously - NO checks! Submissions of letters are welcome, and all letters will be considered as being for publication unless you say otherwise. We have no telephone, no e-mail, so either write or forget communicating with us. Typesetting and printing by the editor and publisher, Fred Woodworth, 2017. No computers are ever used in this production."
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Fred really drops a bombshell at the beginning of this issue: "...after this present issue, I'm dropping the word "Anarchist" ... Our movement has actually gone in this rotten and criminal direction, or it is so appallingly ineffectual that it cannot prevent even the most transparent deliberate discreditations. There's no other way of putting a spin on this reality: Anarchism as a political or anti-political entity with a name, has failed, and the name itself now signals, more often than not, something that no thoughtful or ethical person should want to be associated with."

Feeding the Masses: A Guide to Mass Vegan Catering

By The Anarchist Teapot Mobile Kitchen
www.eco-action.org/teapot

The Anarchist Mobile Teapot are a pretty rad group of people that cook loads of food at protests throughout the UK. If you've ever read Morgenmuffel you're probably at least somewhat familiar with them as Isy is a member.

This zine is a guide on how to start a group that cooks food for lots of people. Not like twenty or thirty lots, but hundreds and hundreds lots. At the protests the Teapot attended they'd feed several hundred people multiple times a day, often while cooking in a field!

The zine breaks down large scale cooking into several sections, covering laws concerning cooking for others in the UK, transport, equipment needed, bulk food ordering, hygiene, and other things. While some of this may seem obvious at first, most of the information given is useful, in-depth, and probably not available in other cooking books.

The style the whole thing is written in is quite casual, and filled with UK slang which can be amusing/confusing at times ("leccy" means electricity). The information is generally well presented and easy to understand, though occasionally there are bits that are like "we didn't do this, but maybe it will work!", which are less useful.

Throughout the zine are anecdotes, stories, and examples about large scale cooking that the Teapot have done. Also included is a several page long account of a protest they cooked at in Scotland. It seemed pretty intense, but these stories are useful in that they show that yes, it is possible to cook for this many people, but you will have to plan for it.

There's also a large section on recipes, which admittedly I didn't look too hard at, as I don't think I'll be planning meals for several hundred any time soon. But if you are, then this is an incredibly useful guide, and you should probably get it.

(Originally written for 365 Zines a Year.)

Ai Ferri Corti - At Daggers Drawn

Political zines are an interesting beast.

There are a lot of them, just go to your local anarchist bookfair and you’ll see loads, but if you go to a zine fair there are considerably fewer (maybe none at all!). I’m not saying that zinesters that go to zine fairs don’t have politics, or that their zines do not involve and discuss politics, just that, in my experience, there are considerably fewer overtly political zines at these events.

Why is this? Do the people producing and distributing these zines think that they will not find an audience at these events? Perhaps; There is frequently a dismissive opinion used in regards to people with radical politics. But I would think that going to these events and talking about your politics with different types of people would be more beneficial to your movement than going to political events and preaching to the converted.

But I digress.

I think one of the reasons political zines are less commonly seen at zine events is that they are hard reads. You might pick up a zine just because it has a cool cover, but you’re unlikely to delve into page after page of small type written in a fairly dry (if well translated) style.

If you’re reading this zine you probably already have many sympathies with the creators. This is not to paint all political zines with the same brush (I mean, people have to learn about politics somewhere), but that this particular zine is written in an academic manner and uses many terms and references that would be lost on someone unfamiliar with the ideas of anarchism. Or rather, if you’re able to understand a zine like this you probably agree with most of what it says (or are busy writing a term paper on the fallacies of anarchic political thought).

This isn’t to say that there aren’t any good ideas in here (I especially liked “The most useful thing one can do with arms is to rend them useless as quickly as possible.”), and some of what was discussed made me think (how can you convince someone of alternatives to capitalism when they have no reference point for a world without money), just that it seems to use a utopian style of overthrowing the current society and doesn’t really have any real, concrete ideas (which admittedly is noted in the translator’s introduction).

Of course, if this had a perfect guide to convincing the general population of your ideals and overthrowing the current social structure then, well, it'd have already happened and we'd be living in a radically different world.

If you’re heavily involved and interested in reading about different forms and theories of anarchism, I’d say this is worth reading. But if you’re new to the idea in general I’d advise you find something more introductory to read first.

(Originally written for 365 Zines a Year.)