FANZINES AND WEBZINES

We enjoy writing and it provides us with an excuse to write in our own time, when it suits us, about what we want to write about. If we feel like writing, we do, if we don’t, we don’t (hence the gaps between publications). We have done a little bit of writing for other publications but even with the limited amount of that we have done it can be stifling, writing to fall in line with the needs of ‘publisher’, so to truly write what YOU want to, you have to publish yourself. One of these days we would like to sit down and write a book, but that is even more time consuming than a zine and who knows if it would ever get published? This way we know what we write will get published.. eventually.

We enjoy playing with computers, some of us to the point of being obsessed. This gives the fiddling a purpose rather than aimlessly surfing the web with no end in sight.

Through the zine we have come across loads of new music that we might not have other wise, sometimes due to bands contacting us out of the blue, sometimes through talking to contacts we have made through the zine who point us in new directions and sometimes because we make that little bit more effort to make it our business to find new music. Through the zine we then take on an evangelical missionary like role to spread the word about these bands that, on the whole, get little or no coverage elsewhere. Sometimes our ego tells us we are doing a public service but we have to pinch ourselves and remember that no-one asked us to do this so ultimately, we get more out of it than this mythical public we are serving…. Although the very occasional comment like “this is just what the scene needs” make it all worth while, even if deep down we know the scene would manage without us quite nicely.

The most satisfying thing about it has to be meeting new people, bands, promoters, other zinesters and Bloggers, festival heads and music lovers. There have been occasions where on the off chance we have set up interviews with bands who have over the years turned into close friends. We have met a few arseholes along the way, but they are very much in the minority.

There has been the side effect of occasionally getting unsolicited demos and CDs through the post, but if free stuff is your only motivation, you really need to ask yourself if you really want to be doing this (if you are not writing becasue you want to write, what makes you think anyone will want to read what you don't want to write?). It is also worth remembering that not everything that comes through the post will be exciting… or even listenable.

To do it properly is time consuming, for all the guest lists, back stage passes, free promos, you have to put up with staying up late trying to find the words to say something is crap without offending anyone, or looking to find another way of describing a band that you have already reviewed ten times, or dealing with computer breakdowns, or just discovering that the software you thought was easy just will not do what you want it to, or having to spend hours slaving over a photocopier, then collating and stapling, then trying to sell the damn things. But every time we have put out as zine we have said, that’s it, no more…. Then we see a band we like is coming to town and think… “we really would like to interview them”.. then you find yourself with a pile of interviews that have not been published anywhere, which is just damn rude. The truth is, it is addictive, if you are going to start, be prepared to not be able to stop.

To come back to the original question, why do we do it…. Well, we do it because we can and because we love it. So there, we don’t care what anyone else thinks.

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