Manifesta: 1) Good, passionate music/art CAN save lives. 2) Everyone’s art, writing, and music deserves to be heard/seen/read at least once. 3) We have the right to be heard Fuck Censorship!! 4) We have the right to create our OWN STORY on OUR terms. 5) We refuse to accept corporate, sensationalist, exploitative BULLSHIT as music. 6) We refuse to tolerate bullshit like sexism, homophobia, prejudice, or oppression in art/music. 7) We want to be provocative, controversial, and LOUD. 8) We want autonomy over our minds, bodies, and thoughts. [Propaganda is a lie.] NO COMPROMISE. NO SURRENDER. NO FUCKING SHIT. ________________________________________________________________________ CONTRIBUTORS: [and their five traits if they were a SIM]. EDITOR, Jenn Endless – Artistic, Hot-Headed, Night Owl, Rebellious, Vegetarian
Anita Static – angry, dreamy, neurotic, empathetic, theatrical Saku Egon Evon – shy, stubborn, short-tempered, silly, sleepy ________________________________________________________________________
SOMEWHERE IN THE ASPHALT instead of finding answers, i drowned the neurotransmitters of my brain beneath gallons of alcohol; i fell into the depressing, small-town aesthetic, and suddenly all thoughts of prudence disappeared. i’m sitting in one of three cars speeding down the road, and we’re drunkenly weaving, passing each other like street racers. it’s funny, and i light up a square with the wind from the open windows blowing chilled air from the night into my face. i feel it sting my cheeks. a smoldering pile of cans and gas station booze, fireworks fragments and parts of mutilated corn stalks (used as fuel) from the farmer’s neighboring field lay behind & abandoned in the grass, surrounding the embers of a not-yet-dead fire. tonight, i don’t care about dying.
SOUS-CULTURE This zine is about subculture, for the rejects and outsiders. You won’t find any of today’s “popular” music trends because, to be honest, most of today’s top 40 make me puke. Most of the time, I’m trying to figure out what their message is anyway – besides “stacks”, booty, slut shaming your best friend, poppin’ people and “love.” No, there needed to be a place for all those people who like things that general society considers gross, taboo or undesirable: aliens, horror films, sex, feminism, debauchery, punk-rock, drugs….
THIS ZINE IS ABOUT SUBCULTURE, FOR THE REJECTS AND THE OUTSIDERS. In sociology, “counter-culture” is defined as a sub-culture built up in response to the dominant culture. In fact, the original title for this zine was “sous-culture,” the French term for sub-culture. What I don’t understand is why “popular” culture is misogyny, tokenism and just plain bad cultural appropriation. Like, here I am thinking that the jackass sounding off on his/her frustration on [insert social media website here] about feminism or meatless diets or raging in their own ignorance of race relations and queer culture should be more offended by the culture that is killing people’s selfesteem. The “alternative” was the only thing I could relate to in high school, and I spent lunch painting in the art room because I lacked the capacity to give a shit about social climbing. It’s too much work anyway, trying to impress people that make me nauseous.
A COUNTER-CULTURE IS A SUBCULTURE BUILT IN RESPONSE TO DOMINANT CULTURE. And hey, I just wasn’t motivated to wash my hair in order to be accepted. ZASSHI evolved from a blog that I wrote because I couldn’t find a publication that wrote about those things I was interested in. It’s inspired by all the generations of subculture starting with the earliest – the flappers, maybe – to punk rockers and metal heads. I think of nerds as people with an obsession & passion for something. Artists are nerds about discovering new painters, musicians nerds about finding new indie bands (and I’m not talking about the pretentious hipster crap that is “being ahead of the curve” – yuck). “Normal” people have a nasty ass habit of making nerds feel shitty about themselves. I know because I’ve drowned my consciousness in pills and booze just to tolerate people and ended up frying some brain cells, instead. You’re gonna like some music, band or writer, and somebody’s just gonna be “too cool” for that shit. Like what you want on your own terms.
LIKE WHAT YOU WANT ON YOUR OWN TERMS. Idealism isn’t bad as long as it’s concentrating on demolishing boundaries and smashing institutions like racism, sexism and homophobia. Artists are a kind of storyteller to their generation and their society, so let’s not waste energy on hating the fuck out of each other. Artists should bring back intellectual curiosity about people and ideas that are different, encourage dialogue between people with different experiences. I saw this awesome quote “if you edit a music publication in 2014 and 80% of your writers are white, you are not doing your job.” Hey, just remember – all we ask is that you don’t be a narrow-minded hipster or an art brat. Pretty please?
CHICAGO VEGANMANIA – 11 OCTOBER Vegan cheese has come a long way since that awful powdery stuff that was made ten years ago. Okay, so I’ll be honest – Anita Static and I showed up at the Chicago VeganMania looking to score some free food. I was also interested in all the vegan happenings in the city – but free food. The train screeched to a halt at the Thorndale, redline stop, and I spent about 15 minutes on the wrong side of the tracks, looking for this armory. We finally located it on the other side and wandered inside of a gymnasium filled with vendors, restaurants and rows of stands. Each little sample is tiny, but if we visited each stop, we could scrape up a decent lunch, so we started at one corner, and found some vegan pudding samples laid out by Free From Harm, another one of those groups with pamphlets exposing the cruelties of the meat, egg & dairy industries. The guy at the table asks me if I’m vegan, and I tell him just vegetarian because, even though I’ve switched to almond milk and applesauce for baking, cheese is pretty difficult to weed out, especially that Italian shit, and Dunkin donuts (which is probably pretty terrible in itself). He says that the animals already suffer, so why couldn’t I give up something? And, I felt like a jackass for the rest of my VeganMania tour (not to mention I was already there, free-food hunting). I went cheese hunting, just to find something I might like, and I found the Teese stand (there were two actually – one with nachos and the other pizza). It all tasted pretty good, and I was surprised because I’ve never had any good “mockzzarella” before. I could eat that stuff, you know if I was somebody that could afford to shop at trendy, Chicago grocery stores, but alas, I don’t have enough money to participate in the conspicuous consumption that is Whole Foods. Some lady (whose company name I admit I’ve forgotten) brewed up some savory “cheese” with jalapeño peppers, and I realized food is probably an art like any other with new ideas stemming from trying something new.
I’m not usually into the substitute “meats” from Boca or Morning Star (though I occasionally crave the chik’n nuggets), but I gave some vegan roast beef a shot. It was pretty good, but I didn’t have anything to compare it to – I stopped eating meat like eight years ago, and even before that, I wasn’t a fan of red meat). It definitely had a rich, spicy flavor. By this time, we’ve made it halfway across the gymnasium, tasting our way through the festival, and I’m thinking that I might’ve converted Anita – she’s hell bent on buying some vegan cheese product online. We visited a stand with almond protein milk and another with almond nut butter from Treeline. These almond products have come a long way and taste so much better than soy. Give it a shot if soy isn’t your thing. We scored some free chips from Way Better Snacks and some energy bars from 2 Degrees (Apple Pecan and Cherry Almond Flavor). One of the benefits of showing up late to food convention is that everybody is willing to give away the surplus for free, and it all makes a great snack on the train. Some of Chicago’s vegan restaurants made an appearance at the food court, like Native Foods Café, Chicago Diner, and Urban Vegan – I still haven’t visited this last restaurant, yet. While live acoustic music was performed in the cafeteria, vegan nonfood products made an appearance – shampoo, jewelry, and other cosmetics. I even saw some vegan alcohol called “Social Enjoyments.” They didn’t have a tasting booth for obvious reasons, but I saw kids at VeganMania, which was surprising but also pretty rad. Most people I know, their parents balked when they decided to stop eating meat, but I am in a larger city now and times are achangin’ I suppose. Not eating meat eight years ago was a bigger, fucking deal. Some dude at VeganMania claimed that 25% of people in the UK are now veg, but that seems pretty hard to believe since Europe’s also been farther behind in terms of meatless trends.
7 YEAR BITCH tired of his apathy he should say something about beatings and rape enraged atoms of air between his teeth and he smashed the window glass screamed painting the girl slumped over a toilet – she retched out her contempt spit smells like body fluids delicate and poisonous and sound waves pound their way through and shove by.
PHOTOS: ARCACHON, FRANCE.
I BLEED BAD BLOOD I am like a dirty sponge. Having rubbed myself already against the grimy flesh of the male species one too many times, my skin has become grayed, dulled, and ripped at the seams. However, my insides have become more vivacious in color and depth, and the blood that once found itself coagulated and sticking to my bones has become much more fluid in its movements. While resulting in becoming untacked by the constant rocking of the body I use to do every night, back when the floors would creak and the sounds of the TV would become more and more distant as every minute passed, I remember that I simultaneously would feel my pelvic bone begin to whither from the impact my lovers imposed. It ultimately buffered the tissue into a small and vulnerable frame of useless collagen and dirty calcium that I carry around me to this day, but I guess that's alright. I would rather have blood than bone anyways. Blood is passion and bone is structure. As the years past and I kept doing what I was doing, I noticed my blood had transformed
from a dark maroon to a bright red and with my organs
soaked in its bright dye, they picked up the color of sweet, innocent cherries and had ultimately created a permeant stain within me that cannont be washed away with acidic fluids and warm ethnol. I use to leave the window of my apartment open as an invitation for vermin to crawl in and suck me. Those were the type of souls that could only be synced with once through physical means. They would leave the moment they pulled out because we had the mutual agreement that I was like them, except I had a vagina. It gave me more power. Now and then, there would be those who would sweetly knock at my door and ask permission to come in. I use to call those men flutters. They would stick around for a while until the novelty of "tortured writer" would fade. They'd flutter in and out despite my commitment to change. The whore with a heart of gold doesn't exist. A whore is a whore and that type of reputation taints any kindness that bleeds from her, and a saint is a whore when she gives her virginity away. Washing away all that is holy about her. At this point I just am. At this point, I give what is disposable in order to survive.
WHERE GOES THE MUSIC INDUSTRY ?? The music industry isn’t what it was ten years ago, and the music industry ten years ago wasn’t what it was 20 years ago. I used to think (and still kinda do) that digital downloads were the ruin of the industry because an album is meant to be listened to in its entirety. I guess “singles” have been around for a while, but they always came with three or four tracks, not one. Now, even digital sales are down, not to mention hard copies like CDs which have been in decline since the early 2000’s when all the record stores shut down. I missed out on going to the record store when I was a teen. Listeners don’t need to even buy music anymore – they can go to Spotify, Pandora or Last.fm to stream their favorite bands free of charge (with ads of course – you have to upgrade to “premium” to escape the ads, i.e. whip out that credit card). I have my own Spotify account, and it’s nice because I can sample bands because we all know the radio seriously sucks these days. But really, artists are getting paid fractions of a cent for each play. Some bands, like Good Throb from the United Kingdom, have free downloads on their sites and tell people, “Don’t pay for music.” Streaming’s really killing the industry, though, because it’s taking away incomes from artists. Obviously music & other art industries shouldn’t be about the money, but most artists I know don’t wanna work retail to cover the rent, and they like to eat. Plus, people miss out on the artwork that comes with a physical copy, and the sound quality of digital music is shit compared to analog versions. Even a CD is better than a .mp3. Physical copies of music are down in all genres, especially hip hop & country (but maybe that’s just sexist karma, just saying). A successful album is one that goes gold or sells 750,000 copies (Lorde, “Pure Heroine”). In early 1992, copies of Nirvana’s Nevermind were going at a rate of 300,000 per week. Amazon.com and indie stores (mostly in larger cities) are gaining a larger share of record sales now that sales have declined in conventional department stores. Going to a record store and perusing the racks to see what you’ll find is part of the experience, but if Amazon.com is still selling physical copies, I’m alright with them. They’ve also jumped on the digital copies bandwagon with their own version of the iTunes store. According to Billboard, the only sales that are up this year from last are vinyl with a whopping near 50% increase from 2013, and leading vinyl sales is Jack White’s second solo album, Lazaretto. The album actually broke the record for number of vinyl records sold in a week, 40K, which broke Pearl Jam’s record of 34K which had be holding steady for the last twenty years. In overall record sales, indie labels’ shares are slowly creeping up, year by year. The good news is that, despite the obvious shrinking of the music industry, more indie bands are getting exposure that they probably wouldn’t have had twenty years ago, but the bad news is that physical copies of music are suffering in this “information revolution,” and indie artists are still struggling to pay the bills. BUT JACK WHITE GOT TWO GRAMMY NOMS SO MAYBE EVERYTHING IS STILL ALRIGHT.
EYE OF THE CHIMERA – ONE DREAMY PLAYLIST 1) Slowdive – “Machine Gun” Souvlaki. 1993. 2) the Boo Radleys – “Everything is Sorrow” C’mon Kids. 1996. 3) the Pale Saints – “Featherframe” In Ribbons. 1992. 4) Mazzy Star – “Into Dust” So Tonight That I Might See. 1993. 5) Teenage Fanclub – “Star Sign” Bandwagonesque. 1991. Beat out “Nevermind” for “Album of the Year” in Spin Magazine, 1991. 6) the Jesus & Mary Chain – “Teenage Lust” Honey’s Dead. 1992. 7) The Charlatans – “Crashin’ In” s/t. 1995. 8) My Bloody Valentine – “I Only Said” Loveless. 1991. 9) The Pastels – “Baby Honey” Truckload of Trouble. 1993. 10) Lush – “Nothing Natural” Spooky. 1992. 11) Blonde Redhead – “Jetstar” Vague/Jetstar Single. 1994. 12) Sonic Youth – “Kool Thing” Goo. 1990. 13) The Vaselines – “Teenage Superstars” Dum-Dum. 1989.
NEW QUEER CINEMA In 1990, Jennie Livingston released her indie film 10-years-in-the-making: “Paris is Burning.” It was the first of its kind to really but queer issues at the forefront of people’s minds, and launched an entire independent
film movement, “New Queer Cinema.” Paris is Burning documents the lives of New York City’s ballroom scene in the 1980’s, at the height of the AIDS epidemic. The time period coincides roughly with Nan Goldin’s work in the Bowery neighborhood (see issue #4), and the film was shot entirely with 16 mm film. The fierce personalities of the characters are inspirational – despite hatred and prejudice emanating from almost all corners, the people in the film aren’t afraid to be exactly who their heart feels they should be. Many are people of color, and all struggle with racism, homophobia, AIDS, and poverty, which forces many to shoplift and/or work as sex workers. The moments in the ballroom, assuming the identity of any gender or person, were the times where they could express themselves freely, and the ballrooms led to the “vogue” dance trend. I was enthralled by these people who lived their lives defying
heteronormativity, living on the edge in their own LGBT fringe culture. The lifestyle was also dangerous. By the early 1990’s most of the people
documented in the film had succumbed to AIDS, and others were beaten in killed. I was struck most by the story of Venus Xtravaganza – a trans woman who was saving up for her surgery, and working as a sex worker on the side. On Christmas 1988, she was found strangled under a seedy, hotel bed in New York. I remember sitting outside, after watching the film, lighting a cigarette just to calm my nerves. A year later, Gus Van Sant’s “My Own Private Idaho”, starring River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves is released. It follows the story of Phoenix’s character, who’s a gay street hustler searching for his mother, from Idaho to Italy. In order to really understand life as a street hustler, Phoenix spent days with the kids on the streets, talking and partying with them. During this time, Phoenix’s own
drug use really began to escalate, but there’s something about him that really related to the outsider mentality of these kids, living on the fringe. Christine Vachon is the producer responsible for many of the indie, queer films out there today, like “Poison,” “Swoon” and “Go Fish.” Another film that definitely should make it onto your “must watch” list: 1995’s “Kids”, directed by Larry Clark. It follows the daily life of sexually active and drug-using teenagers in New York City and tackles addiction, HIV and subcultures. Also making the list are some French films (the French make some awesome indie films, seriously) – “Tomboy” and “La Vie d’Adèle.” Both are in French and require subtitles for Englishspeakers, but don’t let that deter you from watching these films!
SWEET I had a small stove in my apartment that made the best tasting hvorost nestled into the corner of the kitchen slightly dusty, pasty coloured, and worn egg yolks, vodka, with a tiny pinch of salt the pastries themselves are not that sweet it depends on your choice of toppings— powdered sugar, honey, or fresh whipped cream the oil heats up in my favorite frying pan resting on top of the only unbent coil the knob that controls the heat has never worked smoke flies into the air in a beautiful dance the alarm has gone off already and yet— I can hear the scurried footsteps of the midnight doorman approaching heart racing in his chest I will quickly collect the pastries floating in the pan and ask him if he wants something to eat
DUDE, I WANNA GO TO NEW YORK CITY All the entertainers go to Los Angeles (and the wannabe entertainment journalists) but the artists go to New York City. What about the towering skyscrapers draw people there? I’ve flown over it but never been through it, and I didn’t really care until I got into poetry. Most, if not all, of the poets I admire have spent some time there – Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, David Trinidad, Frank O’Hara, John Ashbery. I’ve spent most of my time interested in art gazing with starry eyes towards the West Coast. There’s something extremely hedonistic about sex, drugs and rock n’ roll, and I love it. New York City has an entirely different aesthetic, though. It’s like sex, drugs and readings. I’m forgetting that punk rock and new wave started in New York City – punk rock didn’t migrate to the west coast until hardcore in the 1980’s (with the exception of the Germs and the Runaways). What a fucking shame that the CBGB in the Bowery closed down – even the sign’s been taken down. Take me back to the mid1970’s in New York City when the Ramones and Blondie were just gaining steam, Times Square was still the seedy underbelly of the city, and Andy Warhol was probably still wandering around somewhere. Is it just me, or have all the old, interesting city centers been gentrified beyond recognition. Capitalism has wreaked havoc on Times Square (but it’s definitely on my list to be there when the ball drops on New Year’s). The center of 1950’s subculture was New York City where artists & poets hung out around Columbia University and shared their ideas and questions on life late into the night, the rooms swirling in cigarette smoke. What initially drew me to the Beat Writers and the New York School was the way their writers didn’t shy from humanity – the dark and the light. I was never any good with being conservative about my thoughts – most of them just spill out of my mouth. Along with the confessional movement (think Plath, Sexton and Lowell) poetry transformed into free verse that concentrated on the personal and taboos – mental illness, sexuality, drug use and suicide. It was the postmodern tendencies of New York artists to question the structures of society that drew me to their words. “Normal” societies and its functions never made much sense to me, and I’d probably be pretty bored if I couldn’t run around questioning everything. It ties into the existentialist writers I discovered three years ago, Camus, Sartre and de Beauvoir, and exploring death, the “serious man” and “the other.” If you haven’t read “The Wall” by Sartre, I sincerely recommend it. It’s a short story but it feels like a long ride, but I’ve been dragging on way too long about French writers. With the writers in New York during the 50’s and 60’s, self-indulgence was no longer a crime – a person could really explore the world and seek to understand it. That sort of intellectual curiosity seems dead most days now. Those days of New York City (and those people) reflect all that I wish the world would be – show me what it feels like to be human. Patti Smith was, like me, born in the Midwest and spent some time in the windy city, before she moved on to bigger and better things. Will I end up in New York? Who knows?
IT’S NEW YEAR’S AND WE WANNA BE LIKE PITCHFORK & SPIN, SO HERE’S OUR LIST: ALBUMS 1) SPEEDY ORTIZ: REAL HAIR EP (SEEN IN CONCERT 2014) 2) BRODY DALLE: DIPLOID LOVE (SEEN IN CONCERT 2014) 3) PERFECT PUSSY: SAY YES TO LOVE (SEEN IN CONCERT 2014) 4) THE HYSTERICS: CAN’T I LIVE? 5) JACK WHITE: LAZARETTO 6) HONEYBLOOD: S/T 7) THE PINK SLIPS: SAY L’OR VENUS EP 8) THE EERIES: S/T EP 9) EX HEX: RIPS 10) GERARD WAY: HESISTANT ALIEN TRACKS 1) BRODY DALLE: “RAT RACE” 2) THE EERIES: “COOL KID” 3) SPEEDY ORTIZ: “OXYGAL” 4) THE PINK SLIPS: “FOXY FELINE” 5) BRODY DALLE: “DON’T MESS WITH ME” 6) PERFECT PUSSY: “DRIVER” 7) MITSKI: “FRANCIS FOREVER” 8) GIRLPOOL: “JANE” 9) JOANNA GRUESOME: “JEROME (LIAR)” 10) SLEATER-KINNEY: “BURY OUR FRIENDS”
REVIEW: OFFICE GIRL & HAIRSTYLES OF THE DAMNED Brian Oswald, a teenager on the south side of Chicago falls in love with his best friend, a punk-rock chick named Gretchen, but she’d rather bang some 26year-old-jackass with an El Camino. “Hairstyles of the Damned” follows the story of an awkward high school journey relating to other people through punk rock music, and it’s based in the early 1990’s, when punk was hardcore and not pop. Joe Meno, who’s lived all his life in Chicago writes what he knows about most – being the awkward kid not knowing what to do with their lives, surrounded by clueless adults. I first picked this book up at Quimby’s bookstore in Wicker Park when I recognized the name – he’s one of the fiction instructors at my school – Columbia College. So after I’d read Hairstyles of the Damned, I picked up another book of Meno’s called, Office Girl. Odile (which is one of the coolest names ever) is an art school dropout, working at a call center because she can’t find her direction in life; Jack finished school, but lacks the motivation to find a “real job” and spends his time recording the sounds of the frigid city during the winter on the eve of the new millenium. Part one of the book is called “Odile”, about her life alone, the second part about Jack, and the final part is called “Odile & Jack” when they finally meet each other, and they decide to form an art movement against the pretentious art they find in galleries. Before its demise, Joe Meno contributed to the Punk Planet Magazine, which covered alternative culture in Chicago. His punk influences are seen throughout his writing. It makes his words relatable to any person who’s ever felt like they don’t fit in with the “normal” world, but it’s not punk-rockart-school-kid cliché. Sure his characters have eclectic music tastes, but they also have real struggles with identity and finding their places in the world. This is what attracted me to his work. Meno’s writing style is fluid and often in the present, active tense with long, run-on sentences. He’s writing for the rejects and kids unable to understand the workings of the fucked-up world. The lack of pauses in his prose increases the dramatic immediacy in his message; the emotions wash over you so quickly that you can’t stop them. Hairstyles of the Damned and Office Girl mean so much to me because they seem to chronicle my life, from the time I discovered punk rock when I was fourteen years old to now, seven years later, when I spend hours up, late at night, wondering what the fuck to do with my life (and drained on the pretentious crowd that is the “art world”). How all artists struggle with the nauseating image of the ghost-like commuters on the Metra train and wondering how their art is going to feed them in the future (because, seriously, all people like to eat). Meno’s pages (at least in these books) are filled with fuck and shit and other four-letter words, which mirrors the exact way my friends and I speak. Sometimes, swear words are overdone, but here it just feels real and honest. It seems more real to me, and it captures the consciousness and the beauty of fucked-up, insecure, teenage emotions that we’re all feeling when the world expects so much of us, and we have to make these gigantic, daunting decisions.
WATCH YOUR MOUTH! DISCLAIMER: I’m about to rip on DIIV and Sky Ferriera, not their music because I like it but for some of the less-than-intelligent things they might’ve said. No “trolls”, just a critical argument. So, one of the DIIV band members, bassist Devin Ruben Perez apparently said some homophobic, misogynistic and sexist shit on the online dive bar that is 4chan (not familiar, I visited for about 20 minutes, and I don’t want to go back. Chat rooms have always sucked). The media has cut up snippets of his comments, first brought to light by a tumblr blog called “Sexism in Music”, and they’re definitely rude. You can’t trust all the junk that’s on the internet or whatever the media reports, but the guy hasn’t come right out and denied it. First he was ripping on the Grimes singer, Claire Boucher calling her “physically repulsive” and then saying he was “0% attracted to her face and body.” Yeah, everyone knows that attraction is based only on physical appearance. At some point, a screenshot shows up where he calls Perfect Pussy’s singer, Meredith Graves, a “bitch.” Also not polite, but he managed to throw in the N-word, the F-word (not “fuck”) and a pseudo anti-Semitic joke as well. The old cliché that people are their true selves when they think no one is looking applies here. If you care about equality and respecting people, you don’t say this shit… ever. Even on 4chan. Do people have a right to free speech? Sure they do, but don’t claim to be something you’re not. Zachary Cole Smith, DIIV’s lead singer and songwriter, put up a bunch of comments online condemning his band mate’s bad choices: “I’m so fucking disgusted & so fucking angry” and “I will never EVER tolerate sexism, racism, homophobia, bullying or bigotry of any kind.” Maybe it’s some quick damage control, but I think he means it. If he really meant it, though, DIIV’s probably gonna find a new bassist. And then, Sky Ferriera (Zachary Cole Smith’s girlfriend) throws in her own comments about the ordeal, claiming that Devin (original sexist commenter) had never shown any signs of being that nasty person with ugly comments on 4chan. She seems less angry about it than her actual boyfriend, who’s probably fuming and currently resisting the urge to pick up the phone and call that other bassist he knows. Was it really Sky’s place to make statements about the comments, though? She basically just added more fuel to the media’s excited fire. I’m definitely no advocate for “political correctness” and censorship because there’s nothing worse than some pompous (white) asshole reminding you in an arrogant tone that it’s “People of Color.” Call people what they want to be called. That’s where this whole thing falls – learning to respect how other people want to be addressed and treated. Do you think either Claire Bourdel or Meredith Graves would be happy to be called “repulsive” or “bitch?” No way, so don’t fucking do it. Recent media has been all over the Ferguson demonstrations and the Michael Brown case. The slogan, “Black Lives Matter” has popped up all over the internet ether and has become a protest chant of solidarity. Sky Ferreira, who wanted to show her support (and good intentioned, I think) started using the slogan “All Lives Matter.” Yeah, all lives do matter, but the purpose of the recent demonstrations throughout the entire country is the Black oppression that IS STILL alive and well in this country. It’s not negating people of other races & ethnicities, but acknowledging the Black community’s voice and the struggles it’s faced. Take your fan’s hints & correct your statement. I’m not being a social justice warrior here; I’m just reminding people that 1) the words of others should be listened to and respected, and 2) if you’re saying things that are specifically meant to hurt people, get the fuck off the internet. Put simply, watch your mouth!
PATTI SMITH RAISES THE DEAD On November 2,2014 there I stood by the stage doors of the Old Town School of Folk Music next to a 40 year old volunteer named David who spoke of nothing else except his harmonica and receding hairline. “No one can take a bald harmonica player seriously, i’m telling you!” he would complain. We were in charge of the south doors, taking tickets and sipping our free beer trying to loosen the stiffness in our bones. We had both run late to the volunteer meeting earlier that night and had almost missed our chance of seeing Patti Smith. We were more or less still trying to catch our breaths and trying to warm our bodies from the shitty Chicago weather as we did our duties. Our 125 dollar ticket had been waived by the school and we had prevailed. We would see the godmother of punk live. “May I see your ticket Sir?” “Let me take you to your seat.” “Have a good show.” It was all done very robotically. The faster we got through the patrons, the faster we would be able to get more free beer and park ourselves right by the stage to see the concert. Luckily, everyone who had bought the ticket were as excited as we were and came to the venue early. As I expected, most of the audience drew in an older crowd, but occasionally I would seat an excited 10 year old, or the lone 15 year old who couldn't find anyone to go with them. They were usually the ones who i’d give a free pop to. I feel you kid, I use to be in the same position until I met Jenn. After everyone was seated, the backhouse lights dimmed and there came Patti, strolling on stage as if she didn't have a care in the world. Calmly, she looked to her right and smiled at her right hand man Tom Shanahan, then she looked to her left and there sat Jackson Smith, her son. She started the show by pointing out that today was All Souls Day. Her concert would be a celebration of life and love and that she hoped to do justice for her fallen friends, lovers, and family. All through the show she gave her anecdotes of her husband Fred “Sonic” Smith and her dear friend Robert Mapplethorpe. Never did she frown when telling these stories, she always would just laugh and go into a song, dedicating it to a special person or moment in her life. She read poetry, sang about only 2-3 of her “classics” and mostly performed her most recent work from her last 2 albums. The standout of the show would have to be her beautiful cover of John Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy”, which she dedicated to her son’s first child. “Patti Smith is a grandma, how weird is that?” she asked the audience. She also performed a cover of “Perfect Day” by Lou Reed and “Grateful”, an ode to Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead. “I was feeling very low, my hair was long, then suddenly I had a vision of Jerry’s head floating in space. It was like I saw Jesus in a potato chip. That’s when I wrote the song.” After a 90 minutes trip of spirituality self-reflection it was time to close the curtains on one of the worlds most genius artist. She didn’t get off of stage without giving the audience one last goodbye. After a standing ovation of about 3 minutes, she walked back to the center of the stage and sang “Because the Night”, where everyone sang along with her and filled the theater with poetry. Then the curtain fell on Patti Smith. We all sat on our chairs in silence, digesting what was heard tonight. The audience slowly but surely left the venue and David and I began to collect and throw away discarded beer bottles that laid underneath the venue’s seat, As I picked up the trash, I never felt so fucking enlightened and completely pure in my life.
DAVID BOWIE IS @ MCA – 11 OCTOBER I never gave much thought to David Bowie – yeah, I know a shame, but he’d always been the weird spaceman from the 1970s. I visited his exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art just off the Chicago, redline stop (once again, with Anita) and after being harassed by the security for having a backpack, entered the first room with a headset and illuminated sheets of paper covered with his chicken scratch. They said something about wanting his art to be interpreted by each listener/viewer individually. The exhibit began with his upbringing in the Bromley suburb of England, and his older brother who exposed Bowie to bebop jazz and the beat poets. Bowie’s inspiration comes from a whole load of places – theatre, film and books. It makes his works so interesting because his influences are drawn from many places and then put together in brand new ways. Tibetan culture & Buddhism were also early influences, which I found interesting – it’s something we have in common. He counts Brian Eno and Iggy Pop and Lou Reed among his friends. His career, that has now spanned more than forty years, started with “Space Oddity”, which he wrote during the height of the space race, in a parody of the film, “Space Odyssey.” Some of his most well-known costumes, many made by the Japanese designer, Kansai Yamamoto, are up for display. If I was allowed to choose something, my clothing article of choice would definitely be the union jack coat. The exhibition moves through his career, album to album, starting with his rock n’ roll band, the Konrads. Later, when he’d quit the band, and after the “Space Oddity” days Bowie released one of his most well-known albums, “Ziggy Stardust” (the name is actually longer, but I can’t remember all of it) and the single, “Starman.” He became known for his androgynous appearance and challenging almost any social boundary that was imposed on him. The long-haired David Bowie, wearing a dress on the album cover of “The Man Who Sold the World” was replaced with a cartoon cowboy on the American version. 1973’s “Aladdin Sane” features the bright red hair and the lightning bolt face paint. At some point, Bowie and all his band members posed for a photo just like a poster of the “Clockwork Orange.” All the separate parts of the exhibit were narrated by Bowie (via audiotape) or featured music from singles. In the later parts of his career, in the late 1970’s, Bowie went on sabbatical to Berlin to escape his celebrity, and took up oil painting. The exhibit displays two of his painted portraits – one of Iggy Pop and the other a Japanese writer and friend, Yukio Mishima. The use of colors in Bowie’s compositions were bright and expressionistic, and the shapes were a bit abstract. Bowie illustrated almost every aspect of his professional life, and wrote down lists and lists of details. The exhibit was loaded with scraps of notebook paper covered in drawings in Bowie’s handwriting, explaining exactly how he wanted his stage and costumes to look like. From the one of the sections, sometime in the 1970’s, and old packet of Gitanes cigarettes was tacked up on the wall, next to the names Serge Gainsbourg and Jacques Brel, a few of Bowie’s many influences. One of his most interesting techniques for writing was the “cut-up” technique with prose and lyrics – he’d write down whatever was on his mind, then cut up the piece of paper (in later years, he’s used a word processor scrambler) in order to rearrange his ideas. What I find most entertaining about Bowie is his ability to create personas and incorporate other forms of entertainment – film, theatre – into his stage performance. He’s really had a lot of fun with his work, assuming the role of a person, entirely different than himself, up on stage. Though I get kind of squeamish around museums because I hate seeing artwork just locked up in an institution surrounded by grumpy security, I’d definitely recommend this exhibit to everyone who asks. So go do it; it’s the ONLY one of its kind that will be displayed in the United States.
WHERE ARE QUEER PEOPLE & WOMEN OF COLOR IN BANDS? I was wandering around on the internet, pretty bored one day when I stumbled across Brujacore’s (Suzy X from Shady Hawkins) list of queercore bands & bands that included women of color (WOC) in their lineups. Besides maybe one or two, I hadn’t heard of most of them, and I wondered why these groups didn’t get more exposure. The lame truth is that it’s a whole helluva a lot easier to book a show as a white, blonde front woman – or even a bunch of white dudes – than it is being queer or a WOC. Maybe booking agents just can’t figure out what to do with a person’s message that is talking about oppression (outside of the white, middle-class feminist type). In the early 1990’s, some queercore bands, like Tribe 8 and Team Dresch, got some exposure because of their relationships with riot grrrl bands. Since then, most have been under the radar, but still very active. Unless you’re aware of what’s going on with the underground, their DIY methods might miss you. There’s something super gratifying about creating a button or a poster or a zine by hand and sharing it with other people who share the same sensibilities. It’s a bummer that these bands and their fans, in a ratio with pop music listeners, are pretty damn small. So I ran across the Heliotropes in Suzy X’s list, and as I listened to their album “A Constant Sea”, I kept thinking about Mary Timony’s band, Helium. I can only imagine what they sound like live – loud and awesomely obnoxious. Not bad for a band that formed in Brooklyn through Craigslist (we all know what creepy things occur there, and if you don’t visit the “people wanted” section”). I can hear the influence of the Smashing Pumpkins and My Bloody Valentine, maybe even the Jesus & Mary Chain, too. The shitty thing is I can’t find their lyrics on the internet anywhere, and the sorta shoegazy, ethereal sounds of the music make the words hard to pick out. (but no less awesome at all). The next band, whose link I clicked on from the list, that grabbed my attention was Aye Nako, also from New York (is it just me, or is there a lot of good shit coming from the East Coast recently?). I liked their upbeat, pop-punk aesthetic especially because it lacked the “let’s party and drink all day” mentality that a lot of pop punk seems to have. I can’t stand music like that, so I love Aye Nako’s melding of the pop punk with their lyrics that go deeper into women’s and queer people’s issues. It gives the songs some substance, but in a really upbeat way. The standout track from their entire debut album, “Unleash Yourself” has definitely got to be “Molasses.” Also making the list was Suzy X’s own band, “Shady Hawkins”, which, as of 8 November, is unfortunately defunct. They had their last show at the Silent Barn in Brooklyn with Aye Nako. Rest in Peace… I wish there had been at least one other album from this band – I did a review of the album, “Dead to Me” in the last issue. Hopefully Suzy X will be making more music, someday. Underground bands have always been their own, best promoters, but I think the world could do with a greater diversity in its music space. Hopefully ZASSHI can get some of those artists out there – now go forth and listen.
JUST ONE OF THOSE NIGHTS An instructor asked me who was my first artistic influence, and I had to think about it for a while because it had been a long time since I’d last thought about him – Johnny Depp. I’d been kind of ignoring him for a while – he just got too big, I think, and the quality of his work suffered for it. Then, I saw the drunken speech videos at some Hollywood award show. More than anybody, Johnny Depp & his films, prePirates of the Caribbean, showed me it was okay to be different and strange and weird. He was the first artist I could relate to in that way. Johnny Depp was always the anti-hero of the screen, beginning with his role in Edward Scissorhands, the first film he collaborated with Tim Burton. He portrayed alienation and the human inability to relate to others, and he always chose the films that intrigued him or grabbed his attention. He chose roles like Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas over macho, gun-toting roles with massive blockbuster appeal. This is what drew me to him, besides being a bit out there, like me, he always stuck to his ideals. Even when his first dream, rock n’ roll, didn’t play out, he could still be himself on the screen because there is a part of Johnny Depp that really is a pirate, coke dealer and a murderous barber. On screen he’s only limited by what his imagination can fabricate, but off screen he’s a shy, elegant man who takes the time to shake everyone’s had on set. That night up on the stage he said, “It’s just one of those nights”, but when you end up on a live televised stage like that, hammered, you’ve reached the point where most nights are like that. I’ve seen people waste away and die lonely, drowned in a bottle of booze. All the snarky comments I’ve seen online (although the internet’s never in the past brought out the best in people) are sickening because if he’s really struggling, really trapped in a place where people can’t reach him, why would anybody want to make him feel worse? Why would anyone do that to anyone else? The most important piece of advice I’ve ever received was from Johnny Depp – “I have faith that as long as you keep moving forward, keep putting one foot in front of the other, everything will be alright.” BUT JUST GONNA SAY… NICE JOB STICKING IT TO THOSE SNOOTY HOLLYWOOD AWARD SHOWS, DUDE!
OLD SKOOL TECHNOLOGY I’m not so sure I like the “information revolution.” The digital format isn’t permanent, and if your computer breaks we’re basically all shit out of luck. What benefits are there compared to the old-school, analog way of doing things? I just discovered that Polaroid stopped manufacturing the film for its cameras; I watched the whole documentary about it, my despair slowly rising. Polaroid was great because the artists and subjects could immediately interact with the final product while they waved the photo in the air and waited for the image to develop. The prints themselves had an iconic aesthetic that lasted damn near forever and the well-known white, square border. Polaroid gave up on a piece of history – there’s no way to achieve the lighting and contrast that was quintessential Polaroid film, albeit the load of money needed to finance the habit. Digital images and scanned prints have a noticeably colder appearance, and at the time of the taking, images can’t be seen until they’re uploaded on a computer later. One of the bonuses of digital film – a photographer can take as many images as necessary (or until their SD card’s limit), and because images can be seen on the camera’s small screen, crappy ones can immediately be deleted to make room for more. Digital images on scanners cost a helluva lot more than traditional film prints, but that will probably lead to the eventual death of all film photography. What a shame. Music records and phonographs can still be read from one hundred years ago – the same can’t be said for most digital files. One virus and that shit is doomed. First off, iTunes should DIE. An artist makes an album with a specific sequence of songs that tells a story of that person/group’s existence in time & space (assuming the artist cares about the music and not $$$). The best part of the record store experience is the hunt, not necessarily being sure what will be found. The artwork and sometimes posters in the vinyl sleeves and CD inserts is the reason I buy my own copy. The benefits of digital music? It’s that .mp3 player thing that allows me to carry my thousands-of-songs catalogue around with me. The quality definitely suffers though, but online music vendors have helped me find some rare stuff that’d be pretty difficult to find the old-fashioned way. In the realm of books, though, Amazon should be shot. I still haven’t figured out a way that “digital books” can be beneficial in any way. Can you imagine the amount of eye strain people get staring at a screen for hours while reading a book, and the pages of a book shouldn’t be turned while swiping. Digital books fail to achieve the experience of “new book smell” and rustling pages. It’s similar to the .mp3 player because it can “carry” thousands of books at once, but most people I know only read one or two books at the same time. CARRY THEM AROUND WITH YOU. You’ll look more intelligent. To be fair, sometimes the internet is useful. For example, all of the artists above can diffuse their work across larger areas to reach diverse audiences. There definitely aren’t record stores in smaller towns anymore. If the internet helps people discover my music/zine/visual art it’s alright, but no substitute for a vinyl record, paperback or art gallery show. *Note: thank you very, very much IMPOSSIBLE PROJECT for keeping instant, analog photography around.
WHY I LOVE LOGAN SQUARE/WICKER PARK, CHICAGO:
1) BUCKET O’ BLOOD RECORDS & BOOKS – ONE AWESOME USED SCI FI, FANTASY AND HORROR BOOK SUPPLY WITH A GOOD AMOUNT OF PUNK ROCK VINYL. 2) BOILER ROOM – POP PUNK FOR THE EARS, A PLACE TO SMOKE OUT BACK, AND VEGAN PIZZA FOR THE STOMACH. 3) QUIMBY’S BOOKSTORE – INDIE BOOKS, BACK ISSUES OF MAXIMUM ROCK N’ ROLL & PUNK PLANET + ZINES. 4) THE EMPORIUM – ALCOHOL & ARCADE GAMES? IS IT NECESSARY TO SAY MORE? 5) CROSSROADS TRADING CO. – ALL THE EXPENSIVE SHIT THE HIPSTER’S PARENTS BOUGHT FOR THEM AT HALF THE PRICE. 6) RECKLESS RECORDS – PROBABLY THE BEST SELECTION OF ANY RECORD STORE IN THE CITY + DVDS AND CDS. 7) SUBTERRANEAN – MORE BOOZE, A PRETTY GOOD ROSTER OF LOCAL & VISITING BANDS + LOCATED NEXT TO L-TRAIN STOP – NO WALKING REQUIRED. 8) NATIVE FOODS CAFÉ – ALL THE KALE AND MOROCCAN INSPIRED DISHES ANY VEGAN DESIRES, WITHOUT THE OUTRAGEOUS BILL. 9) SAKI – ZINES AND VINYL + THE OCCASIONAL LIVE SHOW. 10) MEXICAN CONVENIENCE STORES – LAST CALL AT 1:45 AM WHEN YOU’RE BROKE AND IN NEED OF YOUR MAD DOG 20/20 FIX.
LAME ASS SOCIAL INTEREST GROUPS Sometimes I hate walking out of my college building on university because I know there’s a high chance a social-interest-group canvasser is waiting to guilt-trip my credit card number out of me with really depressing pictures of children in third world countries. One even grabbed my hand to shake it and stop me. Talk about unwelcome physical contact… What I really want to say to them is, “Isn’t capitalism the reason for the destruction of the rainforests and world hunger in the first place? Why the fuck do you want my credit card number then? You know about United Way and their corrupt administration right? And no, you’re not getting my email address either because seeing you on the front door of my university is annoying enough. Then, they will guilt the fuck out of you and make you feel like an asshole for being a poor college student who can only eat ramen. They usually follow it up with some outrageous facts that seem to have been pulled out of their ass, but they’re insistent about their dogmas. Whatever crazy stunts they pull to get their “point” across just makes other people who care about world hunger, gay rights, or the environment look insane. Green energy & vegetarians suddenly become these strange alien concepts because of the weird as shit they do. Seriously stop it. I don’t even know where this money you’re asking me for is going. What kind of help are you anyway if you throw money at an issue then forget about it? The trees in the amazon or children in Africa can’t just forget their situations. I made a list of ten things someone can do that are much more meaningful than a discarded twenty dollar bill: 1) Eat a sustainable diet with more plants, less meat. 2) Turn off the lights when you’re not in the room 3) Lessen water usage when showering, brushing teeth & washing dishes 4) Got out and plant trees – get your hands dirty 5) Volunteer at an animal/women’s shelter 6) Go on a conservation trip and improve an animal’s natural habitat 7) Read a book about ecology and educate yourself (or any other topic) 8) Organize a (non-violent) demonstration 9) Tell your friends & family what you’ve been up to & learning, so they can get involved (tell, not preach) 10) Create activist art (poetry, photography, paintings, music, zines) and raise awareness Whether we’re talking about the green movement, pacifism, human rights, animal rights, feminism or racial equality, the issue is the same: nothing changes unless people decide to do something about their situation. And remember that the three laws of ecology, diversity (tolerance), interdependence (cooperation) and finite resources (conservation), are important to any quest in living a balanced life with the environment and other people.
[NOW GREENPEACE IS APPARENTLY FUCKING UP ANCIENT RUINS TO GET THEIR MESSAGE ACROSS] Google “Nazca Lines + Greenpeace” – knowledge is power.
THE EERIES. If you like fuzzy stuff from the 1990’s (I’d say a mix of the Jesus & Mary Chain, the Pale Saints and Soundgarden) then you’d probably like these guys. The Eeries – Isaiah, Brandon, Eliot and Nadir – bring something back to rock n’ roll that’s been absent since the Smashing Pumpkins & Nirvana were at the apogee – raw, guitar-driven noise. So far, the band’s released one self-titled EP through Interscope (iTunes, Amazon) along with a single, “Cool Kid”, the tracks already showing a lot of promise for a band that’s only been crawling out of obscurity since July. I don’t pretend to know what Isaiah’s writing about, but the emotions the words evoke are tangible and a little fucked-up (but in a good way – “Love You to Pieces” might be about serial killers, but that guitar bit into the verse is like honey… delicious ). But seriously, if your band started not even a year ago, and you’re selling out the Troubadour, you must be doing something right. Guitars haven’t ripped across the track for years, and frankly, I’m pretty fucking excited for this full-length LP that’s supposedly being released in 2015. The Eeries are raw & visceral, a fresh breath outside of corporate rock or the “politically correct” atmosphere that is “indie-rock.” I rarely hear a song from a band that stops me in my tracks, but the Eeries are the voice that’s been squashed in rock n’ roll and buried in clichés – they are the kind of rejects who were beat up at recess and created by a process of their parents’ bad decisions, which they didn’t realize fucked them up until years later. They are loud and unapologetic about it. The four members have spent years in touring bands and as studio musicians, looking for other people who felt the music just as much (because, from experience, I know it’s pretty damn hard to find people interested in being in a band for reasons other than getting laid, willing to be unwashed & freezing in a van on tour). But it was well worth the wait – the Eeries have their own experiences to write about instead of regurgitating whatever else is out there and “cool” (which makes the irony in “Cool Kid” that much better). Some people say they’re “grunge”, but I say “grunge-like.” Our generation’s got the same shit to deal with – four years of college and “bright futures” to end up disillusioned and in the unemployment line… not to mention whatever bad decisions the politicians are making, but we’re different, too. It’s not 1991. The Eeries are who they are without too much ambiguity, and you feel that as soon as you hear their songs or watch them live. I like that in a band. For their début TV performance on Late Night with Seth Meyers, they showed up just as they would (I’m assuming) to play a bar. Don’t change your ideals for the audience – write music that means something to you, and if it’s honest, people will respond. This band gets that. P.S. I located the origin of their name – it comes from an early 1990’s TV show “Eerie, Indiana.” *ALL PHOTOS NOT TAKEN BY ANYONE WITH ZASSHI. P.P.S. spero che il batterista italiano vedrà questo articolo. Amo i capelli!!