Zines/Books/Comics
By Ben Tanzer

Snake Pit 2007 and 2008/Microcosm Publishing

Ben White, a.k.a, Ben Snake Pit, is a member of cool bands. He draws. He endlessly gets high and drunk. He has a babe girlfriend who cooks him rocking meals. He has a cute dog and gets to live in Austin, Texas the slacker capital of the free world. He also has to work a day job that isn’t so great, but at least he has one. Basically, Ben Snake Pit lives the DIY life you once lived, wished you had lived or are happy to live through vicariously by reading his comics. The Snake Pit comics themselves are all three panels in length and while entirely in black and white, they are vibrant and fun. Each strip more or less follows the one before it which allows the reader to follow Ben Snake Pit on his day to day escapades. One of the fascinating realizations in doing so though, is that as you follow someone day to day, you are reminded that even the coolest life has its quotidian elements. Like all of us Ben Snake Pit fights with his significant other, gets colds and experiences disappointment, frustrations and sadness. If Snake Pit at times lacks a more in-depth look at what Ben Snake Pit is truly feeling much of the time, it does subtly capture how even punks slowly, inevitably, get older and start to grow-up, as they open bank accounts, lose friends, occasionally need more sleep and discover touches of gray in their beards. Ultimately, we all need to get through the day, but as the Snake Pit comics remind its readers, how we get through it is up to us.

13 Years of Good Luck/Microcosm Publishing

Everything you probably need to know about this most excellent zine compilation from Microcosm can found on page eleven in the concluding paragraph of The History of Publishing an excerpt from “Make a Zine!”: “Zines offer an intimate connection in the kinds of information they convey, the vulnerability that the authors often provide, and the simple fact that you can read them in the park, on the bus, or on the toilet.” Do you want to learn about composting for beginners or screen printing? It’s in here. What about the reason that Nate Beaty moved to Los Angeles? It’s detailed and illustrated in Brainfag Forever (#76062 200). Do you want to know more about ridding yourself of fruit flies or which questions you should ask yourself when better trying to understand the meaning of “consent?” What about menstrual extraction? How do you feel about reading a wide array of comics exploring loss, love and why one might add bananas to their cereal? Because here’s the thing, it’s all in here and it’s wonderful. Zines have always been about sharing your passion, whatever your passion and for whatever reasons you feel they should be shared. And Micrososm get’s that and they’ve been getting it for a long time. 13 Years of Good Luck is a celebration of all those Microsom has chosen to support and as I read it I couldn’t help but hope that as others find it they will remember to celebrate and support Microcosm as well, because they need it, and we need them.

Mini-Comics/Silber Media

When I first received the packet of mini-comics from Silber Media, each wrapped in its own individual plastic cover, I thought about the nickel bags we once bought in the early nineties. But then, and this may be reflective of my current age and interests, I thought about Top Chef and its endless references to Amuse Bouche, the little, yet flavorful bite size foods chefs make as a kick-off to the upcoming courses in a larger meal. Finally though, I just read the comics, and it turns out that neither association was so far off from the reality. Do the comics come neatly wrapped and bring escape and sometimes joy? Yes. Are the small, but rich in content and make you want more? Very. Whether it’s the Lost Kisses series with its existential, pop culture leaning stick figure, and accompanying DVD; Just a Man, a western that reads like an intersection between Jonah Hex and The Unforgiven; XO, with its druggy hit man; Worms, which is all sci-fi and wacked; Marked’s formally retired Demon fighter; or my personal favorite, Ultimate Lost Kisses #11 and its tragic story about one man’s journey to death row; Silber Media has created something wonderful with these comics. Relentlessly readable stories that are packaged no bigger than a matchbook, but endlessly remind you that good things can easily come in small packages when attention is paid to craft, art and storytelling.

Barred For Life

Ostensibly, Barred for Life is a photo book documenting the fans of legendary punk band Black Flag who have gone so far as to have the Black Flag’s iconic logo, four staggered black bars, also known as “The Bars,” tattooed on their arms, legs and everywhere else. The fans being photographed are also quoted about the impact of Black Flag on their lives. For example, Sonja Zeigler a hair stylist from Lancaster, PA says, “When I was younger my friends and I would sit in my basement and talk about what were going to do when we got older. I remember Black Flag always playing in the background. Listening to Black Flag showed us that we weren’t stuck here. We felt like we had options.” As you read these quotes along with the accompanying text by Stewart Dean Ebersole, you quickly realize though that this is intended to be more than a photo book or celebration of Black Flag fans and their ink. The intention here is to give Black Flag its due as a band that not only impacted the history of punk music, but changed the lives of those who listened to them. The beauty of this of course, is that such efforts at deification are as old as history itself, not to mention the reason the original fanzines were even created. It is an effort to convince not just yourself, but those who will come into contact with your work that the object of your love deserves further exposure in a world that not only may fail to appreciate this object as much as you do, but may actively discourage such worship through the outright denial of its existence. The question for some may be whether Black Flag deserves the attention it receives here and elsewhere, but the answer is of course it does, for as long as we are free to create, we can celebrate whatever we want and it is up to the public to decide whether our attention is justified.

CDs

Are We Not Men? We are Devo!/Devo

I approached the re-issue of Are We Not Men? We are Devo! wondering if it would sound as good to me as I remembered it when first released back in 1978. I also wondered if it could still sound as fresh as it did then, a work of art wholly unique and original at its inception, but coming with a built-in 30-year interlude between listenings. What’s fascinating on the one hand is how different it still sounds, still of a piece like nothing else anyone is creating. Sure, they were New Wave and post-Punk, and many others were as well, but Devo really didn’t sound like anyone else in 1978 and they still don’t. What is more fascinating to me however, is how much of what they accomplish here can feel so current. It’s not like their technology meets anxiety vibe wasn’t relevant in the late seventies, but it’s hard to imagine it feeling more relevant then than it does now as we slowly find ourselves subsumed by new technologies at every turn and fresh anxieties with each new day. This is particularly striking with their remake of (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, a song the Rolling Stones turned into a paean to sexual frustrations everywhere, but which Devo turns into the endless struggle to get through the day when your anxieties are only too happy and willing to paralyze you every step of the way.

The Audacity of Hype/Jello Biafra and The Guantanamo School of Medicine

I suppose we should know what’s coming as soon as we see the title of this CD or the cover art, a riff of Shepard Fairey’s now iconic Barack Obama Hope poster, with Jello Biafra drawn as the devil, devious smile and flames firmly entrenched. And yet, with each song, Biafra brings the humor, all akin to Jack Black’s teacher in School of Rock, loud and gleeful, a craftsman playing a role, always with a wink to the audience, but never deviating from the job at hand. Now, what is that job? For one, its bringing us music we can bounce to, and bounce we do. And two, and more importantly arguably, maybe, is the job of bringing us an endless stream of social commentary, on topics ranging from terrorism, “The Terror of Tinytown,” to oppression, “New Feudalism,” to criminal justice, “Three Strikes,” to and our endless devotion to consumerism, “Strength Thru Shopping.” What Biafra knows is that people don’t spend enough time thinking about these things, but that he has no choice but to do so. What he also knows though, is that for people to actually listen to someone else talk about politics, progressive and otherwise, it has to be appealing, it has to be loud and sometimes, maybe much of the time, it has to be funny.

Splendor of Sorrow/Easter Monkeys

For those of you who wonder what has come out of Cleveland, OH besides LeBron James during the last twenty odd years I offer you the Splendor of Sorrow by the Easter Monkeys. For those of you who have heard someone say that the Velvet Underground inspired the creation of more music than any group before or since I offer you the Splendor of Sorrow by the Easter Monkeys. For those of you who want to think you can own some slice of music that no one else seems to know of, at least not yet, I offer you the Splendor of Sorrow by the Easter Monkeys. And finally, for all of you who need to believe that seemingly long lost artists can be resurrected at any given time, subject to whims and passions and hardcore followers like yourselves I offer you the Splendor of Sorrow by the Easter Monkeys. This reissue of Splendor of Sorrow reminds us that punk is full of noise, yet can still inspire joy amongst the waves of cognitive and aural dissonance. It also exemplifies how music can sound like it was written, played and produced in someone’s garage and still be great and timeless. This CD comes with a number of bonus tracks and a DVD of a live performance recorded in 1982. It also contains Watchoo Wan? a live track that slowly builds to an explosion of sound which serves to highlight for us that this band may have been obscure over the years, but that’s not because the music doesn’t resonate in a big way, it’s just that sometimes things don’t shake out like they ought to.