Tatterfrock

Another great everything punk zine. What the hell is TJ up to these days?

fucktooth

Jen Angel. DIY. This was a great zine.

Flipside

Flipside was like the Vince Vaughn to Maximumrocknroll's John Favreau. Both are cool, but Flipside was a bit more hip.

Dishwasher

Like a lot of people who were working dead end jobs and reading Dishwasher fanzine, I kinda always hoped I would run into Pete in some dishpit somewhere. Unfortunately I never did. This is a classic.

Kittums

I bought the first two issues of this zine at a J-Church show from Mikel who was running the band's merch counter back in 1994. It's a zine about her cats Kittums & Jesus. I lost those old issues a long time ago, but still remember how funny and low-tech they were, which is always my favorite kind of zine.

Sic Teen

I don't think Reverened Norb ever put out another issue of Sic Teen. If he did, let me know. I love this zine, the actual zine. Its like having a piece of rock history from someone who knows more about rock history than anyone else. Rev. Norb is a complete rocknroll schitzophrenic, an enigma of the highest order.
The other pic is of an interview I did with him in SD&D #1.
Norb writes a column and does reviews for Razorcake.

Shat Upon

Andy Smetanka is a very talented person. This zine was an early example of that talent. When he stopped publishing Shat Upon, Missoula was left with a serious cultural void. This was a big zine in a small town. After each issue came out there was always a buzz for a few weeks about the content. It was packed with Missoula history, stories, band reviews, interviews, and strange Northwest cultural happenings.
I once wrote an article for Shat Upon about animal scat. Traditionally after an issue came out, Andy would take all the Shat Upon writers out for free beer at Charlie's to say thanks. To this day, I have never had a worse hangover....
Before I left Missoula in 2001 Andy and I spoke on a panel about our experiences as zinesters at the Montana festival of the Book. It was a cool bookend to my Missoula days.
Andy went on to become the Arts Editor at the Missoula Independent. He currently makes stop-action animated movies and music videos. Check his stuff out at nickellbag.com

Maximumrocknroll

To say that MRR is my favorite zine is an understatement. I wouldn't even know what a zine was if it weren't for that fatefull encounter with MRR at a Helena Montana record store in 1990. When I first started thumbing though it at the counter, I had no idea what the hell was going on, it was so sloppy and full of weird bands and people that I had never heard of. But it looked cool and I have always been intrigued by the weird, pissed off, and opinionated of which MRR most definitely is. I picked it up and gave it to a friend of mine who was into punk rock. He tore into it and explained it all to me in a way that my thrash metal and mullet head could understand. It wasn't long before I lost the mullet and was reading MRR every month.
Maximumrocknroll is an institution. It remains the most consistent and relevant punk rock forum in the world. maximurocknroll Pob 460760, San Francisco, CA 94146-0760 (maximumrocknroll.com)

the postcard is from Tim Yohannan about a year before he died.

10 Things Jesus Wants You To Know

This was one of the largest Northwest zines for a long time. It was kind of like the Pacific Northwest's MRR, or Flipside. Based out of Seattle this zine covered this region's bands and punk culture in a way that seemed a bit more personal than some of the other large zines. Although there were a ton of writers, columnists, photographers, and artists involved in the making of it, it always felt like Dan's zine when you read it. Dan Halligan is still very active in the world of zines and Northwest rock. Check out his blog, 10thingszine.blogspot.com Its updated regularly and full of great pictures and stories about northwest punk rock.

Monkeybite

After all these years Grindcore continues to be one of my favorite genres of rock n roll. This zine, which amazingly enough was put out by two monkeys, focused its energy on grindcore and the promotion of all things simian, except non-grind humans. For some strange reason, the visual dichotomy of seeing monkeys and hardcore bands scatttered thoughout every page worked. Very entertaining.

a little action is good for the soul

Here are a couple of photos that made the paper of my fellow tree huggers and I. In the first one I'm the guy with his hand to his mouth next to Hayduke's armpit. In the next photo I'm standing behind the guy with the beard. Howie Wolke is one of the co-founders of Earth First! and one badass dude. I met him at this protest and gave him a copy of my zine. He actually wrote me a nice letter about it later. Unfortunately my neurotic dog ate most of that letter....

Hikes are my business and business is gooood

Here are a few pics of my days as a naturalist

Memoirs of a street vendor

This is a novel "in serial form" by Phil Bland. Its her memoirs of running a street vending cart in Chicago. A really good read and very ambitious work. Yet another great pen pal lost in the great shuffle of life.....

Here be Dragons

HBD is another politically charged zine that I really liked that didn't feel to preachy or coldly distant. Mike Q, and Eric are really good at engaging the reader without alienating them. I think they might still be publishing this?

Spectacle

This was a very inspiring eco-punk zine. I was always passing it around to friends, encouraging them to read it. Unfortunately I lost my early copies, hopefully whomever ended up with those copies continued to pass them around.

I'm so fucking beautiful

Growing up in Montana I didn't have too much exposure to progressive causes. Even in Missoula, which is a very progressive town, I was introduced to feminist thinking through riot grrrl zines, not people. This zine really opened my eyes up. Not only did it expose me to a world of pissed off women with something to say, it humanized and empowered people with weight issues to the point that weight wasn't an issue to me anymore. Fanzines also introduced me to anarchism, and environmentalism, and a host of other radical and progressive issues and causes that no other source of media or life experience had done before.

innermuscle

Josh Vanek and Rich stoddart published this zine during the glory days of Jay's Upstairs. It was full of history, bands, interviews, and reviews. Josh is the man behind Wantage USA Records. www.wantageusa.com

slug & lettuce

This is a great zine, but you already knew that. The columns are consistent and full of realistic and radical green-tinged anarchism. Christine's DIY philosophy is second to none; she walks the walk. And after reading each issue and looking at her photographs, I always want to go out and start a hardcore band. Very inspiring.

chumpire

Greg doesn't appear to be slowing down anytime soon with this longstanding zine. He has a knack for getting to the core of whatever he is writing about quickly and without needless word fodder, be it bands, scenery, or life experiences. Along with the single page newsletter type zine, Greg also puts out records, and ocassionally the full-sized zine.

cryptic slaughter

This was a sharp-witted zine from Spokane that never gave my zine a good review, but that I always enjoyed regardless. very cynical, very pissed off, very good.

Burn Collector: Hellbend for leather

Al Burian is almost too good with words. Burn collector is a perfect example of this. I recently picked up BC #13 while traveling through Hood River Oregon with a big wine buzz. I don't know if it was the wine or the words or both, but this dude continues to get better, and that scares me. incredible.

Antipathy

antipathy
I have no idea if Mike Antipathy still publishes this. I only got three issues in the mail but was consistently blown away by the author's big brain. I have never really studied anarchism as a political theory other than from the zines I recieved. I've always kind of gravitated toward it on a personal basis, but when it comes to voting and civic participation, I vote very liberally and kind of dig the utopian bullshit associated with socialism (and take great pride in this when it comes to environmental and human rights causes). This and other zines like, The Match, ATR, and Here be Dragons, at least gave me some exposure to the intellecutal argument for anarchism. What was cool about this zine for me was that Mike wrote about anarchism in a way that made it more touchable and real. He wrote about his life experiences, sex, food, activism etc. and explained how his personal life reflected his political values.

cometbus

Aaron is an incredibly dedicated and talented person. His devotion to rock and the written word is truly inspiring. Cometbus continues to be one of the very best zines out there.

Beercan Fanzine

Jesse from the great Portland pop-punk band The Automatics published this zine which was centered around, well....beer and punk rock. The Automatics once played in my living room in Missoula. It was awesome. They were supposed to play at Jay's Upstairs but Jay's was overbooked. I said fuck it and had it at my house. I shot some drunken video of their set. The funniest part of the video is the fact that my house was so small that the vast majority of the people watching the show were watching through the windows.

It's Alive

Simply put, Fred Hammer is the man. It's Alive Fanzine was my first real lesson in true DIY hardcore. Fred was the master of cut-n-paste zines who took pride in the fact that no computers were ever used in the making of them. I hope he doesn't mind me using my old computer to promote him. Great stuff.

Dream Whip

Oh man, I love this zine. Just looking through the old issues....Bill's take on the places he visited was unique and raw and always made me want to get out and travel. The Moonlight Chronicles, Cometbus, Gogglebox, and Dream Whip were major influences for my zine. Zines like this set the bar pretty high.
Bill still publishes Dream Whip (which I just recently found out...joy!) Pob 53832 Lubbock, TX 79453

The Assassin & the Whiner

Carrie is one of my favorite artists. I'm never dissapointed when the new issues of whatever she does arrive in my mailbox. She documents everything from vibrators and drunken mistakes, to the simple pleasure of a walk in the snow. I have so much stuff from her and I will continue posting highlights. Carrie now writes the comic, -You Don't Get There From Here- which is a chronicle of her day to day struggles and joys. Pob 49403 Los Angeles, CA 90049.

don't write to this address.....or do...but you won't get a back issue anymore.

This flyer is a Missoula classic. Every time Schlong played in Missoula it was a total blowout. I think this was the show that Gavin smashed a Guiness bottle over his head after not being able to tune his guitar, AND, after having gotten into a car wreck an hour before the show.....amazing band.

THE FUMES

My friend Jeff Mason from San Fran sent me this poster. Its a classic for many reasons (Epicenter zone! The fuckin Fumes! Spokane!) Back in the day, Jeff almost always wrote his letters on old show flyers.

The decline and fall of written communication part 1: the Zine years