S9E3: Colin Burrowes

Welcome back to Long Arm Stapler, a podcast about zines! This episode, I'm joined by Canadian student and journalist Colin Burrowes. We talk about Colin's zine series, "______ Saved My Life: How Punk Made Me Less of an Asshole," specifically his zine about seeing Fugazi live in the 90's. Fugazi is one of my favorite bands, so I was excited to hear about this experience! We talk about working with editors, how zines and music can change your life, and more.

Find more of Colin's work:

https://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/artist/colin-burrowes

https://chachionacid.bandcamp.com/

Find more of my work:

http://linktr.ee/LNGRMSTPLR

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http://ko-fi.com/LNGRMSTPLR

Thank you monthly podcast supporters! <3 You can support the podcast for as little as $1/month on my ko-fi, linked above. If you want to talk to me about your zines, or know someone who might, fill out the form here: http://tinyurl.com/letschatLAS

Thanks for listening!

Logo by Miquela Davis: @ghostsb4breakfast

Intro/outro:

Who Likes to Party Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:13

And welcome back to long-term stapler maybe. Thanks for tuning back into season nine. This episode, I'm joined by Colin Burrows, who discovered the joy of zines in the late 80s and early 90s through the burgeoning underground punk scene. It was an incredible way for people around the world to meet and share common interests and values. Fortunately for Colin, his early attempts at zine making have been lost to time. This is not to say that he doesn't love the personal quality of amateur zines. Far from it. He thinks zines are beautiful works of art that reflect the personality of zine makers. Colin's fears of seeing those zines again are rooted in that uncomfortable feeling many people have of hearing their own voice played back to them. Colin has spent the subsequent years singing punk rock songs, raising kids, and growing personally. That's another reason he feels distanced from his early zine efforts. He has spent the better part of the last decade as a student and a journalist. Those are separate. He is not a student journalist, but he does believe all journalists need to be continuously learning. Colin's recent zines published by Microcosm Publishing, the How Punk Made Me Less of an Asshole series, focus on how discovering punk music and the scenes surrounding it helped open his eyes to ethics he might have otherwise not been confronted with and how those have stuck with him. The latest issue is based around a Fugazi concert in September 1993 that blew his mind. Hi, Colin. Hi.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

It's great to be here. So I'm looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Yeah, I am excited to talk to you about your zine. Um, because I love Fugazi and zines. So I was very excited um when I saw that you had a Fugazi zine. So yeah, let's get into it. Um how did you get into making zines?

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Um great um it was a long time ago. I I think um my first efforts were uh it's gotta be about 92, 93. I had access, I was in an alternative uh high school, and they had their own um photocopier, and they let me. I don't know whether they let me, but I did stay after class sometimes, and I wasted a lot of their paper putting together all kinds of zines, and a lot of it was collage work, which I thought was really cool. I just tear up uh magazines and turn it into my own kind of art, and that's where I started. Um and I I they were personal right from the uh start, but um I I think I would be really embarrassed looking back at those now, like um, but I I like personal zines a lot, so I think it's a great way for people to open up and I yeah, that's how I started, I think, or where I started.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

And your zine Fugazi Saved My Life is it's still I think very much a per zine. Um it's like a recounting of this concert you went or this show you went to, but it's still also very personal.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Yeah, and um it's like this whole series, I'm I'm blending, I'm trying to keep it very personal and um blending it with um things that I've learned from listening to music and very uh things that I think are very important that we should be paying attention to right now. And so I I sort of pull the personal things that I was getting into back then and blend them with uh very like I was saying, very important issues of today. And I I try to write about both, but keep it um, I guess keep it relatable through the personal side. Um even though sometimes my first uh drafts of them go wildly into really boring facts about the issues I'm gonna um uh write about. But I I try to pull it back and um these are these zines are edited. Um I do editing and I've got an editor at um Microcosm and uh we bounce the ideas back and forth and they always push for ways that I can keep it more personal too. So um it works out well in the end because I you notice it and you you like if I just wrote it like it was uh uh newspaper article when I go into some of the issues that I go into, you probably wouldn't connect with it at all. It would probably like my first drafts sometimes turn out very boring, and I'm like, what am I doing?

SPEAKER_00 6:24

So yeah, I did I did find it relatable in a sense that like I could feel the energy, and we'll get into this later as well, but like I could I could feel the energy that you described kind of being drummed up at the show, and it was also really interesting parallels between like the politics that Fugazi was singing about back then and what's going on now, and the parallels and like what's still happening and how timeless their lyrics are because politics are so screwed up um in a multitude of ways. And so it was like there was a lot going on, but I found it really interesting and really like easy to follow along.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Yeah. Well, I'm glad you found it that way because um it's it kind of it took some work to get it that way because it's easy to look at their lyrics and um see what they were singing about, um and then kind of leave it at that, but I'm making an effort to look at what they were thinking and how it relates to what I'm thinking now, or how it relates to what's going on in the world right now. And yeah, you're right. Unfortunately, they were writing about how screwed up things were, and if anything, it seems to me like a lot of things are even worse now. Um we've been backsliding, even though people all along, singers, artists, uh journalists have been pointing out hey, there's problems here, let's get fixing them. And activists have been working on it, and it always seems to like we progress some, we fall back in other ways.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

So yeah, sometimes it feels very one step forward, two steps back, um with regards to a lot of the things that Fugazi was singing about and things that are still going on currently.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

Yeah, yeah, it does. And it's I it'd be so nice if we a band like that came along and showed us an ethical way to live, and we noticed that, we took hold of that, and things were beautiful now because of it. But it I mean some things some things are better in a lot of ways, but um, so it's not all like uh um uh all bad, it's not all doom and gloom. Um things do get better in some ways, and it it takes a lot of effort though, and and you have to keep maintaining that you can't just go, hey, we made this better. We're done. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

So we'll get into more of the specific Fugazi zine a little later, but I'd love to know more about kind of what has kept you interested in making zines um over the last like 30 years.

SPEAKER_01 10:25

Um okay. So I would sorry, there was a message there and it rang in my ears. So um, okay, it's not uh it's not just zines. Zines are um a big part of my life and now and they were like 25 or 30 years ago, whenever that is. It was a long time ago when I first got into them, but um so I I've always been into like uh underground punk rock. Um I played in bands and um I did that for a long time and then um I came back to um doing zines around the time I I sort of well actually it was um about ten or twelve years ago I um stopped drinking because it was a problematic thing, um, especially when you're playing in uh a punk rock band that mostly got paid in beer and not money. Um so that that wasn't good, and um so I I quit drinking and I just kind of looked at where my life was at that point and I decided to go back to school and I became a journalist, and it was through um becoming a journalist that uh I started doing zines again. Like um when I was in college, I um did a zine about the Buzzcocks um and like Pete Shelley's death and um talked to a lot of musicians about how it affected them. And so I it was an article first, and I got in touch with uh Microcosm and said this article could be turned into a zine, and um would you like to print it for me or something like that? And um Joe Beale at Microcosm got back to me and said he was interested, and um so I I got back into it kind of through other writing, like professional writing I was doing, but um there was there was always room for um ideas that I wasn't like I've worked in at small town newspapers and there was I always had ideas that weren't gonna be printed by those sources, so um zines are a great way to um get out um ideas that you know may not fit well in like your average weekly newspaper in a small town or whatever. So that that's kind of how I came back to it.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

So how do you think that your views on zine making or like the process for making zines has changed um over time?

SPEAKER_01 14:15

Um I don't know whether it's exactly changed. I mean um I'm kind of in a I almost feel like I'm in a privileged position where it where uh with it where I can um do uh zines that will be edited and I I hope that makes them kind to me I like these ones to feel as um professional as you know uh a book that's being published, but I I really love um and another thing that happened when I've been doing these, people have been starting to send me all kinds of personal zines, and well, it's happening slowly, but more and more are coming, and I it's exciting to go to the mailbox again. It's like I 20 or 30 years ago before the internet when I'd be waiting for whatever cool punk rock records and zines and that to show up in my mailbox, that excitement has come back, and I'm like back to looking at my mailbox five times a day to see if uh the uh mailman has been around and it's so I still love like the um the handcrafted zines that are cut and paste or um they're done so many ways now, but uh I I love the ones that people take so much time and care and pour their hearts into and um I I I mean I pour the heart my heart into mine too and keep it um keep it real, but um it's uh I I I think that answers the question, right? I I I it's uh it's still it as exciting to for all and there's it seems like with zines there's more possibility now um in creation than there was when um when I first started getting into them where we although there was some really cool zines that were just some some person with their typewriter and they type out a page and slap snap them all together. There there's always been really cool things, but it seems like there's more options now um for people to put them together. And I really still love like um I'd much rather when it comes to books, when it comes to zines, I'd much rather hold one in my hands um than read a PDF. And part of that is because my eyes are getting worse and I gotta uh put on glasses for PDFs and well I have to put them on if I'm holding them too. So okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

Yeah, so like you know, it sounds like your your process for making them hasn't necessarily or like your kind of thought process behind them hasn't necessarily changed and your views haven't really changed, which is great. Like it seems like they've been kind of not necessarily a constant because it sounds like you weren't making them for a little bit, but like steady, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Yeah, yeah. I and I always in between like from the 90s to or late 90s to um well, I guess till now. I've been raising kids, but my kids are adults too now, so um it it's it's there was a lot of things that I was doing when I was young that I would still would have liked to be have kept doing, but you just run out of time sometimes. It's so yeah. And so I never had time. I had to pick and choose. I kept doing my band, but uh it it wasn't uh I didn't do everything I would have liked, but I I did things I wouldn't give up, I'm not saying kids, I would have rather been doing zines. Um I'm it was worth taking a break.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

That makes a lot of sense. So when you so you before we started recording, you said that having your zines published in more of like kind of a tradition, I guess being published by like a publisher, like a zine publisher. Um you made you mentioned that that's kind of like being on like a bigger indie label for zines, um, kind of to compare it to music. And so what was that process? I mean you mentioned it earlier as like you just kind of went to them. Did you just kind of pitch them the idea, or like what advice would you have for someone who wants to get their zine published in this kind of way?

SPEAKER_01 21:03

Um I uh okay. So yeah, for I was aware of Microcosm for a long time. They've been around for I don't know, 30 years themselves. Um so I was aware and I had read um things they published um for many years and ordered from them. And um it was a lot like um what you'd have to do to get your the whole process was I mean it was exactly like what you'd have to uh do to get your get a book published with a publisher. And they actually in there frequently Ask questions on their website, have um have this uh they spell out what they want you to do. They tell you if you want to submit something, um you have to get in touch with the idea and tell them uh like other books that they pub books or zines that they publish that um your uh your your zine or book would be alongside in a store. And um it's and then you know tell them a little bit of about yourself and um pitch the idea, but um like when you're sending a zine, they didn't want or uh sending a book, um, they didn't want uh the full manuscript uh up front. They I mean they might do that sometimes with zines because they're shorter, but um really they just wanted you to pitch the idea in a way that would make them excited and um and kind of prove to them and then they ask you um things like you know if you've got a social media presence or you know what because like any business, they don't want to, I mean, they might take more of a risk with zines because they don't have to put um so much money into them, but um if you're pitching a book, they they're gonna want to know that um they're not gonna put I don't know eight thousand ten thousand dollars into it and have it sitting on their shelf um because they can't sell it. So um yeah, so it was a lot like um pitching it to uh um like any large publisher of books, it was um they take it really seriously, and what I really like about working with them is that um they take the the whole editing process seriously and um because um my zines are like little books, so um they they take it really seriously, um and they've been taking it seriously for a lot of years and have a good distribution network too, so so much so that they're able to kind of say few to Amazon, so that's good.

SPEAKER_00 25:12

So that is good, yeah. So aside from working with an editor um at like a a publisher, um, what is your general creative process for making one of your how punk made me less of an asshole zines? Because this isn't this the Fugazi one is not your first one.

SPEAKER_01 25:40

No, no, there was uh Yeastie Girls one first, and I've actually I wrote it um kind of okay, so this the whole story of how it um all truncated it, try and keep it short, but um I did an interview with um the Yeastie Girls, an old uh San Francisco band that did uh they were a cappella um vagina core, um and they did they were around when Green Day was starting up and they were playing uh Gilman Street and all that, and um so I was talking to them and for a podcast, and they I was telling them how um much they influenced me and they kind of turned the interview around at that point and said like it wasn't like oh yeah, what song, but they they nicely just inquired, oh yeah, what songs, and I kind of I gave like a really lame answer at that point, um, and just picked one or two that I could quickly say something about, but I knew it was deeper than that, so I ended up uh writing the first scene because of that, but I ended up going before I contacted Microcosm with this idea, I wrote almost almost a book length um short book, um, because I did uh um a bunch of like five um bands, uh like uh couple obscure uh Canadian bands that really influenced me, Sons of Ismael and One Blood, um and uh also Pansy Division, um, and then Fugazi and The Yeastie Girls. Um so I wrote all these um and they were roughly like what is coming out, but um there's there's been a little lot of editing because um it it just when I wrote it as a book, um I had ideas about how how it should go and I when I finally pitched it to um microcosm, I told them that um because I know that they really they love working with zines, they'd almost um a lot of the time it seems rather do zines, but um so I could be wrong on that. I don't want to speak for them, but it they they love zines, um, and they always have. That's where they started. So um I was uh I just told them that or and um Joe agreed, um Joe Beale, he agreed that it would probably work better as a series of zines than uh like one collected work in a book. And um so since then it's been because I I also think um this will be in the future. Um there all these bands are bands that influenced me in the 90s, 80s, and I haven't stopped loving music or being influenced by it, so there's bands um that uh I'll probably write um zines about uh of all sorts. I mean, I guess they're all can they all can be loosely defined as punk, so it'll probably keep the same title. Um but um yeah, there's it it's the process is just looking at um these bands that uh have influenced me or and continue to influence me. But um yeah, I think I think the process is gonna switch though as I'm writing about more contemporary bands. So I'll have to see. Um but I it's it's exciting to work on because these bands have been um exciting to listen to and to be um influenced by. Um so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

So let's talk um specifically about the zine. Um Fugazi Saved My Life, How Punk Made Me Less of an Asshole. Um like I mentioned earlier, I was excited about this one because Fugazi is one of my favorite bands. Um I got into them, I guess, kind of late, like way too late to be able to see them live. Um I really got into them my senior year of college and then just kind of fell into this like obsessive listening phase that I haven't really like they're not the only band I listen to, so I guess I have come out of it in a sense, but like they just all of their music means so much to me. And so I actually um when I was reading your zine, I went to the Fugazi live series and I bought the show that you talk about in this, um, so I could listen to that while I read the zine. Um and I think it's really cool that Fugazi does that. Um I've gotten a couple of their show. I got like the show from the day I was born and like like kind of a handful of different shows from that series.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

Yeah, yeah, I think that series is incredible. Like, and I mean the way they it's affordable for you to um get a hold of these. They're not selling them off at like bootleg prices and or they're not hard to find. Um it's simple, you go to one place and you uh you can get so many of those shows, and they're the energy of those shows is brilliant. It's like even sometimes I sometimes I need the the studio albums, and sometimes I'm like, I want to hear those songs with an audience, with them, you know, doing their banter or whatever. Even even if their banter is putting those moshers in line, because but sometimes going, especially as I've aged, I uh I like peep bands that'll kind of tell audiences to settle down.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

Yeah, I have not been in a mosh pit in a really long time because my body just can't handle it. So I also really appreciate when fans are like, hey, chill out. Uh we appreciate the energy, but also like don't be jerks. Um, let other people enjoy the show.

SPEAKER_01 34:34

Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

Um, so do you want to talk about that show specifically? Um, I'm trying to see it was like September 93?

SPEAKER_01 34:48

Yeah, September 8th or something like that. Um yeah, uh like what it was you want me to talk about what it was like that day?

SPEAKER_00 35:02

Yeah, I mean I guess like what really like was the core that kept you coming back to that memory of that show enough to like make a zine about it.

SPEAKER_01 35:16

Um it was okay. Like that day really, really sticks out because it it was um it was a solitary trip to um and I as I said in the zine, I hitchhiked through the country from my the small town where I grew up in, uh, and um I it was kind of like uh this I don't even know how to describe it. It was like uh rite of passage or something. I was um maybe 19. Um yeah, I guess I was. Um, so yeah, I was around 19, but I I I was still pretty young and um I like I had tried to get friends to go and they just were not into it. They and I I I was amazed they were not into it because um because it's Fugazi and they they wanted something uh you know with big some angrier music or something like that. That's they were like teenagers who wanted to get but I I mean I find that in Fugazi too. I mean, like uh a song like um uh oh you know the one, it's live, they always yell, uh you'd make a you'd make a great cop. That song uh is as hardcore as any, you know, nasty teenage meathead stomping around song uh like that I can think of. They um they have an incredible energy, but people did not want to um head there with me, and it it was so it was uh kind of a private Odyssey, which was really cool, and um I made my way, I hitchhiked there. I mean, there's a lot of things, it's the Fugazi element that really stuck with me because there's a lot of things, like I don't remember who picked me up on the highway. I just remember I I hitchhiked and I arrived at the university um where the show was, and um I I really like I know um and I saw them a couple times, um Burn 51, the the opening band from Guelph, um like their drummer. I I knew him uh a little bit, and um like I don't remember their set at all, and I don't remember um Shudder to Think set, um which I mean they're another good like great Discord band, but like it's Fugazi that really ended up being my focus, um because and the music was just uh it was like I I think it was the same feeling that some people get when they go to church or something. It was like I I don't know angelic? I don't know, um, but I can't really describe uh you know Ian or Ghee their voices as angelic, but it it was something, it was it connected with me and um like and it was also um because I like you I I had been listening, I I had a friend who loved Minor Threat, couldn't get into Fugazi. He gave me a tape that uh like Pen Powell had dubbed for him, and from there I started buying the CDs and um I I just I was playing them on repeat before, and then I was just so amazingly happy to be going to the uh to see them live. Like I lived out in a little small town. I I was starting to see concerts around then, but I hadn't really seen any really big ones. Um the big to me. Um I guess and it was just amazing. I was gonna go see Fugazi and um it it to me they were like I kinda in the zine when I'm describing waiting room. Um to me that it's that song had all the energy, the connection that like um big stadium rock bands would have. And um it was just that day, like I didn't I can't say like I was I was just a stupid ass uh kid who lived in a really um racist, redneck, conservative small town, and uh I knew I didn't like the attitudes out there. I knew I wanted to be better than that, but um I I can't say at that point that I was exactly better than that, um because I probably wasn't like I I don't think like going back to the zines that I don't that I'm glad I um can't see and they're lost to time. I don't think I was saying really racist, redneck, conservative things, but I probably had some of those ideas kind of seeping into my way of thinking, and then um yeah, so seeing and hearing um those songs that were starting to influence me that I was listening to, you know, in my disc man or um in my bedroom, uh those and then seeing them played live just It blew me away and it still does. Um I think I that's all I can can say. It just was one of the most influential around the same time I saw uh the Ramones and that was equal but different because it was it was the Ramones and a lot of my friends did go to that one, um but uh and we had a really good time and there was a lot of energy there, but um the fact that and another thing, and I tried to mention this in the Fugazi zine at the Fugazi show, a lot of my friends um did not want to come, but the people I met there were amazing, they were the people I would have loved to have my high school filled with. Um and when I when like I at the end of the zine, I say that um or I bring up the Fugazi instrument movie, and I'm talking about um when people are going, uh they're talking to people in the lineups outside, and those people remind me so much of me when I was young, and um and but I I did have a few friends like that, but it was kind of a really lonely time because for the most part those people lived somewhere else and I couldn't connect with them. Um but uh when I went to that Fugazi show, I was surrounded by those people, and it was there I felt a unity um that I that was amazing and kind of addictive because I I knew oh it I found this here um in these cities near my town. I know where to go eventually to find more, I think, and um yeah, so it it was a really influential um day and like I've I have been involved for um I don't know uh thirty years now in in music scenes in like cities across Ontario and and beyond, but um really I I did uh seek out cool people um that were exactly like those the people in those in that uh in Peter Clark How Hall that day. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:46

There's um it's a couple lines in the zine where you talk about the song Long Division, um, and those lines really stuck with me. Am I allowed to read them? I don't know if that's like okay, cool.

SPEAKER_03 47:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

Um so about Long Division, you say it's the type of song that put the terrible teenage thoughts of suicide on a slow simmer and calmed them down. It's the song that saved my life a thousand times as I tried to make sense of the world around me. It's the cold ice that put out the fires of desperation and misunderstanding. It's the song that tenderly slapped my confusion free from its moorings and allowed me to sail clearly through a world I could scarcely comprehend. Um I read that and I was just like, damn. Um yeah, because like like I mentioned, I I got into them kind of late. I didn't get into them as a as a teen, but there was a big chunk of time for me where every like I wasn't really processing my feelings about being queer and being trans in a very productive way, and I was able to really harness what I was feeling in listening to Fugazi's music as like kind of getting through those emotions. Um, and so that section really resonated with me. Um it made me think of it's like it's long since been archived or deleted, but um there's a musician, Tim Kinsella, from Captain Jazz and Joan of Arc and other bands. And he posted on Instagram a couple years ago um Fugazi's it was I haven't screenshotted on my phone, and I wish I'd pulled it up so I could read a verbatim, but it's like listening to Fugazi is or like feeling how I feel when I listen to Fugazi is the only proof I'm not a robot. Um and I wish I had that verbatim, but I don't want to look at my phone. But Fugazi is just able to like elicit such deep emotions from people, and I think that that's really impressive from a punk band.

SPEAKER_01 50:18

Yeah, yeah. Um and yeah, it was like especially like that song um saved my life many times over. Um and I I would say that um as far as um I find punk to be very emotional music. I think they might be um just in some way better like um a lot of punk is good when you need something to um get out that anger or whatever um at the world, the frustration. But they Fugazi went beyond that for for me and they connected uh to other deeper emotions, they connected to a sort of uh sadness that I was feeling as a teen. Um loneliness. Um they connected to that without um being without being Morrissey. Um they like that other type of music did did the same thing, but it almost for a lot of punk kids that we wanted it more like Fugazi touched us. Um that sounds weird.

SPEAKER_00 52:27

Um I know what you mean though, like less kind of I'll say this as a huge Smiths fan, whiny and depressing as Morrissey. Um yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:45

And I loved the Smiths back then, but um and I mean I still listened to it. I wouldn't give Morrissey any of my money anymore, but um uh yeah, he was doing one thing, they took it in in another direction that um even something about their uh their music itself um is really emotional. Like even even a Fugazi instrumental or anything they that the people like the members have done. Um I was at uh this is recent, I was at uh a Mesthetics show um last month, which is uh Brendan and uh Joe from uh Fugazi and with uh it's it's with I can't remember the other two people's names, but um it's more of a it's got the Fugazi rhythm section. It sounds like Fugazi back there, but it's like really energetic uh jazz over top of it, and um even that music though those people could just connect with music and with words. Um they're masters of that, and um they can still do it, and when I was a teenager, um a song like Long Division just it it was so soothing when things were a mess at home or which happened a fair amount and you know school was yeah when things were bad. It was it was something that it wouldn't just um fix it, it was something that was written in a way that understood how you were feeling. So that's what I found.

SPEAKER_00 55:26

So yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Um, shifting gears a little bit. Are you currently working on anything?

SPEAKER_01 55:41

Um, I'm working on more issues of the uh um how punk made me less of an asshole series. Um the next one I'm working on, unless Microcosm wants a different one up next, is going to be uh focusing on uh Seven Inch I got when I was really young, uh called Sons of Ishmael Sing Sing Generic Crap. And it was um they were a band that um were from another Ontario small town, so it it was a really helpful connection um for me when I was stuck out in a Ontario small town. Uh they were in an area that was almost as conservative as where I grew up and still happen to live. Um but um yeah, so I'm working on that, and I I've kind of got an idea because I kind of realized listening to other people's music um uh was cathartic. Um being in my own band was almost the opposite because I um referenced it earlier, like um getting paid in beer is not a good uh thing. So that kind of like I I almost want to do a one-off series about um my uh time in a uh crappy punk rock band, but it's um uh more, I guess it would be almost almost the opposite, but it wasn't all bad. But um it's almost like how punk rock made me potentially more of an asshole because dealing with uh you know there's a lot more stress in doing your own thing. Um and I I I did it in an area where um and I'm still friends with almost everyone involved, um, but there was a lot of members in my band who went through during the years, um, and not all of them because most of my life has been uh lived in that same small redneck uh conservative, ultra-conservative community. So trying to um do uh do uh a band do art when I had to I was forced to work with people who saw the world way differently than I did a lot of them. Some of them, not all, um but it was it was more stressful than just uh um going out and listening to an inspiring record or um uh you know seeing an amazing concert like Fugazi. Um so yeah, I kind of want to do like a one-off explaining that punk rock does not always make you a better person, and sometimes um the art you make can actually like I approach it a lot differently now. Um I still do it the odd time for fun. I've got a good lineup of people that are mostly not from my small town now. Um but um yeah, it's it's a scene that'll if I do that one, it'll be it'll be a different perspective on how punk or art can influence your life in ways that aren't always as positive. I I don't think I'm working on anything else right now. I'm getting ready. Um I took the long way, but I'm finally um going to university in uh September, so I took the very long route to get university ready. Um so like uh I've been uh going through colleges for the last like five, six years. Um but yeah that's my that's my big goal right now to to be a student student of life, always learning, enjoying music, enjoying zines, like and hopefully having enough time to make the world a better place somewhere in all that.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:52

So absolutely, yeah. Those are all I feel like those are all really big things and really important things. Um is there anything else zine-wise that you want to talk about?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:10

Um, um, I mean there there was uh a zine show that was gonna be happening up here that I was gonna talk about, but it got canceled. So um that's I so really other than um the the zines that I'm working on, um I was all prepared to talk about something else and then I can't now. So um yeah, I I I think that's it as far as zines at the moment. There's always more to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:00

Um, where can people find your work online?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:04

Okay, um, you can get it through uh my bandcamp at uh Chacheon Acid uh dot bandcamp.com or um you can get it uh directly through Microcosm Publishing. Um and um that's just microcosm publishing dot com, I believe. Um and you can there's a lot of online stores and stuff that um have it because microcosm's got really good distribution. So if you just do a web search on your favorite uh search engine, you'll uh find um if you I don't know what the best way to search my name or um search uh Fugazi Save My Life or Yeastie Girls Save My Life or uh Buzzcocks, The Lasting Influence of Pete Shelley, that that'll find them. Um yeah. So cool.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:36

I'll post links to the zine on the Microcosm site and your band camp as well in the show notes.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:44

Okay, perfect. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:47

Yeah, this has been really great. Um really enjoyed your zine, and um yeah, this was really great. Um, thank you for being on the show.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:00

Yeah, um, thank you for having me. It's been awesome to talk and reminisce about you know going to see Fugazi and uh and I love meeting new people. So it was really great to uh talk to you. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:20

Yeah. Um thank you also to everyone for listening. Um really excited about this season of Long Arm Stapler. Have a lot of just the lineup, the lineups lately, slash the lineups, the entire time I've been doing this have been really killer. Um, so I'm just really excited to talk to more zensters about their work. Um, thank you to all of my monthly Kofi podcast supporters. It really means a lot and it helps subsidize the cost of hosting and production. Um, if you've been enjoying the podcast or have found a new Zine Maker you like from the podcast, please consider throwing me a dollar a month. Um that's all it is. That's 60 cents after fees. Um there's a link in the show notes and on my webpage, which is also linked in the show notes. Or we can go to Kofi.com slash L Ngrm S T P L R. Um Yeah, thanks again for listening. Stay tuned for the rest of the season. If you are interested in talking to me about your Zines or Zine Fest, um fill out the form in my link tree. And if you think you know a Zine Store who'd be interested in chatting with me, send them my link.