published on February 6, 2010 under zine reviews. No Comments
Strangely enough this is a punk zine about religion. More surprising it’s not a religion bashing zine, on the contrary actually. Don’t worry, no one will try to proselytize you to follow religion in this zine. It is only the personal accounts of the author, Dave Fried (also known as Dave Taco and Dave Pulps), a Jew for life as he is says, in a big auto-biographical story.
He writes about growing up in a Jewish family. He shares how as a teen punk he stopped practicing religion and how he started again years later. How he’s trying to balance between tradition and his personal believes. He goes shortly into politics (Israel, Palestine, Gaza strip etc) and more into the oppression of women and LGBT people in traditional Judaism (and Christianity and Islam). However as he explains, things have started to change. He writes about Jewish feminists and LGBT activists who are trying to make a difference and how more Jews see their point and support with simple acts such as adding an orange on the Seder Plates.
Although I’m not keen on religion, I thought this was a good read and I got to know a lot about Judaism. Don’t get put off by me saying that this is a religious issue. This is personal writing about religion. It is old fashioned cut and paste and if you want to download a copy and print it or read it on the screen, the Queer Zine Archive Project has it online: download Black Carrot #12.
You can listen to an interview that Dave did with FeastofFun.com and check his band Bromance.
To contact the author and/or order a hard copy:
Dave Fried’s profile in We Make Zines
black carrot
box 830
chicago il 60690 / usa
disdoom@gmail.com
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published on January 30, 2010 under zine reviews. No Comments
Doris is one of the zines that I remember seeing in distros ever since I’ve started looking around for zines. Nevertheless, for some weird reason I never got my hands on an issue before. When I picked up this issue and started reading it, I just couldn’t put it down.
Cindy writes an ongoing encyclopedia and in each issue a few letters are featured. From these letters she rights a mixture of personal stories, politics and punk. In this issue it is R, S and T and you can read the following articles:
- Robin: It is about social change, people changing themselves and the world around them. Is it possible? It is also about having a difference of opinion then a person very close to you.
- Shy: A comic that recounts the story of Cindy’s first dealing with the punk rock scene. A shy girl that wants to be herself in a scene where people are so much different than her. How she managed to fit in and find people like her.
- Social Ecology: An introduction and personal view of the political theory that Murray Bookchin introduced.
- Truth: The way we remember and tell stories. How much truth is in them, and how much is left out to make it easier to remember, tell and understand.
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published on January 20, 2010 under zine reviews. No Comments
Since this is the first issue of Cometbus zine that I’m writing about, I feel I should give some background info on it.
Cometbus has been issued in one form or another for nearly 30 years now. Actually this is the 25th year anniversary issue and it came out in 2006. It is one of the first (if not the first) punk zines that escaped the standard band info, interviews, music reviews zine form and took a more personal direction. The author and creator of the zine is a guy who is known as Aaron Cometbus. A well recognized figure in the bay area punk scene, not only for his long run zine but also for his involvement in the punk scene, squat movement and also the numerous bands he has played for (most known as the drummer of Pinhead Gunpowder). He is self-described as a punk-anthropologist and if you read his zine you’ll realize why. If you want to find out more about Aaron Cometbus, I’ve put a bunch of links in the end of this post.
Now about this issue. As I said, this is the 50th issue and it marks the 25 years of the zine. The original idea about this issue (which took 3 years to be released due to serious burn-out), was to be exclusively a compilation of letters that Aaron had received from friends. Fortunately the idea was dropped and although this issue mainly consists of the aforementioned letters, there is some original writing from Aaron himself (and some from others) and also a bunch of interviews with band members.
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published on January 19, 2010 under news. No Comments
Yes, we’re back.
As some of you might have noticed, I haven’t updated the Words and Stuff site for nearly a year. Well, I’m gonna give it another try and update it more often from now on! As you have already noticed I’ve reconstructed the site and it is now a blog! The content is the same but as a blog, there are many new features like the ability to leave comments, send me messages and other nice stuff that are already added or will be added soon.
So from now on, I will try to add new content more often, I already have some reviews ready and I will be posting them soon. We now have a RSS feed so if you want to get all the updates without having to check the site, you can subscribe using your favorite feed reader. You may also subscribe via e-mail, just follow the link and put down your e-mail. Don’t worry, I will never share your e-mail with anyone or spam you, you’ll only get notices when new content is up. If you’re on twitter you can follow me at @dim_was. I will be letting you know about updates there too, along with other news.
Come back soon to check the new stuff or subscribe to be notified about it. I would love to hear from you, leave a comment under this (or any) post or use the contact form to send me a private message.
Thanks for visiting,
doesitmatter
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published on February 1, 2009 under show reviews. 1 Comment
I’ll shit you not, I went to this one to see Tragedy. How many people have the chance to see Tragedy play in a small pizza place! Quite a lot, if you live in Portland I guess but if you’re from Europe it’s definitely something new. Anyway, the small show room was quickly filled with about 100 or so punks and the show started at around 9.30.
First band to play was Lebanon, a rather new band from Portland with members of Hellshock (and ex-From Ashes Rise) which often share the stage with Tragedy. I wasn’t surprised and neither disappointed by their set. They play of course hardcore punk, but they’re not another Tragedy clone in any way, and I would say they sound kinda like Hellshock but not as metallic. I don’t know if they’ll have a record out anytime soon but if they do I’m definitely getting it.
Next one, oh yes, Tragedy! No introductions here, you should all know them already. Finally, after years of waiting, it was about time to see them live and it was amazing. The band was highly energetic and powerful with lots of fists thrown in the air and so was the crowd. Unfortunately they had some problems like electroshocking microphones, no vocals heard on the first track, some speaker wasn’t working and made the band stop to figure it out. But still, what a fucking show!!!
Next one was Extortion, coming from Australia to play their small set of powerviolence. Usually I can’t stand of powerviolence or fastcore but these guys weren’t bad. The crowd seemed to like them a lot so it’s all good.
Finally, Iron Lung, a duet band (guitar and drums) from Seattle. I guess you can put them under the powerviolence genre but they mix so many more hardcore sub-genres which makes them so unique. They mix ultra fast and slower parts in the most powerful way and they definitely won me and the rest of the crowd.
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Strangely enough this is a punk zine about religion. More surprising it’s not a religion bashing zine, on the contrary actually. Don’t worry, no one will try to proselytize you to follow religion in this zine. It is only the personal accounts of the author, Dave Fried (also known as Dave Taco and Dave Pulps), a Jew for life as he is says, in a big auto-biographical story. 
