DISUNDERSTOOD ZINE READING - Tape - 2013

 DISUNDERSTOOD is a zine that my friend Sara Double Ears started in 2002. Initially, she was going to call it "Misunderstood", but I happened to be in the room and said something like "What? Seriously?? It should be called DIS-understood!!" The basic premise of the zine is that she attends punk shows with her notebook in hand and writes down what she thinks the bands are singing about. Since she is a part of the DIY punk community, she can usually be found in houses, storefronts, generator shows and warehouses where the PA is always less that adequate. When you throw in the fact that most of the singers are screaming unintelligibly, it is near impossible to discern what anyone is saying. This is why she wrote down that TRAGEDY was singing about gardening and SEXY sang about eating aspertame together.
  I love the first issue of DISUNDERSTOOD. I might be the biggest fan, which is why I begged Sara to work on issue two for the next ten years. When I saw that it may never happen. I asked if I could just do it myself. Sara happily handed over her unused files of misheard lyrics from the intervening ten years and I got to work, carrying my own notebook to shows all over the US and throughout Europe. Issue two went to print in 2012 with everything from OUTLOOK singing about being a dog to HYSTERICS singing about sledding to TRAGEDY eating shit and bacon.
   I've been self-publishing zines since the mid-1990's and I've never even vaguely entertained the idea of trying to read anything in front of people, mostly because it feels awkward, I don't like the sound of my own voice and being in front of people without the comforting blanket of a loud punk band turns my anxiety level up to 1000. In the fall of 2013, I found myself in Providence, RI for a month. My friend, Mike was setting up a show at (now defunct) Building 16 in Olneyville. For some weird reason, I asked if I could kick off the show with a zine reading from the second issue of DISUNDERSTOOD....the feeling came out of nowhere. He said yeah and I practiced once in my room.
   The reading felt okay. I was a lot less anxious than I thought I'd be, but I still sweated profusely and later threw up behind the building. The audience was really nice. It was cool to hear what people thought was funny and what fell flat. Who knew that one of the bigger laughs would come from the statement, "My band played a show with TRAGEDY in Scotland."? I had no idea that my new friend, Erik was recording the set, but he sent it over to me a couple of days ago. Here ya go...

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Both issues of the zine are long out of print. Sara and I are currently collaborating on the third issue. When it is printed, you'll be able to buy it here.

Many thanks to Erik-Dardan Ymeraga for recording the show and sending over the files. 

ONE SHOE IN THE ROAD - "Struck Cyclists And Their Stories" - CD - 2005

   I ride a bike almost daily in the city of San Francisco and most of the time, it feels like I have to be on my guard as soon as I mount the bike. People zip around the streets here with (seemingly) little to no regard of anyone around them, even though they could kill someone with two tons of steel (or plastic) with one simple thrust of the gas pedal. On the other side of that coin, there are tons of bicyclists who cut off people in crosswalks, yell "I have the right of way" indignantly at cars when they don't and ride full speed down sidewalks crowded with people. Is there a way that we can just all live together and use the same streets without trying to kill each other? That is just a glimpse into what this recording is trying to shed some light on.
   In "One Shoe in the Road", the interviewers and editors (Don Godwin and Erin Yanke) talk with people who have been hit by cars while biking; people who are lucky enough to have made it through. The stories are graphic, difficult and traumatic (there is your trigger warning). They bring up questions and provide some answers about how we can all learn to share space in our growing cities and the things that we can do to minimize injuries (or death) to people who are just trying to get where they are going without supporting the capitalist oil industry. (p.s. I'm not actually trying to politicize every person who rides a bike. I just wanted to slip that in there.)

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And since we are punks, this includes interviews and work by people from IMPRACTICAL COCKPIT, CHASED AND SMASHED, SWORD OF THE ANCIENT, BEASTHEAD, ANCESTRAL DIET, LIGHT BRIGADE and more!

LIFE DURING WARTIME #9 - CD-R - 2010

   I'm a big fan of used record stores, street sales, yard sales and just plain looking through the trash for treasures. Some of the records I've found while digging though collections in the past have blown my mind, like the time I found the FRED LANE LP for $8. Or the time I came across the first MELVINS LP on Alchemy Records in a used bin for $2. I can't even begin to describe how happy I was when I stumbled upon a yard sale where every record was $1 and I walked away with first pressings by THE DEAD BOYS, THE 101er's, GANG OF FOUR and 27 others. It was mindblowing. I actually checked in with the guy selling the stuff to make sure he wasn't about to commit suicide. (He said he was moving and couldn't afford to ship it.)
    A guy named Warren Hill also likes to dig through record collections, but he found a real one of a kind. While searching through records at a yard sale, he found a lost acetate of the VELVET UNDERGROUND and bought it for 75 cents. It contained alternate versions of VU songs that possibly had never been heard by the public. What follows on this download is the story of finding that record and figuring out what to do with it. The interview is conducted by Erin Yanke in her long-running audiozine, Life During Wartime and the story is interspersed with audio from the acetate. I'm not gonna tell you anymore because it would just ruin the whole thing for you.

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If you would like to hear more episodes of Life During Wartime, be sure to click on the "Audio Zine" tag below.

LIFE DURING WARTIME #6 - "The Troubles" - Tape - 2003

    I'm going to take a wild guess and assume that you read this blog because you are into punk music. I'm also going to assume that you have been to see punk bands in a house during your lifetime. Maybe you went to a dance party afterwards, full of boozy punks swaying along to shit they would never listen to while hanging out in their own rooms sober...like MILLI VANILLI. Now, what if you were hanging out on the porch at that party and suddenly you were surrounded by cops who were part of a terrorism task force that had been assembled to bust this suspicious Anarchist meeting that you all had organized? "But I'm just at a dance party!", you might exclaim. Exactly, but in this police state that we have come to live in, the cops can now find a myriad of reasons to get you convicted of a felony for simply drinking cheap beer and listening to crappy dance music (or even crappy [or good] punk music). Some readers may be acclimated to this kind of police harassment living in the post-9/11 world that we inhabit, but this story takes place 6 months before the World Trade Center attacks...and just because police repression is infinitely more prevalent than it was 11 years ago, that still doesn't make it acceptable.

   In this installment of LIFE DURING WARTIME audio zine (for the uninitiated, think of it as a book on tape), Erin Yanke and Moe Bowstern interview punks that were held on trumped up felony charges after simply being radicals at a party in Portland in 2001. They tell the stories of the paranoia and harassment on the part of the cops and how they (the cops) organized a joint terrorism task force that portrayed fun-loving, harmless punks as bomb-throwing, bloodthirsty anarchists. These incidents helped to organize and politicize the Portland punk scene while also increasing paranoia and distrust within the activist community. It is a great listen and the download also includes the written introduction included in the liner notes penned by Iggy Scam.

   I think this audio document is still important and relevant in light of the ongoing Occupy movements around the world. I also think it is important to remind ourselves of the perceived authority and power that police think they have over us and the ways that they fuck up our lives for no real reason. This could happen to any of us and it's helpful to try and be informed about our rights.

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LIFE DURING WARTIME #7 - "Punks Against War" - Tape - 2003

   George Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq in early 2003 and activists in San Francisco organized a protest to shut down the city. I wasn't there, unfortunately, so it's hard for me to write about this and give an accurate description of what happened. Luckily, my good friend Erin Yanke was there and documented the protest as it happened. Her interviews take place in a squatted building near Market and Van Ness in downtown SF. The vacant former pot club was taken over during the protest to act as a place to organize, relax, eat free food, get away from cops and plot your next move in the shutdown of the city. They even had door people to watch the front so that when the cops inevitably raided the building, they could be stalled and most everyone got out the back door without harm or arrest.

                             photo courtesy of Anandi
   On side two, Paul Curran interviews people in the streets about their motivation behind getting involved with this protest and about how being punk has influenced their political ideologies. I think it's important to hear these stories of past struggles and learn from them to influence how we can do things better in the future. This protest brought out thousands of people and shut down the entire city for the day. It's really inspiring to me.

                 Photo taken from Basetree of protesters on Powell St.

                                 Handiwork by Lee Wonder

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Updated 2014

                       

   Erin Yanke still occasionally does zines (audio and written) and is sitll hard at work with her weekly radio show on KBOO in Portland, OR.