November 1998November 1998
Greetings. Welcome to issue two of Uncle Harry And A Pocket Bach I hope life
has treated you well in the interim period. Oooh a whole new issue, rub your
hands in delight. In the limited experience I have had of doing a fanzine a
few problems have come to my attention. Here is what they are, and my proposed
solutions:
1. Things going Out of date by the time you come to read it. solution- urn I'm
stuck here. I'm afraid you will just have to lump it, basically, but if anyone
has any suggestions as to what to do about this then please let me know. I am
vaguely, vaguely thinking of attempting to get this fanzine up and going on
a home page, or a website or something, yes, revel in the extent of my computer
illiteracy. But, anyhow that is going to take quite, alright a very, long time
to materialise as it is reliant on a huge amount of help from the I.T. technician
at college, and I haven't even asked him yet. Would anyone be interested in
this if I did it anyway, or would you find a publication that you can hold in
your hands and flick through preferable? Please let me know.
2. The crap quality achieved by photocopying stuff that is already quite dark,
such as the Euros doll of the previous issue.
solution- same as before really, except I am more aware of it now and am making
a conscious effort not to use (very) dark images and all responsibility for
printing this time is out of my hands as I sent it off to The Malteaser Dancefloor
and they did it all for Inc for a very reasonable price so it is thanks to them
that the price has gone down. Their address, if you're interested in doing something
similar is: P0 Box 21636, London, SW16 6WH, but be warned they are a bit strange.
They said I wrote like a boy and asked if I was sure my name was Emily and that
I wasn't lying.
3. Keeping a Gorky' 5 fanzine to do with Gorky's. It isn't a problem for this
issue, and hopefully won't be for the next, but after that who can say? I don't
want this to turn into a fanzine full of other bands I like, or bands that I
have seen and who would reply to any questions. solution- I fully intend not
to ask every band I go to see if they would fill in a questionnaire or whatever.
However, each issue I do will probably have a bit about one or two local bands
that I like And before you say it it isn't just because they possibly
contain my friends, but because no one ever reviews them + oh yes, I am giving
them their big break. Oh yes. My opinion holding such weighty sway in the heady
world of musical politics. But who can say, maybe in the distant future when
I have run out of stuff to say on Gorky's that I wont approach bands like Mogwai
and Sparklehorse and people like Elliot Smith. It's just when I buy a fanzine
for a particular band, and find it full of other bands, to the extent where
the supposed band it is about is hardly featured, it always annoys me. Also,
in order to keep this about Gorky's it is reliant on them putting out stuff
or touring, or doing something so it is because of this that I can't say when
issue 3 will be ready, but see the back page for more details. If you were to
want to read reviews written by me on other bands then you can if you check
out the
Bad Transmissions site on the Internet, or get the magazine (as yet
I don't know when or where it is available from, but it will be free) .
The address is www.verynicethankyou.demon.co.uk/badtl
Ummm - Yeah. Anyway.
Ok. That's that done and dusted. Now For amendments to issue one regarding Matchepsut,
the Melys song. I have since been informed that she was an Egyptian queen (which
now makes sense of their press release sheet)
"... only a few queens ruled in their own right. The most famous of the women
who did reign, Queen Matchepsut, at first served as regent to her stepson Thutmose
III... She completely usurped the reigns of government. Flaunting all the trappings
of kinship, even male dress and ceremonial beard, this remarkable woman built
a lavish temple to keep her name alive. When she fell, after 20 years; in power
Thutmose claimed his throne and vengefully desuroved much of her great memorial,
" Lionel Casson. Oh- kay. (Cheers Hugh) .
Thankyous time
1. Richard from Gorky's for talking to me
2. Sam Pow, from the now cursed, Mercury for the cd (flick forward to find your
chance to win) , biography and cuttings. When asked why Mercury have dropped
Gorky's she said "It is just one of those things. There is no press statement
or anything."
3. Rosey from R*E*P*E*A*T for sending me a lot of stuff on Gorky' 5 and for
reviewing issue one (see issue 12 of his and Dweeb's most esteemed publication,
which also contains an exclusive Megan interview). To get hold of this you need
to send £1.50, I think, and an A4 S.A.E. to 7 Ferry Lane, Chesterton,
Cambridge, CB4 1NT
4. Sam Wistenoff for the pictures he sent me of The Pudding, and the tape -
5. The Malteaser Dancefloor, and Finally
6. Matt, for being & real star and retaping me Melys' John Peel session
and for sending me a copy of 2 songs I didn't have
GORKY'S ON THE NET
There is one realy good Gorky's website on the Internet than I managed to locate.
It can be found at:
www.geocities.com/SunsetStrip/Mezzanine/6707/index.gzm.html
It is run by a kid called Rodrigo + is clearly put together with much love and devotion. It has albums, singles + live Gorky`s reviews, as well as a chance to buy GZM merchandise, view pictures, lyrics (some with translations) + tab stuff. The highlight, in theory anyhow, is an ode to Megan. The other sites I found were extremely disappointing. They contained the sum total of, ooh, let me see, one song review, one gig review and a thing about a paragraph long + that was 3 separate addresses. There was one that sounded potentially good though that I couldn`t open as my computer said something about strings missing ID users. The address for that if you are interested is:
gridmagazine.com/html/gorky-s-zygotic-mynci.html
I hope you don't come away feeling as disillusioned as I did and like you
just wasted a lot of money.
Good news- there is another Gorky's fanzine called IECHYD DA.
They are now on issue 3 (I bow in your presence) which contains a run down of
all the Gorky's videos to date, translations, reviews, Catatonia, cartoons,
chords and some other things. Let them know that you got their address from
me because then maybe they'll do this whole advert thing in reverse.
