Saturday 31 May 2008

'Fuck Rock' by Sam McPheeters, from DEAR JESUS #37...

Here's an article by Sam McPheeters from his classic zine DEAR JESUS, published in late 1990, regarding the emergence of the ABC No Rio scene (along with it the formation of new bands and record labels), and the WNYU radio debate held with Sick Of It All about large labels and 'big-business' in hardcore, which if you haven't heard before you can listen to here...

The Sick Of It All camp seemed to go for the "maybe if we shout the loudest and cut off my opponents when they talk, people will think we're right" approach (now utilised to full effect by Bill O'Reilly). By the way, I believe that the debate moderator is Rachel Susannah Rosen from Indecision/Milhouse (correct me if I'm wrong)...

Anyway, back to the article. It's interesting to read Sam Mcpheeters's description of a 1990 MDC show: "They were energetic, but vaguely depressing and stinking of some basic existential malaise, sort of like old vaudvillains trying to recapture some past glory". Imagine what he'd say about their reunion shows now, 18 years on! Nothing left of the dead horse but some badly broken up decomposing bones to flog...




I'd really like to read the earlier zine, PLAIN TRUTH ("FAVOURITE 'ZINE? Dan O'Mahony: Plain Truth. Sam McPheeters is God!") ... if any one could upload this, I'd be very grateful.

3 comments:

William Patrick Wend said...

A few years back Anthony Morroco (who I just realized I haven't spoke to in a few years) and I were going to do a fanzine called Fuck Rock. We did a bunch of interviews but it never went anywhere. I've been uploading them to my webzine's site, which is coming back online soon...

Oliver / Cultpunk said...

Wow, this is great. I used to have a few copies of this zine and would read McPheeters' columns in MRR, even wrote to him a few times. A year or so ago I saw on his webpage that even HE was apparently looking for all his old articles, columns, et. It left me assuming that perhaps he hadn't kept all his old writing, was wanting to gather it all together?

Anyway, any more McPheeters/Dear Jesus/Vermiform stuff would be great. I remember mail ordering stuff directly from Vermiform and Sam would usually write short replies; ordering the Rorschach 'Remain Sedate" cassette, for ex., which blew me away ("Lightning Strikes Twice")

nicepooperzine said...

Plain Truth was thee best!