A Brief Zine Fest Writeup

Spent most of the day either having an impromptu pool party with The Munchkin or driving to & from the in-laws’ house, but I managed to make a relatively quick stop at the Zine Fest Houston up at The Shady Tavern (still going on, actually, so stop on byi; check the details here). And while it wasn’t packed to the gills, it was relatively well-attended, at least better than the one Secret Saturday Show I’d been to. A random scattering of hipster/scenester folks, some more on the punkish side of the spectrum, plus a heavy dose of Super Happy Fun Land-esque H-town hippies, all happily browsing zines and chatting out in the heavy midafternoon heat.

Picked up a few things, including an awesome issue of Cometbus I’d never seen before — I’ve gone a few treasured issues packed away in a box somewhere — and a cheery old-school photocopier-and-paste zine called Houston Punk, the writer/publisher of which told me, “It’s mostly words; I tried to make them smart ones.” As good a sales pitch as any I’ve heard, y’all… Bought a nicely-done zine called Giant Steps from Teenage Kicks frontman Kirke, as well — he had a bunch for sale, but this one looks like he published himself back in 2006. Another kinda old-school zine, but with a design style that reminds me happily of Russell Etchen’s old Cool Beans Press stuff, from back before he transmuted his love of comics and art and whatever else into Domy.

Also stopped at a table manned by a couple of guys from Film Monitor, a cool publication that reviews underappreciated/under-reviewed films (I think both currently in theaters & on DVD). They put out issue #1 back in Feb., apparently, and are working on June now — good writing, I have to say, and I agree with what I’ve read about some of the movies they’ve reviewed (the ones I’ve seen, anyway). The zine’s small, small, small, about the size of a “standard” zine but all printed on one big piece of paper & folded in quarters, but hey, it works. I look forward to more…

As I was meandering around, somebody got up on the stage outside the Tavern and started to tune up, and when I looked, it turned out to be none other than 30footFALL frontman and Texas expat (I think he goes to school in Virginia, these days?) Butch. He played a sweet acoustic set, sounding for all the world like a rough-voiced Damien Jurado, and split the songs between his own originals (both w/30foot and not, I think) and well-loved covers.

I didn’t catch the whole thing, but I really dug ’em all, the 30foot songs I recognized reimagined as Pete Seeger-style acoustic ballads (esp. “Fuck Y’all We’re From Texas”), the new songs (well, “Jesus, Elvis, and Richard Petty” was new to me, anyway), and the covers, all three. The highlight of latter category for me was Jawbreaker’s “Kiss The Bottle,” which made me drive home listening to every Jawbreaker album I own on the iPod.

I had to leave too damn soon, unfortunately, but next time I’m going to forcibly drag everybody I know, I swear…