I grew up on the mean streets of Elgin Illinois. A town I love to hate. But growing up it did have one good thing about it, it was just down the road from Chicago. Spent many a weekend hoping on Irving Park Road and taking it south into the city. Irving Park was nice because if you follow it long enough from the burbs it will take you right to Clark Street, or Wrigleyville as many of you may know it as. Which is one of the better places on planet earth. But before we got into Chicago proper we would pass through the town of Norridge which is where we always made a stop at Rolling Stone Records. A classic big city records store, much like the one in the movie High Fidelity.
I will always remember Rolling Stone Records because that is were I bought my first Jane’s Addiction album. And also the place where I discovered my first “zine.” A tiny little homemade black and white magazine made on copy paper. To be honest I don’t remember the exact subject of that little zine, I am sure it had something to do with the Chicago music scene, I do remember that I was hooked though. I had to seek out more zines. And like many things, once you start looking for it, you find more than you imagined. There are zine libraries and distributors, or distros, as they are called. Zines are mostly found in record stores, comic book shops, and book stores. Their subjects are usually in the realm of music, fiction, politics, or art. Zines are the original blog. There was something about those little homemade vessels of free press that I really got hooked on. It is here we find some of the deepest roots of ZAF622. A zine in the age of the internet.
Issue 16 of ZAF622 will be taking a small detour off the information super highway and onto good old fashioned paper. You will be able to hold a printed version of ZAF622 #16 in your hand, roll it up, swat a fly with it, give mustaches to the people in the pictures, all that stuff, it will be grand. The first printed issue will have a very limited run, I’ll be testing the waters. It will contain stuff that the online version does not. It will be in the tradition of the classic zine, rough and fast, and not too pretty.
If you want to be sure to get your hands on the first hard copy of ZAF622 send an email to info@zaf622.com and just ask for it. Please include your mailing address so I know where to send it.
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