NO-FI "MAGAZINE"
ALL ABOUT ISSUE #4
This was the 4th issue of No-Fi "Magazine" and thie first where I had to create many of the elements without a computer because I had to...not just because I wanted to. So it was a beautiful mess when it came out in June of 1996. I still didn't quite have much of a distribution, but I did put out close to 1000 copies (maybe more?) which was the highest I'd done so far.
The cover of "The Violent Summer Issue" came from the poster from a movie called THE PRIME TIME starring Jo Ann LeCompte and Frank Roche. I think it also came out of not having a good cover thought out in time. That AND the fact that by the time I got to finish the cover, I no longer had computer access. So two of the photos on the left side of the cover came out of haste which is very obvious from the hand written text. Originally we had DON KNOTTS OVERDRIVE (who were one of the bands that played out 1st Issue Debut Party) scheduled to be the interview, but I can't remember why it didn't happen. I do know that they eventually change their name to HEDSET and you can hear one of their track on the ORGASMO soundtrack. In going through the different revisions of the cover, I saw that we were suppossed to interview BOBSLED and frankly I don't remember that at all. I used to talk to BOBSLED's lead singer Jula Bell around that time so it makes sense. Things just got so squished at the last minute due to summer starting and me trekking over to my girlfriend Holly-tron's house in Highland Park every weekend. The SISSY BAR interview actually happened at the last minute. In any case, I just covered up DON KNOTTS OVERDRIVE's name and drew SISSY BAR's name in. I won't even say how embarrassed I am about the picture of the men in swamp suits with the line "Joan Osborne Get s A Haircut" (which covered up a picture of Jula and Patricia of BOBSLED). I'll give you an example why I'm embarrassed about that line... Answer me this. Who is Joan Osborne? Most of you don't know. See, that's what I mean. I'd rather feature somebody's name you've never heard of on the cover than somebody's name you knew and have since forgotten. Well, Joan Osborne was a popular pop singer in the mid 90s and had frizzy hair and a nose ring. Now some of you are going, "Wha...Oh YEAH!" but the rest are just shaking their head, "No." Anyway, she last released and album in 2002, and a music video I saw looked like she may have had some plastic surgury, but who knows. Who cares? I don't. So I don't know if this is my least favorite cover, but it's down there. I may redo it just for a web version (but I'll have a link to the original if that's the case).
I also had a couple solid interviews in this issue including the two page interview with Sissy Bar (illustrated with kiddy stickers and hand drawn stars and cunducted in the alleyway next to, what was, a club called The Garage) and with a porn star named Madison...
If you read the interview with Madison, you might be able to read into it that I didn't quite gel with her. In fact I was so unhappy with the Madison interview that I placed it on page two of the issue in such small type that I think may have been 4 or 5 pt helvetica text. (The size of text usually reserved to credits along the sides of photos in most magazines.) It wasn't that she was a bad person. We were just in completely different worlds and I wasn't into conducting serious interviews. I'm still not, actually. Anyway, over the last couple years or so, there has been all sorts of speculationas to what happened to her. As it turns out, I actually did the last "known" interview with her and even AVN Magazine wrote about it and quoted her from our interview. It's thought that she may have moved to England to pursue her music career. You can read the full article HERE (BEWARE as there IS nudity on that web page so don't go unless you are over 18). If anything, she does have a specific type of piercing named after her. "The Madison" is a neck piercing which can look like a chainless necklass and she was the first person to do it.
One odd thing that occurred while working on this issue was that a new label popped up called No-Fi Records which was affiliated with the band SPIRITUALIZED and I had heard that they were thinking about starting another magazine called No-Fi Magazine. Now we were about to start our own label called No-FI "Records" and I wanted to see what was up. I called them and they were actually REALLY cool and we worked out a nice verbal agreement basically stating that I wouldn't put out anything under the No-Fi "Records" label (which we changed to Spiffy Records) and the would not call their CATALOGUE No-Fi Magazine. Confused yet? Anyway, we stayed off each other's toes and that worked out just fine. My only regret is that they didn't send us anything from their label to review and from the looks of it, they put out some cool stuff.
If I have any real regrets about the issue, it is the strange half page called "TATTOOS THAT MEAN PEOPLE SHOULD HAVE!!!" which consists of just a bunch of random drawings by me, Ernie, and Jim McCray. SERIOUSLY random drawings...of things like Liono of The Thundercats, a Snork, Gumby, a self portrait of me in an Agent Chester Desmond T-Shirt holding a pair of guns with little confidence, and a bunch more. I think the idea was that these were things that people who commit violent crimes should be forced to have tattooed on them in order foooorrrr.....what? So that the ink flows into their skin and somehow makes them better people? Looking into a mirror and seeing the image of a pair of scissors with a worried look on its face (?!?) staring at them, permanently inked into their own skin will make them mentally better people? Who knows. More likely it was because I didn't have a computer or the time to type up another story.
Our advertisers in this issue were 2nd Time Around (a music store chain based in Hollywood), a tattoo studio called Sacred Art (whose ad faced the page with our silly tattoo ideas), Spiffy Records (our own label with a fresh new name), and a southbay based BBS called I.C. Online Services. Thankfully they all stuck with us after the rough look of this and the next few issues.
BROKEN PROMISES: In this issue we stated that the next month's issue would include an interview with the bands PRAISE OF FOLLY and GRAND PRIX. We also talked about the possibility of changing our name (see the intro page of this issue for an explanation) and that we might interview Madison's band FOUR UGLY WOMEN in a future issue. All lies, outright. The lies were so bad in this issue, that GUNS AND ROSES went back intime and titled one of their albums "Lies Lies Lies". Ok, maybe they weren't lies. It was just one of those things when we thought we had something set for the next issue and it all changed before going to press for the next issue. In fact the only real lie in this paragraph was about GnR going back in time to change their album title. Everyone knows that they went back in time to have all sort of crazy adventures where they not only learned about love and life,...but about themselves. (...and that one, sorry...)
Yr. No-Fi Pal,
Chris Beyond
(Chris Beyond is the editor/creator of No-Fi "Magazine" and did not make out with Madison.)
