Hey, it's great to be asked to write some kind of column thing for Happy House and since this zine is up in the Real OD Top Five UK zines I'm most delighted to be taking part. So anyway, here we are in the third month of 1997 and pretty much the big thing that's been occupying everybody lately is the recent few shows the DESCENDANTS played here. Guess there'll be other stuff about 'em in here since Rick is a big 'DENTS fan, but I just wanted to say how cool it was that everybody got so excited, without the usual Brit cynicism. Everybody just shut up and had fun, which was a very pleasant change. Of course the band rocked, but then that was hardly a surprise.

The other day I had a spare afternoon to myself (pretty rare these days) so I thought I'd throw together a comp tape just to play when people come over and stuff (guess I'm usually a bit too crazed to adequately DJ, and hell, I even managed to snap a 7" by mistake a while ago, but that's another story). So anyway, I spent a coupla hours putting this tape together and it was great cuz I'd forgotten just how much cool punk rock stuff is out there, how much great stuff has come out over the last year or whatever (only managed to get one 'DENTS track on it, such is the hi-qual choice) and it was smart. How can someone hear 'Dumb Little Band' or 'Janelle Janelle' or 'I Don't Wanna Girlfriend' and not just be so thankful that there's so much hot punk out there? Oh, and bonus points if your cool enough to know all three of those songs too! But the point is, punk rock right now is easily healthier than it's ever been. Fuck that crap about what is and isn't 'punk' - if I can sit and listen to LAG WAGON and the CRISPY NUTS and GAME FACE and DISGUST in one sitting and like 'em all and not get wound up about whether one is 'punker' than the other then I'm sure everybody else can, too. Don't you just hate these picky misanthrops?

So it's Spring, just about anyway, and there's so much great stuff to look forward to already this year, with the VANDALS and GOOD RIDDANCE and SNFU and JUGHEADS REVENGE and TEN FOOT POLE shows coming up, plus the LUNACHICKS will be here (their new alb rules), and although you'll probably have to watch the OFFSPRING at the same show it's still gonna be great. There's stuff coming out of England too, like DONFISHER and BURNSIDE and VANILLA POD and JAYNE DOE and a CHOPPER LP coming and a ton of RED FLAG 77 stuff on the way, so why bother wasting time complaining about everything? You live in Croatia and you can complain. You live in England and you got your shows and TVs and telephones and Traci Lords videos and as much cool music as you wanna buy and you got little to really bitch about.

Spent a few days in the studio last month recording LOVEJUNK stuff for the forthcoming British Punk Invasion 3 CD, which was great. Hadn't done any recording for ages, and after a few months prostituting ourselves by playing RAMONES sets and calling our band the PINHEADS and getting vastly overpaid we had enough cash to finally get into the studio. Hey, I guess it doesn't come much more 'DIY' than that, right? So anyway, it's great going in the studio, but it's weird too cuz you get that 'time warp' thing where you spend days virtually cut off from the rest of the world, so when you come out again it's like everything's the same but it's all different, too. You kind of fast-forward a few days and it fucks with you. Touring is far worse, but that's something I can bore you with some other time, maybe (oh what tales I could tell you!!).

People sometimes don't realise how easy it is to go insane while your band's in the studio. You can try it at home, tho - just tape about ten seconds of a guitar solo from your fave song or something and then play it over and over again for about an hour, really really loudly. And then do it for about five more songs. Then listen to all five all the way through and start again. It's like that in the studio, except you probably have somewhere more comfortable to sit at home. Like when your out walking up some mountain and you get snow blindness, in the studio you get music deafness. Thank god we ain't got no money so we don't spend months recording stuff. There'd have to be some kind of medical aid to hand if I ended up trapped miles from home in some studio for that long. But then that won't happen, you don't care anyway and I'll shut up.

So I guess today's lessons are to be positive and constructive about 1997 punk rock, and never book time in a studio for more than a week at any one time. As I'm getting close to my 1000 words allotment this is as good a time as any to quit. The new Real OD will be out by the time you read this, so send the usual £1 and A5 SASE (or £1.50 ppd) if you wanna read interviews with Ben Weasel, Theo Lunachick, Emil from the CRUMBS, Johnny Ramone, TRAVIS CUT, TRIBUTE TO NOTHING and a bunch more. We're going quarterly for a while, just to try and shift some of the mail mountain, so if you wanna get anything in for the next issue then you've got til May 20, OK? Hey this is 974 words, so I'm off. Thanx for reading, thanx to the Happy House guys for the opportunity, and hopefully I'll be back again next time. See ya


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