OFF THE RECORD

Rip It Up, Issue 57, 1 April 1982, Page 22

OFF THE RECORD

Which means London fanzines, and plenty of them. First and best is Allez-Oop set up by one time Rip It Up writer, Jeremy Templer. To avoid critical in-fighting the magazine has adopted a non-evaluative stance, which means all you get is a series of question-answer interviews without any value judgements from the writers. In other words rock criticism which isn't critical. Informative but sterile. The other fanzines, Shout, Rising Free, The Story So Far, Grinding Halt, Cross Now, Sign of the Times, Shake, Panache Fourteen, Trees and Flowers and South Circular, are all amateurish in-it-for-the-love-and-not-the-layout angle. They are all printed and distributed by Better Badges, 286 Portobello Road, London WlO. One novel presentation worth singling out is Wool City Rocker, a Bradford fanzine the size of a forty-five and packaged in a small

plastic sleeve containing a poster of some ugly Northern talents and a flexi-disk of a Heaven 17 song 'Something's Wrong'. And it's only 30p.

Locally, the NZ Students' Arts Council have initiated a Touring Papers publication that lets you in on what acts are doing the Varsity circuit. Its most recent edition included excerpts from John Dix's history of NZ rock’n' roll. Any news? Write to their Resource Base: PO Box 9266, Wellington. George Kay

Browsing among books on rock music is a lot more interesting now British-based Omnibus Press publications are distributed in NZ. Your standard rock book has always been the illustrated fanbio wherein a poorly researched, clumsy and gushy text serves as an excuse to package heaps of photos of some current fave rave. In 1979 American writer Da*e Marsh used this format to produce a serious book on Bruce Springsteen entitled Born To Run. That said, however, Marsh's book does have its shortcomings. In 180 pages we learn all the facts and get plenty of observations but somehow, by the end, a real sense of Springsteen the man remains elusive. Dave Marsh's book is now in Omnibus's catalogue as is an even more interesting remodel of the fan-bio quickie: Lester Bangs' Blondie. It may be slimmer than the Springsteen effort but you get 16 pages in colour coupled with the ravings of the greatest gonzo rock writer of all. Bangs was commissioned to write a standard hagiography but instead turned around and began to attack his subject in chapters such as 'On the Merits of Sexual Repression'. His thesis about Blondie's i.e. Debbie's appeal is fascinating and, as usual, both brilliant and ultimately way over the top. (Apparently Chris and Debbie Harrystein are now writing their own version.) Blondie was written in 1980 prior to the Autoamerican and Koo Koo albums. I'd love to read an update on Bang's thesis. The David Bowie Black Book is a strictly conventional example of the fan-bio but as such is