Monday 5 July 2010

An audience with the Afternoon Gentlemen

In a special audio extension of the printed fanzine One Way Ticket to Cubesville issue 8, here is a show featuring West Yorkshire grindcore wizards The Afternoon Gentlemen. Featuring an interview recorded behind a pub in Leeds, inevitably on World Buckfast Day, it is beautifully chaotic as they are slowly circled by local characters and hopeless drunks. The show lasts just less than 20 minutes and features clips from their first few demos to capture their essence, as they struggle through a haze of cheap booze and pre-gig adrenalin to discuss important topics of the day such as alcohol, vagrancy and eating for free. Enjoy. Contact me for the genuine PAPER fanzine. In authentic BLACK AND WHITE INK.

Friday 2 April 2010

cubesville 6

St Winifreds Unbound saw One Way Ticket to Cubesville spiral out of all control. Hardly recognisable as a regular DIY punkzine any more, its psychotic rantings covered charity shops and a concerted attack on direct marketing that was the basis for a spinoff publication called Junkmail Backlash. The zine quirks it up with inverted Horrorscopes and some twisted quiz which merely serves to mock the reader, laughing manically in his face and daring him to throw the zine away in a desperate bid to keep hold of his sanity.
In keeping with the fanzine's bizarre content, it features manic Scots quirksters Dawson and London indy lunatics Gag: two bands that took a sledge hammer to conventional song structure and as revolutionary as the thrash bands who had graced the pages of previous issues. Brummy ska-punks Spithead are featured as action figures. Who would have guessed that ska and punk would, a few years later, become popular. We didn't. Enjoy.

Tuesday 23 March 2010

cubesville radio broadcast: an audience with charlie harper

what do the Queen, Rod Stewart and the Rolling Stones have in common? That's right, they all feature in the rich and varied life of UK Subs frontman Charlie Harper. Cubesville caught up with the sprightly sexagenarian to chew the fat on life, longevity and a love of rocknroll.

liked the show? get One Way Ticket to Cubesville 7 for the full interview. many thanks to Dave Uglypunk for the photography uglypunk1@hotmail.com

Friday 19 March 2010

cubesville 5

The unique charms of Bradford can be summed up in one word, but I can't for the life of me remember what it is cos I was so blind drunk in the six years I spent there. Mindbendingly large quantities of cheap cider and headsplittingly long hangovers helped to produce the Sellafield Plantlife Issue. The fanzine's early political fervour is washed away in a sea of booze as folk punks Blyth Power and quirksters Useful Idiot are put under the spotlight. Anarcho legends Oi Polloi feature as cut out and keep action figures, which is fitting as they were also responsible for some of the more outlandish drinking sessions of the time, notably the 10-day Edinburgh City of Punk and those gigs when they kidnapped me and put me in the van for punk rock chaos across the country. Cool. This edition of Cubesville is dedicated to Mik, who was aslo responsible for some classic sessions around the time. Cheers. Enjoy.

Friday 5 March 2010

cubesville 4

The manic scribblings of One Way Ticket to Cubesville fanzine can be attributed to the strength of homebrew produced at the time. The Selafield Pot Plant Issue was written and published circa 1991/92 when regular punk venue, the Planet X in Liverpool had moved to new premises in what is now some ghastly shopping centre in the city centre. The zine features two totally unique bands for the time - the Pleasant Valley Children and Stikky. Meanwhile, the zine's content became increasingly erratic and paranoid as its author succumbed to incredibly cheap alcohol. Enjoy.

Monday 1 March 2010

cubesville 3

Here's how to make fanzines - no bands listed on the cover, backgrounds ripped out of your mum's Littlewoods catalogue and illustrations consisting of drunken self portraits by the bands on lined white paper. The An Extensive Look at Early 90s Crockery issue was published circa 1990 and distributed randomly while pissed at gigs in Liverpool and Wigan. The bands featured in the zine were the legendary Cowboy Killers and Birkenhead punks the GoHeads, featuring Hockey from Instant Agony.
Enjoy.

Friday 19 February 2010

cubesville 2

Here's the second installment of the people's favourite. I'd guess it was published around 1988 with a circulation of 350. Totally classic line up of bands featured - Nomeansno, Victims Family and UKHC-jazz combo the Kings of Oblivion.
Fitting really as the homebrew was getting stronger and oblivion beckoned on many an occasion.

Cheers again to Sned for PDFing it and bunging it up on punksishippies.


Friday 12 February 2010

cubesville 1

I'm planning to bung up all copies of the people's favourite, One Way Ticket to Cubesville for you to download at home, so here's the first opportunity to dip our punk rock toasty soldiers into the primordial fanzine soup for you. I'm indebted to Sned for PDFing the first two issues and bunging them up on punksishippies. Well done big man!

Issue 1 came about following a 1-issue collaboration called Rise Above that saw members of Paradox UK, Doctor and the Crippens and myself join forces to produce Southport's first thrash fanzine.
But tired with traditional fanzines, and armed with my mum's typewriter, a tape recorder and a fucking shed load of homebrew - and I mean a fucking lot - I went it alone.
Published sometime around 1987, the first issue is a creature of its time, featuring interviews with a young fresh Brummie band called Doom and UK thrash heavyweights Concrete Sox.

But the coup was getting an interview with HR from Bad Brains when he played at the Planet X in Liverpool. Looking back, it's not really that surprising that he wasn't interested in talking to a teenage drunk in a studded leather demanding answers to a string of purile, lavatorial questions. But that still wouldn't stop me, not even now!



Wednesday 13 January 2010

i-spy people arguing with vegans



First published in the heady year of 1995, or there abouts, i-spy people arguing with vegans was an instant hit with the British public. Originally intended as a supplement to One Way Ticket to Cubesville fanzine, it was conceived and written in one big cider session. However, once released, the publication developed a life of its own and is known to have been reprinted and distributed in Belgium. Really, it was. It is now available for the first time for your enjoyment in "virtual paper". Do enjoy.