It's these kinds of letter that make me miss having pen pals. It's chocked full of interesting content, stuff you'd never get in an email. I have this great guy to thank for introducing me to the music of Jonathan Richman, who for all intents my son is named after. This is a late letter, probably the last. I might type up the referenced zine.
8/16/99I've been meaning to write for a while now, and I think I've finally managed to wrangle up some free time. I meant to write when I got your zine. I think it's only fair to answer a piece of mail with a piece of mail. An impersonal email doesn't seem to suffice.
I really enjoyed the "missions statement" part of your zine. It's always interesting to hear a person's account of how the got into punk/indie/emo/whatever. Seems as though everyone has a story. You either buy that Fear record and start drawing the Dead Kennedy's symbol on your book cover in the 7th grade or you catch the late late night showing of Sid and Nancy (or in your case "Suburbia") on cable, but there's always some impetus, something that flicks the switch. For me it was my friend's older brother who, at the time seemed SO punk rock. Taking a peek through his tape collection and heeding his advice to catch "Rock n Roll High School" on TV turned me on to four really hairy guys in leather jackets that changed my life.
The mission statement also went a bit into a subject that hits closer to home: voices that men and women take on n punk. I always feel I'm being patronizing when I talk about this subject, so with that said, I hope I don't come across as that. But I see a lot of young punk girls follow around their boyfriends at shows carrying their boyfriends guitars. I wonder why they aren't carrying their own guitars. As some sticker or patch I saw on some Grrrl's backpack: "Punk rock isn't just for your boyfriend" Then again, the most interesting zines I've read are all made by women. Riot Grrl after all, started with a zine.
But who am I to say anything, I'm another boy with a guitar... Never had my girlfriend carry it, I don't think.
Anyway, thanks a lot for the zine. I'll have to add I almost didn't get it. You still needed 11 cents postage, and it was marked postage due. It was well worth the trip to the post office and the 11 cents.
Take care, keep writing
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