When I was 16 I started a fanzine called Construction House, a monthly tribute in print to the music I wanted to read about, so wrote about. It ran for just over two years, just after I left the band I was in to make music on my own. I mainly stopped distributing it to curtail the mad temptation to incessantly write about myself. (Though I suppose I only have this blog for that very purpose.)
Through the fanzine, I put on shows both in London and my home town of Brentwood, reviewed records and conducted interviews with bands from around the country, a few of which have gone on to have some notable success (hearing S.C.U.M's "Whitechapel" played over a trailer for Channel 4's My Transsexual Summer was an especially proud moment for me - they were issue #4's cover stars).
I used to love going from record shop to music bar to record shop to trendy pub to leave my lovingly crafted mixture of reviews, photographs, interviews and (admittedly crap) poetry with their proprietors. At shows I would glow with pride when punters picked up a copy of Construction House and reacted with anything other than outright disgust; I would practically vomit with delight when people actually appeared to be reading them.
In short, it was a blast. I loved receiving contributions from friends and strangers, I loved compiling the mailing list (at its most popular, CH went out to just under a hundred people a month, which isn't so bad, especially when you consider that NME now sells about minus two million copies each week), I loved individually stapling the fucking things together and inevitably shredding my hands with paper cuts, the wimpiest of all injuries.
Anyway, the questions I have are these: should I do it again? And if I do, which, let's face it, I'm going to no matter what your stupid opinion is, what should I call it? All suggestions welcome, though on matters of creativity are mostly wilfully ignored. Contributions and ideas on all topics are always welcome, relevant to this blog post or not. But you knew that anyway.
Through the fanzine, I put on shows both in London and my home town of Brentwood, reviewed records and conducted interviews with bands from around the country, a few of which have gone on to have some notable success (hearing S.C.U.M's "Whitechapel" played over a trailer for Channel 4's My Transsexual Summer was an especially proud moment for me - they were issue #4's cover stars).
I used to love going from record shop to music bar to record shop to trendy pub to leave my lovingly crafted mixture of reviews, photographs, interviews and (admittedly crap) poetry with their proprietors. At shows I would glow with pride when punters picked up a copy of Construction House and reacted with anything other than outright disgust; I would practically vomit with delight when people actually appeared to be reading them.
In short, it was a blast. I loved receiving contributions from friends and strangers, I loved compiling the mailing list (at its most popular, CH went out to just under a hundred people a month, which isn't so bad, especially when you consider that NME now sells about minus two million copies each week), I loved individually stapling the fucking things together and inevitably shredding my hands with paper cuts, the wimpiest of all injuries.
Anyway, the questions I have are these: should I do it again? And if I do, which, let's face it, I'm going to no matter what your stupid opinion is, what should I call it? All suggestions welcome, though on matters of creativity are mostly wilfully ignored. Contributions and ideas on all topics are always welcome, relevant to this blog post or not. But you knew that anyway.
