FILLER (ISSUE 2)

Last year, right after Craft Lake City ended, I decided that the zine I made was going to come out every 4 months. August, December and April of every year would see a new issue. I started planning out the second issue pretty much while I was standing at my table and got really excited about it.

Then when December came around, and I had nowhere to really sell the thing other than my website, I dropped it down to twice a year. It would come out in February and August. That didn’t happen either and in May, when I got accepted to CLC again, I figured I should get the ball rolling and start putting things together. I cast a pretty wide net recruiting friends to write things. I recruited a ton of people figuring that a lot of them would flake out. None of them did and I ended up having twice as much material for the second issue.

There was so much time spent recruiting writers for content that I pretty much forgot to figure out what to do about visuals. Three days before I had to start laying it out I came up with a little cartoon to use a few times just to break up the huge chunks of text. It turned out really good, I think, and I’m proud that everything came together.

The whole concept of Filler is really nothing more than “I have cool friends, let me tell you about them.” I told everyone that I didn’t really care what they wanted to write about or talk about, just as long as it wasn’t already on the Internet or going up on the Internet. I wanted Filler to have exclusive stuff that they could only find in the zine and people were happy to oblige.

I’ve got a few copies left and they’re up for sale in the ONR store if you want to snag one. Here’s a few of the people that contributed to this issue and where you can find them.

Mike Farfel – A good friend of mine and the author of the first ONR publication, Tulip. You can find him on Twitter (@onebillionmikes), Instagram (@ohbeem) and his blog, Stay Asleep (http://wakeupmike.blogspot.com/).

John Dilley – I met John through the company I work for and he hit the ground running pretty good with Twitter (@john_dilley) and his blog (http://johndilley.wordpress.com/), but he got a new job and he’s been pretty busy with that. Hopefully he gets back to it on a regular basis. He’s got some great stories.

Daniel Maland – I met this guy when he was booking shows and doing sound for me at New Song Underground. We reconnected at my boring office job, and he’s since moved on to doing sound full-time. He’s got a great site dedicated to that (www.smallvenuesurvivalist.com) and he acts out on Twitter (@dmaland0) occasionally.

Makenna Walsh – He was the first guy to send me anything and it’s a hilarious and sad read all at once. You can find him on Twitter and Instagram (@holeinthehand) and occasionally he Tumbles (www.idlepopulation.tumblr.com).

Danielle Mariott – The only lady to break through the boy’s club wall this year (mainly because I see her every day at work, so she couldn’t forget about it). She gave me a couple of great poems that really gave the zine a little bit of diversity. You can find her sharing music and pictures via Instagram and Twitter (@pretty_okay) and her own Internet home (www.daniellemariott.com). She’s also got a great band called Light Black that you should listen to with my Craft Lake City neighbor Carrie Wakefield (Metalhead Jewelry).

Casey aka The Big Dogg – I’ve been writing down the ridiculous things that Casey says since 2001 and decided it was finally time to do something with them. I recruited Clark Snyder to draw a quick newspaper comic strip version of Casey so I could add a word balloon with a quote and it turned out great. Watch Casey act out on Instagram (@xperrograndex) and get tattooed by Clark (@clarksnyder) at Cathedral Tattoo.

Thanks to everyone that picked up a copy. Issue three will be along at some point. It’s a surprise. I like to keep you on your toes.

CRAFT LAKE CITY - POSTGAME

Salt Lake, I love you.

Craft Lake City was this past weekend and it was awesome. Long hours and a lot of work went into it, but it was totally worth it. I set up shop around 1 pm on Friday and when the doors finally opened a few hours later, Gallivan Center was packed for the rest of the night. Saturday was no different, just a lot longer and a lot hotter.

Old News Records is kind of a boutique thing and has never been very serious for me, but it's always been fun to do. I put out a couple of CD's right before CD's became a thing that nobody actually wanted. It's been pretty quiet since then.

Last year, when I published a zine called Filler, my friend Mike gave me an excerpt from a novel he'd been working on called Tulip. We talked a little bit about it, but not much. A few months later when we were doing the Top 5, he mentioned it was hard for a first-time writer to gain any sort of traction. I told him I'd be applying for Craft Lake City, and if I got in I'd just turn ONR into a publishing company and put it out for him.

Cut to May when they announced the vendors for the 2013 festival, I was sitting on my couch and got the news via Twitter that Old News Records was in. I sent a text to Mike and told him to get it ready because we were doing it. He was nervous and excited all at once. I threw together some ideas for other projects, like another zine and a few mini-comics, but Mike's book was the main thing I wanted to get finished. Everything else could be done or not and I wouldn't really care, but Tulip needed to be ready.

It was. And it looks fantastic.

Huge thanks to Mike Farfel for writing a great book and letting me be a part of it. Tulip is truly a fun read and I'm honored to be a part of something like this. And at some point this week I'll have it available in the Old News Records shop.

And now, everyone else that helped make Craft Lake City as amazing as it was:

First and foremost, Angela Brown and Karamea Puriri for working long hours and putting together a great event. To the dedicated SLUG staff who was there early every morning to late into the night - Alexander Ortega, Esther Merono, Nate Ryan and the rest.

The the amazing people at Molding Box - Ian, Matt & Lauren - for helping me get everything printed in time.

Everyone that had any part of making Filler what it was - Makenna, Chris, Candace, Danielle, Danny, John, The Big Dogg and the duck that I named Alan just now. Austin for bringing me a sandwich from Bud's, my parents for bringing me cookies, chips and some Arnold Palmer's and then letting me steal their patio umbrella all day Saturday. Also, thanks to all the dudes that turned my table into a hardcore hangout for a few hours both days and made it look like something really cool was going on so more people wandered over.

Thanks to the rest of the people in my quiet, shady area, too - Robin Banks (Design Flaw!), Audrey Patten (Midwest Meets West) and her trusty sidekick Casey, Carrie Wakefield and her Metalhead Jewelry Design. We partied all weekend and it was awesome.

I also want to say thanks to everyone that came by my table and picked something up or even just stopped to check things out (even if you were only admiring my early-70's NBA team tablecloth that I stole from Scott Whittaker). You're all fantastic and I wouldn't have had as much fun without you.

It was a hell of a weekend that made it incredibly hard to come back and sit in an office all day on Monday. I just want to be able to do things like CLC and make enough money to live off of. Is that too much to ask?

Luckily for me, Salt Lake Comic Con is only a month away.

Thanks again, everyone. I really mean it.

THE GHOSTS OF HARDCORE PAST

I wrote this for SLUG MAGAZINE this month. Head over to the website to read the whole thing, or better yet, grab an issue while you're out and about. It's free. You can't beat that price.

They also reviewed my zine FILLER. They point out the obvious shortcomings, like Candace Jean's page being too light and Candace Christensen's website being out-of-date, but other than that, it's a pretty good review.

The too light page from Candace Jean looked okay in the original, but lost a lot once it was reproduced. I was pretty bummed, but it was also midnight the night before Craft Lake City and everything was already printed. Candace Christensen's website went offline when Apple suspended the me.com sites and was supposed to be back up within the first few weeks of getting it published. Didn't quite work out that way, but oh well. I'm learning as I go.

Anyway, on to the feature story.

SLUG Magazine -- In 2004, hardcore blew up. Killswitch Engage released what would eventually become a gold record, Hatebreed was nominated for a Grammy and everything changed—again.

Before that, hardcore and metal were the genres of the underground and the bands were kind of like members of a secret society. They weren’t afforded any mainstream recognition, and if you met someone who had also heard of an obscure start-up band like Terror, Every Time I Die or Bleeding Through, you immediately knew you shared a bond. Then, all of a sudden, there were TV shows like “Battle for Ozzfest” and Jamey Jasta was the new host of a revived Headbanger’s Ball.

Local hardcore shows, which had been topping out at 100 people on a good night, were suddenly drawing upward of 400-500 people. Things were good again for Salt Lake City hardcore, the way they hadn’t been since the heyday when Clear and Triphammer were playing shows in the late ’90s. Nationally recognized bands were coming through town all the time and there were so many shows that local openers were starting to get the opportunity to play in front of crowds they’d never seen before...

Read the rest at the SLUG website

Tamerlane - 2008

THE GOODS

Oh yeah, here's a look at the buttons and mini-comics, too. You buy an issue of FILLER and I'll throw some of these in with it.

Then I can be with you anywhere you go. Sounds like a good idea to me.

FILLER

I'm way behind on this stuff.

Craft Lake City came and went and I had a lot of fun. I wish I'd had more stuff to sell and a more coherent table, but since I didn't have any of the comics done, I kind of had to make some stuff up as I went along.

The mini-comics were a pretty good idea and we probably gave away a hundred or so. Hopefully people liked what they saw enough to check out this site (which I've neglected to update and therefor probably missed a pretty good opportunity, but oh well).

After CLC was over, I had 4 weddings over the next 5 weeks and the Salt Lake City Film Festival right after, so each one of my days off was dedicated to all that. Now that it's finally all over, everything from the last month and a half caught up with me, I got sick and pretty much been stuck to the couch for the past three days. Though I did have a chance to re-watch John Carpenter's THE THING, so it hasn't been all bad.

Anyway, here's a little bit about FILLER.

I've always loved zines. I have a little collection of the old HC and art zines I used to pick up back when they were popular and always wanted to make my own. I kind of did that with Grudge City Activities for a while, but that was the Internet and not quite as fun. I wanted to make something you could hold in your hands, throw on your coffee table and look at again and again.

Now, getting content that people wanted to look at again and again proved to be a little trickier than I'd thought.

Since I'd spent so much time on GCA writing about music, I kind of wanted to avoid that subject all together for FILLER. That, and I'm a little bit out of touch with the music scene around SLC right now, so that's kind of the way it had to be. I recruited a few of my talented friends and we put something together that, while it's not a game-changer by any means, I'm still really proud of.

I got my friend Makena to write a quick little piece about his journey to South America. and my friend Mikey contributed a section of the novel he's writing. I did a little interview with Andy from Pangea Speed and a really talented photographer named Candace Christensen. I even threw in a little poem I wrote a few years back. That's probably the thing that scared me the most, strangely.

I tried really hard to keep the content original. I toyed with the idea of taking some of the stuff I wrote on here and putting it in, but ultimately decided that it would be a lot cooler if it everything was created just for the zine.

It ended up being about 20 pages and I'm actually really happy with the way it turned out.

There were a few more pieces that never quite came together, so hopefully I can use them for issue 2. And there definitely will be an issue 2. I'm thinking December-ish and then try and keep to a schedule of one every 4 months. April, August and December sounds pretty good. The December issue might be a little easier to put together since I won't have a job after next month (more on that later).

I'm keeping my eyes open for more stuff from people I know, so hopefully issue 2 will be even better, but for now, here's a look inside the first issue. If you want a copy, just head over to my Big Cartel store and pick one up.

Hopefully you like what you see. There's more where it came from.

Mike Farfel's drawing

Candace Christensen