WORD SALAD

Word Salad - Full set from a 2007 show I booked for them in Berkeley, CA

Dave Mello

Jewdriver original lineup after a show I booked for them in Oakland at "Punx Not Presses" on 40th and Adeline in 2003. It's their guitar player Dave's birthday, so wish Mr. Mello a happy one if by chance you spot him in line at Gordo on Solano.

Pigheart Transplant

Still Not Quiet On The Western Front: Sunday Matinee

Discordia

DISCORDIA - live in Mexico 

I used a song from their demo on the first Urban Guerrilla Zine compilation back in 2001 (it came free with a zine). This video looks like it was probably shot in the late 90s. Members of Discordia went on to play in bands like Bumbklaatt and Coaccion, both of which I booked shows for here (Bay Area) up until the late 2000s.

Still Not Quiet On The Western Front

Maximum Rocknroll presents their first fest in almost a decade! STILL NOT QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT Fest will be happening in the Bay Area Thursday February 11th through Sunday February 14th of 2016. Forty DIY punk bands from all over will be playing shows in San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley, with five main shows, two day shows, and three after shows. 

For more info: https://www.facebook.com/events/1717331005163685/

RIP Filip Fuchs

This photo was taken by Murray Bowles at a show See You In Hell played in Oakland at a now defunct cafe. Definitely not one of our (UGZ) shows, which is what happens sometimes when you lose touch over the years.  The show before that was in SF at a cool, basement style venue around the block from the old CW, but it’s not where I would've imagined SYIH playing after waiting so many years to to tour and play the Bay Area. Filip and I talked about a bunch of stuff (an attempt to quickly catch up) that night, but the one thing I definitely took away from our conversation was that his enthusiasm for that tour was waning, to say the least. As a booker/promoter I wasn't too stoked on the Oakland gig (although the bands were solid), but at least it was packed for that venue. I didn't recognize as many people as I would've even 5 years earlier, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. At the end of See You In Hell's set, someone associated with the cafe got in Filip's face for who knows what reason.  I didn’t know or recognize the kid that did that, but already knowing how Filip felt about the tour prior to the Oakland show just added to the frustration I felt when I saw that.  To make matters worse I found out later that someone stole the band's tour money at that show.  Oakland, a city that Filip was genuinely excited about playing when we discussed it in the early two thousands at one of the Super Sabado Gigante shows had turned out to be nothing like the way I’d described it to him thirteen years earlier.  

Like I said, I lost touch with Filip and a bunch of my pre-social networking pen pals from back when Urban Guerrilla Zine was bigger, and a momentarily a record label, so it was cool to discover things I missed in the last 24 hours, like a video of See You In Hell playing a breakfast show in Austin at Chaos In Tejas, as well as videos of the band playing shows in BRNO, Czech Republic, including one where they dressed up like Discharge, charge hair and all.  I was writing and trading with Filip over a decade ago, but he was only in his mid-thirties when he lost his battle with cancer this past weekend.  I think his young age speaks to how active and committed he was to the spirit and ideal of hardcore D.I.Y. punk.  He accomplished a lot (more than I know actually) in his relatively short time here on this plane of existence, and his passing is our loss.  RIP Filip Fuchs.

Thursday Blog 1.7.16

Here is my first blog of the new year, and even though I’m looking forward to 2016, this is going to be a look back at Urban Guerrilla Zine in 2015.  I attempted to post a new blog every Monday towards the end of last year, which pretty quickly turned into every other Monday, but even so I’ve decided to commit to posting a couple a blogs a week in 2016.  Now, let’s take it back to time not so long ago.

In 2015, I managed to put out two zines, which isn’t that impressive.  On the other hand, when you’ve been putting out a zero zines per year for the last seven or eight years, two’s pretty good.  Urban Guerrilla Zine has never really gone away or stopped being active.  When there wasn’t a new issue of Urban Guerrilla Zine there were over a hundred UGZ Presents shows that I booked and promoted, like the UGZ Speed Trials for example, and when I stopped booking shows there was the internet.  When the internet started to feel a bit too isolating and detached, I decided to make zines again.  For most folks Urban Guerrilla Zine existed from 1997-2006, and that was pretty much it until 2015.

Urban Guerrilla Zine #17 was made to accompany a UGZ themed art show that took place in early 2015 at 1-2-3-4 Go! Records in Oakland, at the urging of Pat Libby for which I am grateful.  Urban Guerrilla Zine #17.5 was a half issue entitled “Summer Of No Love”, which was supposed to be out by late summer, but didn’t actually see the light of day until the fall due to issues with the printer.  In fact both zines had printer issues, and in both cases I found myself at Inkworks Press (a worker owned collective) in Berkeley, having to photocopy what were intended to be offset printed zines.  Inkworks doesn’t have the best copy machines, but they are well maintained, so the zines looked pretty good.  The biggest drop off from offset to photocopy would be the photo quality.  In the case of #17 I had to have it done in time for the art show, which we’d also advertised as a zine release party.  As far as the “Summer Of No Love” half issue went, I wanted that out as quickly as possible because I know me, and if I’d waited any longer then it would’ve ended up with all of the other unfinished projects cluttering my work area.

Urban Guerrilla Zine #17.5 is a very personal issue, but not a “personal zine”.  Maybe I should’ve made that distinction a bit more clear when describing it in previous posts.  I wasn’t that concerned with how much the graphics or stories resonated with the reader as much as I wanted to recreate this one summer in Emeryville, standing at a bus stop next to a casino that was in the process of being torn down, surrounded by elderly Asian gambling addicts and crack addicted prostitutes from the stroll a few blocks away on San Pablo Ave.  The vibe I felt while waiting to transfer to the bus I rode to my summer job at a bookstore, where I spent all day indoors when all I wanted was to hang out on Telegraph Ave with my friends.  I didn’t actually write any of that in the zine, but it’s there.

Looking ahead, I plan on doing more zines in 2016, one or two of those will be newer issues of UGZ for what has admittedly become a somewhat limited audience.  On the other hand, I don’t miss printing a thousand zines at a time, and distributing them, then trying to collect the money I’m owed from all the various distributors around the country.  I’m making zines at this point because I enjoy the process, and so I’ll see where that approach takes things from here on out.

If you didn’t get a copy of Urban Guerrilla Zine #17, the only remaining copies I know of are at Needles and Pens, 1173 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA

If you want a copy of Urban Guerrilla Zine #17.5 aka “Summer Of No Love”, then you can still purchase a copy at:

1-2-3-4 Go! Records, 420 40th Street #5, Oakland, CA

Issues Magazine + More, 20 Glen Ave, Oakland, CA

Pegasus Books, 2349 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley, CA

Bound Together Books, 1369 Haight St, San Francisco, CA

Darby Crash

Darby Crash (September 26, 1958 – December 7, 1980)

Triad

Urban Guerrilla Zine b-day show in Berkeley, 2002

Photo by Sam Bortnick

East Bay Alternative Book & Zine Fest

Task Switching

This photo was taken about half way through a very caffeinated hang out session with Pat Libby.  Pat is the manager and head booker at 1-2-3-4 Go! Records in Oakland on 40th Street, about two blocks from the old UGZ headquarters.

"Summer Of No Love" aka Urban Guerrilla Zine #17.5 is currently available at both the Oakland and SF store locations.

CORRUPTED

Corrupted from their 2008 show in Berkeley, which was one of the highlights from the 4 years that I booked at that club.  The night before Corrupted, Asunder, Amber Asylum, and Stormcrow, we had a show headlined by an Industrial Dance band from Sacramento, complete with laser lights and fog machines.  It had the smallest draw of any show I ever booked anywhere, but I took a chance knowing there was a Corrupted show the following night.  Not that Corrupted was the biggest show of the year, even though it was big enough to feel packed in the club, and the draw was large enough to justify the money we spent on things like posters (2 designs), homemade food for bands and volunteers (vegan and non-vegan options…no Lanesplitter pizzas), not to mention the guarantee for Corrupted, which I was personally responsible for if for some reason the show had bombed.  This was back when they were still doing 50/50 splits at that particular venue, and before bookers could pocket money on the sly by circumventing the traditional payout process.  That stated, we were able to cover the guarantee, posters, food, equipment to heat and serve the food, etc. because we’d raised door prices earlier in the year.  The basic door cost went from $5 to $7, but if it was a local band night you could still charge $5, and if it was Subhumans (UK), then you could charge $12.  It was all about being reasonable and open to discussing the reasons for wanting to charge more for a particular show, keeping in mind the history of the venue and the the principles on which it was founded, but not being bound by them.  

All of the food and the equipment used to prepare it was a byproduct of Thursday Night Booking, which started as a booking night for planning art shows, spoken word nights, and acoustic music events that would take place on Thursday nights (a dead night at the club prior to 2007), but it was also our way of kickstarting the food idea for shows, and we ended buying a lot of equipment that we later used to feed bands, volunteers, and patrons between 2007-2011.  I think the first time we went all out after asking the club for money was when Karen and Ale made homemade tamales for a Thursday night show.  They didn’t just make vegan tamales, but there were cheese and meat options as well.  I don’t remember the show, just the tamales, if that tells you anything. Thursday Night Booking was myself, Alejandra Nunca Mas, Karen O'Brien, Russell, Ariel Awesome, and Pat Libby.  From that crew, Pat helped me paint and prepare the club for Corrupted the Thursday before the show, and by prepare I mean we removed almost all of the lights and covered the remaining ones with red and blue gels.  Karen made food for the show, and I’ll always remember running into her on San Pablo Ave in Berkeley the day of the show.  I was out flyering and she was on her way back to the club with groceries from Mi Tierra.  Ariel and I worked the door together, and I remember at some point that night she leaned over and told me, “Nights like this make it all worth it.”

Alejandra is currently one of the organizers of Punks With Lunch in Oakland, providing lunches along with hygienic packs, female hygienic packs, laundry detergent and dog food to those in need.  For more info click here.

Summer Of No Love

There’s a new UGZ half issue out now entitled Summer Of No Love, which is just a little something that I wanted to get out there before tackling anything bigger.  It’s a theme issue and a personal zine that I worked on alone that contains photos (35mm), a story or two pulled from old notebooks that I used to take with me to cafes back in the day, as well as random observations that I jot down, usually after I’ve had a large cup of coffee and wandered around a bit.  Most importantly, every zine comes with stickers.

As you probably guessed, this was supposed to be a summer issue, but I hit some snags with the offset printer we were going to use.  So as the summer passed, then my fallback plan of an Indian Summer issue began to dissolve, I had to bounce over to a print shop in Berkeley to get a 100 or so photocopied (the same as the last issue).  They turned it around very quickly, and a little over a week later I had a box of zines finally, only they got the print run wrong and the number of zines was half of what I ordered.  I guess what I’m trying to say is, the Summer Of No Love is real.

If you’re in the Bay Area, you can purchase a copy of UGZ #17.5, Summer Of No Love at:

Issues, 20 Glen Ave, Oakland, CA

1-2-3-4 Go! Records, 420 40th St, Ste 5, Oakland, CA

Pegasus Books, 2349 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, CA

Bound Together Books, 1369 Haight St, San Francisco, CA

Or you can send $5 (well concealed cash) to: UGZ ℅ Jay Unidos, 1442A Walnut Street #419, Berkeley, CA 94709.  Email me: jayunidos@gmail.com.

Thanks, Jay

MY RULES

Glen E. Friedman & Ian MacKaye discuss some of the photographs in MY RULES (2014)

Punk Paparazzi

Last Saturday in Oakland, attempting to photograph Josh and Robin (Black Fork, Severance Package) in front of 1-2-3-4-Go! Records with my old Olympus OM-1, while Pat Libby and Serena were behind me with iPhones taking their own photos.  I have no idea how my photos turned out (yet), but here's one of Serena's pics from that day.

UGZ Speed Trials

Here’s a Larry Wolfley photo taken at Burnt Ramen, and in the background you can see the top of a UGZ Speed Trials poster from 2002, the first year we did one.

GERMS

Germs - 1979 interview on KROQ with Rodney Bingenheimer 

Alice Bag

Alice Bag at her mom’s house in 1978

Check out Alice's "Violence Girl" blog

LOGICAL NONSENSE

Logical Nonsense - 1999