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.

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

Tharp World

Julie and Alison, both former contributors to our zine, got together for an episode of Alison's web series Tharp World, check it out.

The Punk Singer

I Had a chance to see a showing of "The Punk Singer" last night at the kickoff to this year's Oakland Underground Film Festival at the Grand Lake Theater, and I have to say that it was really well done. So much better than I was expecting after watching the Kickstarter video several months ago. It's amazing how far we've come that budget limitations in 2013 doesn't automatically mean a low budget looking film the way many of us remember low budget films (B-movies) back in the day.

 "The Punk Singer" is Sini Anderson's documentary about Kathleen Hanna (Bikini Kill, Let Tigre, The Julie Ruin), which is already enough information for most of the folks who follow this blog, but it also delves into subjects like her recent battle with late term lyme disease, feminism, the riot grrrl movement, her marriage to the King AD Rock (Beastie Boys), getting punched in the face by Courtney Love (who hasn't?), and of course the chronology of events leading up to the formation of Bikini Kill. Nuff said.

DYING IN YOUR BEAUTY SLEEP

Dying In Your Beauty Sleep playing one of our “Back To Oakland" shows at the Hazmat in 2004.  Photo by Lars Knudson

El Sob

"El Sob" by the Asheville, NC band ASTRID OTO.  This song also appeared on the Urban Guerrilla Zine compilation that accompanied issue ten of our zine.