Thursday 25 September 2014

New In: A Guide to Music in Leeds


The Leeds University Union Music Library has a collection of over eight thousand CDs and LPs for its members to borrow. They've also created this zine to introduce students to the collection and the Leeds music scene. There's bits about West Yorkshire's noise/drone scene, the deterioration of tech-death and Scott Walker, plus more stuff.



Tuesday 23 September 2014

New In: Scotland Epistles, Bullshit and Thistles #1


The first issue of brand new Scottish football zine "Scotland Epistles, Bullshit and Thistles" describes itself as a "therapeutic souvenir" to help Scotland supporters cope during the wilderness years - they've had eight unsuccessful qualifying campaigns in a row. There's loads of interesting articles from different contributors on the ups and downs of supporting Scotland around the world.

Copies of the zine will be available to buy at the Georgia, Republic of Ireland and England matches in October and November. Alternatively you can send a message via their Facebook page and sort something out that way if you're interested in grabbing a copy of your own. Failing that, just pop in to the library and have a look.

New In: Terrible Beauty's Greatest Bits


Here it is! As discussed in this post from last week, Terrible Beauty, the Manic Street Preachers zine is back. Here's a compilation zine of the best bits so far, featuring photos and reviews from over the years and things like that. Remember, there's a call for contributions for the next issue, so if you have something to say about the Manics get involved!

Wednesday 17 September 2014

Carefully Planned Festival

Hello! We'll be back to posting about lovely new zines very soon, but I just thought I'd nip on and tell you about a festival that our friends over at Carefully Planned are organising and how you can get involved, if that's something you'd like to do.

It takes place on the 18th and 19th of October in a number of venues in the Northern Quarter. There's loads of really good bands playing, like Trust Fund, Colour Me Wednesday, Dignan Porch, A Winning Pair, Radstewart, Slowcoaches, The School, Theo and well, loads more. You can get tickets here if you like.

They're also looking for volunteers to help out over the weekend. You'd have to work a few hours over the weekend, but you'd get a free ticket and you'd be able to arrange it so that you weren't working while you're favourite bands are playing, I'm sure. Get in touch with Matthew via the Facebook group if you fancy helping out. I can guarantee that your help will be very much appreciated.


Sunday 14 September 2014

Terrible Beauty is Back! A Call for Submissions

Terrible Beauty, a Manic Street Preacher's fanzine originally published between 1995-2002 is back! They're looking for contributions, too, so get in touch with them ASAP. Here's the call for contributions:


Something’s rumbling under the paving stones, something’s stirring in the urban density.
We’re dusting off the type-writer keys....sharpening our scissors and our minds, unfurling the banner.
Terrible Beauty Fanzine went on a long sabbatical of the soul that was necessary and cool but we’ve been watching from the sidelines and something’s calling, calling us back.


We’re refuelling, we’re rewinding, we’re fastforwarding and we’re coming at you some time in 2015. The fanzine will return to mark the 20th anniversary the ground-breaking Holy Bible album as well as celebrate the continuing, shimmering beauty of the band that are still telling it via rock and roll like nobody else is. Although the Manics are our central inspiration our vision is much broader than musings on the band and we warmly invite contributions on the artistic/cultural/political significance referenced by them and beyond.

We are also happy to review/swap zines with others and support small press/zine culture however we can.

Send enquiries/contributions to Mary & Viv at email: terrible_beauty@outlook.com

We've also been sent a compilation zine full of the best bits from Terrible Beauty over the years. We'll do a blog post about that later this week.

Monday 1 September 2014

New In: A Series of Poems About, Inspired By, and Written in Manchester and London (And some other zines too!)


Stephen James has sent us these three zines of his to add to the collection. Thanks Stephen! You can find out what he's up to on his excellent blog.


New In: Aether #1


Look at this! We received it with a little note from the Poetry Library at the Royal Festival Hall in that London, saying that they'd withdrawn this zine from stock and asking if we'd like to keep it. It's a science fiction fanzine dated August 1977 and contains book reviews, short stories (Including one titled "Is there intelligent life at the Reading Festival?") and other bits and bobs. This will go nicely with the rest of our 70s/80s sci-fi/fantasy zines.


New In: The Moral Victory - A Dulwich Hamlet FC Fanzine


The first issue of the new Dulwich Hamlet FC fanzine "The Moral Victory". Includes a roundup of the 2013/2014 season and looks ahead to the new season with articles, illustrations and poetry. A really excellent read. Pop in and have a look!