The long-awaited 22-issue anthology of Touch and Go fanzine hit the bookstores on June 30, setting off a whirlwind of page-flipping, rare record rediscovery, and belly laughs the likes of which the literary world has never before seen. TOUCH AND GO: The Complete Hardcore Punk Fanzine ’79-’83 by Tesco Vee and Stimson (and edited by Steve Miller of the Fix) is like a dense rubber band ball of Midwest joy and desperation, packing layer upon layer of handmade discovery and punk frustration into a book that reveals the boyish hearts at the beginning of all this DIY hardcore punk nonsense.

So get the book, and while you’re waiting a few days for delivery, check out the straight-ahead Tesco Vee interview above. The dancing lancer of Lansing sets the scene, shows the lay of the land, and plays tracks by Necros, Negative Approach, 999, and more. He explains how the hardcore scene emerged from the punk happenings of the 1970s, how the live circuit was built, and what became of personalities like Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye in the wake of it all. (By the way: Part 4 contained a song belonging to the Warner Music Group, so they caned that section.)

You can also keep up with Touch and Go book events and special moments at the book’s Facebook page. And another, longer podcast interview with Tesco Vee and editor Steve Miller lives at the official Touch and Go book site.

A friend of a friend sent over this screenshot to prove that she lives in the same Hollywood apartment building as Señor Lemmy Kilmister, wrangler of one-armed bandits and possessor of the gruffest of gruff singing voices.

“He probably has the speediest connection.” Ha!

Any guesses what his password is?

Thanks, Brian!

I’m completely in awe of “Mr. Meddled,” a musical parodist whose genius and skill apparently rivals Ihsahn of Emperor but extends to the surf rock genre. I love surf music like the Surfaris and the Joker’s green-haired surf band in the campy ’60s Batman series, but I don’t know jack about it. Guess I’m saving that that quest for knowledge for when I turn 80 and retire to Big Sur like Henry Miller. Mr. Meddled knows surf inside and out, the guitar trills and whammy dives, the rapid-fire runs, the haunting organs, and the slow steady woozy stability that glorifies the salty drift of days running together and beach life. He’s recorded immaculate surf arrangements of Emperor and Burzum songs that will blow you away if you’re a lover of black metal music (and not just the face paints and empty boasts), capping them off with silly alternate mythologies placing “Chip Ihsahn” and “Rocky Samoth” on the California waves in the 1950s. Respect!

Endless summer is coming, are you ready?

New arrival today at Bazillion Points HQ, as the printer sent us the first dripping wet samples of Touch and Go: The Complete Hardcore Punk Zine ’79-’83. If anything, they did too good a job hiding the 576-page girth of this beast in a deceptive one-and-a-quarter inch thickness, but you can feel the heft in your wrist when you shake the thing. Tesco Vee and Dave Stimson and editor Steve Miller’s book is an incredible eye-level archive of the first sprouts and eventual blossoming of hardcore punk in America. I mean, where were you in ’79, when the dam began to burst?

TV and DS were in Lansing fucking Michigan, listening to X and 999 and waiting for Reagan to take office. Already major music fiends, they got the punk bug, and inspired by Slash they huddled around the Xerox machine with glue and scissors and got to work. Their Touch and Go fanzine was a tiny crowbar that opened up a crack in the universe for anything weird and now revered, and the on-the-spot and on-the-mark reviews of crucial records by the Fall, Crisis, Pagans, Crass, Discharge, U2, the Cure, and hundreds of others (including Venom, Accept, Acid, and Blitzkrieg, hells yeah!) are alone worth the price of admission, just to make sure you aren’t suckered by nostalgia or a case of historical revisionism by someone who wasn’t there.

But the meat of matter is of course the acidic essays and wise-ass interviews with usually unknown up-and-comers like the Effigies, Necros, Void, Crucifix, Minor Threat, SSD, Negative Approach, Misfits, Youth Brigade, Iron Cross, Scream, the Minutemen, Battalion of Saints, Bad Religion, 7 Seconds, and countless others.

While sure to improve the profiles of essential U.S. hardcore bands the Fix, Necros, Meatmen, Negative Approach, and honorary Midwest bands (read non-LA or NYC) like Misfits or Minor Threat, the bleak Midwestern humor shines through:

TV: One glance at your lyrics, and it’s apparent that you aren’t much on booze and drugs.
IAN MACKAYE: I’m totally anti-drug and alcohol.
TV: In Lansing drinking is somewhat of a necessity.

The ever-gentle and considerate MacKaye goes on to describe hitting a kid with a hammer who blew pot smoke in his face, but I’ll leave that up to you to discover on your own. There will never be another book like this about hardcore, because these guys were ground correspondents and active participants during the incubation and invasion period. They not only wrote the zine, they booked the shows, they started the bands, and eventually they launched Touch and Go Records, a cornerstone of indie record labels to this day.

Go ahead and start a riot in your eyes with the fresh photos posted at the book site:

TOUCHANDGOBOOK.COM

Just don’t let your impressionable children take the book to show and tell—there are lots of wobbly penises, Xeroxed vaginas, and curly brown shapes in between all the bald heads and white T-shirts. Who else but Tesco Vee would put tit torture pics into a zine dedicated to 999??

“What happened to those beers somebody was just bragging about?”—Ronnie Dio

Blubber, blubber, blubber…sniff!

Read Lemmy’s “devastated” remarks about the passing of his old friend (and see a photo that will make you choke up) at this location HERE.

We’re certainly open to taking requests around here; today we hope you take them, too. Just received a plea for Savage Death’s 1995 “Mass Genocide” demo from Filippo at Area Death Productions in China:

“We are looking for a good tape rip of the first demo “Mass Genocide” (the band doesn’t have the master tapes anymore, nor any dubbed tape). We have an excellent original copy of the second demo and a good sounding live, but our copy of the first demo isn’t too good. If you happen to have it, is it possible to have a copy?”

Unfortunately, I don’t have a copy on hand, so if you’re holding an original or a decent original dub of this demo, get in touch with ADP and discuss the huge rewards you will reap. And please comment here—I’ve never heard the band and would love to know how it sounds.

Thanks to unknown benefactors for coming forward!

I think about closing the door, and lately I think of it more…

Help me, tell me I’m sane, I feel a change in the earth and the wind and the rain…

Think you’re safe but you’re wrong, falling off the edge of the world.

Ronnie James Dio, rest in peace.

Long time no demo! Bazillion Points Books has demanded a gargantuan share of my time for the past two years, but in truth the demo flow here has slacked due to interior forces—I admit I’ve been flicking out links and observations faster via Facebook and Twitter, and exterior forces—the proliferation of demo blogs since Bazillion Points began in a magnetic tape near-vacuum several years ago. Well, I had a fistfight with myself and I won, and I’m re-committed to regularly posting demos from the massive stash here. (Besides, did you really already download the 50 previous submissions, you lazy, selfish fuck?)

Let’s get back on track with Jester Beast, an Italian thrashcore foursome from Turin who identified themselves as “100% FREAK-CORE!!!” These characters actually debuted in a more traditional heavy metal configuration in the mid-1980s, but after their guitarist was killed accidentally, they regrouped in this dedicated high-speed thrash assault.

With nods to Voivod and Italian hardcore acts like Wretched, Negazione, and Raw Power, this demo has plenty of the rare nuclear-powered chaotic energy that is so difficult to capture. And though the band has a pretty weak chicken-bone logo, their mascot just rules—like Eddie from the cover of Killers after swallowing the early Legacy/Testament mascot. I appreciate bands like these guys and Assassin from Germany, who were way too far off in a blazing thrash direction to notice the grinding happenings up in Great Britain in 1988. It’s a far advanced form of thrash that doesn’t get enough play.

JESTER BEAST * “Destroy After Use” 5-song demo 1988 [26.7MB .rar]

As luck has it, Jester Beast is playing two shows in Italy in June 2010—that’s June 5 in Cremona with Concrete Sox and the great Children of Technology, and June 12 in Torino with ex-Voivod band E-Force—with a half-original lineup retaining screamer “Steo Zapp” and guitarist “C.C. Muz.”

And according to the Jester Beast MySpace, hell yes they are still 100% FREAK-CORE!!!

Who’s more devotional in their ceremonial rituals, the legendary legions of Slayer fanatics, or their sworn and hated enemies from Team Jesus? Judging by this secret surveillance footage obtained by enemy agents—and the lameness of crowds at Slayer gigs lately—I’m throwing my hat in the ring with these crazy Christians. Watch and learn a lesson in violence!

Thanks, Tesco!

Thanks to Terrorizer for the stellar review and for bringing attention to Only Death Is Real: An Illustrated History of Hellhammer and Early Celtic Frost 1981–1985, by Tom Gabriel Fischer with Martin Eric Ain.

Quoth James Hoare:

“…a genuine artifact in elegant monochrome, bursting with illustrations and early photos of amazing quality…heartfelt and open narration from Fischer makes it a genuine asset to the understanding and appreciation of his canon.”

See more ONLY DEATH IS REAL at Bazillion Points