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.

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??

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

The low-res phase of proofs arrived at Bazillion Points HQ this morning for TOUCH AND GO: The Complete Hardcore Punk Zine ’79–’83, the illuminating and eliminating 576-page compendium of vintage punk zines produced by Tesco Vee and Dave Stimson. Obscene gestures and legendary sneers bounce off of every page like bricks and sticks during a police riot. By late June the books will be printed, bound, stitched, embossed, and blessed by a bloody nose. In the meantime, I hope to have more to show from the pompous purveyors of pop and perversity pretty soon.

More info, please?

http://www.touchandgobook.com

Today brings the official release of Only Death Is Real: An Illustrated History of Hellhammer and Early Celtic Frost 1981–1985, by Tom Gabriel Fischer and Martin Eric Ain. This large format 288-page hardcover is now available for sale from bazillionpoints.com, Century Media, Revolver USA, 20 Buck Spin, The End Records, Metal Haven Chicago, Shaxul Records SF, Vintage Vinyl NJ, The Ajna Offensive, Hells Headbangers, Obliteration Japan, Crucial Blast, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Buy.com, and coming soon everywhere else.

The book has been a long time coming in the eyes of Hellhammer fans, but in the big picture it’s a minor miracle the book exists at all. What other forms of music have a figure like Tom Gabriel Fischer? He labored for years to collect the hundreds of photos on display here, to gather memories from his long ago bandmates and then reassemble the story of his often painful boyhood, in order to tell the tale of personal transition, and of the birth of entirely new genres of music. His writing is excellent—precise and unflinching, and although this is an illustrated history, Bazillion Points would have gladly published the unaccompanied text in plain black and white.

Personally, Hellhammer was a gateway to underground metal for me, at least as far as underground metal existed before Hellhammer. I read about the band in Kick*Ass Monthly as a 14-year old, and was attracted to the band’s visual mystique and Bob Muldowney’s hard-wrought descriptions of the band’s unique abrasive metal. (In fact, Only Death Is Real is dedicated to the memory of three persons, including the late Kick*Ass editor Muldowney). Hellhammer’s “Crucifixion” tortured my ears and opened the gates for the soon-to-come sounds of Cryptic Slaughter, Death, and Morbid Angel. So much metal history has sprung from those early desperate notes, but I believe this book is much more than that.

I’m honestly kind of exhausted from shuffling hundreds of 40-pound boxes of Hellhammer books around over the past several weeks. So I’m laughing giddily at the Only Death Is Real contest concocted by my dear friend Christoffer in Stockholm. First, learn Swedish, and then read his high praise for the book. Next, guess the weight of Olivia Obliteration and possibly win yourself a copy! Or at least enjoy the juicy photos… And by the way, Hellhammer is definitely not “for the Hitler.” Read the text, enjoy the book, and marvel at the tale of our people’s struggle.

Thanks to Classic Rock magazine [UK] for setting the record straight on the Hanoi Rocks score in their recent review of guitarist Andy McCoy’s autobiography Sheriff McCoy: Outlaw Legend of Hanoi Rocks.

Guns N’ Roses would have sounded like a turgid metal band without them. Garish glam styling would have stayed lost in the 70s. And nobody would have been able to point out Finland on a map. Highly influential but criminally underrated, Hanoi Rocks updated early-70s glitter-rock for the flash-rock generation and influenced countless bands along the way…

Are you listening, Mötley Crüe? Poison? Faster Pussycat? Championed ceaselessly by Kerrang! back in the yesteryears of metal, Hanoi Rocks were a band extreme enough in image and quality to capture the loyalty of even the fiercest metalheads. Matt Olivo and Scott Carlson of Repulsion are fans. Fenriz of Darkthrone has a Hanoi Rocks tattoo. For me as a metal-crazed teenager, Hanoi Rocks were a window into a thousand rock bands through their incessant magpie swipes of song particles belonging to the Stooges, the Stones, the Clash, Bowie, Ramones, MC5, and the New York Dolls.

So if Sheriff McCoy seems strange to you sitting on the Bazillion Points bookshelf alongside Swedish Death Metal and Only Death Is Real, it shouldn’t. Andy McCoy, Mike Monroe, Nasty Suicide, Sam Yaffa, and Razzle invented a new kind of high-energy music. They were absolute outsiders who became radical originators, and Andy McCoy remains an unpredictable spectacle, a phenomenal guitarist, and a dispatcher of great rock war stories that all the surviving witnesses swear are true.

UPDATE [03-10-10]: And Amp joins the chorus with a nice lengthy review that ends: “Sheriff McCoy is a frank, but upbeat experience, and should be required reading for all those who believe in the transformative thunder of rock ‘n’ roll.”

Feature-length documentary chronicles the “ancient samplers,” the Chamberlin and the Mellotron keyboards, featuring members of the Moody Blues, the Beach Boys, Genesis, King Crimson, Cheap Trick, Black Sabbath, the Zombies, Latin Playboys, Yes, Maroon 5, Opeth, and many more.

Standing room only screening at NAMM drew rave reviews and a sold-out crowd including members of Bigelf, Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo, Brian Kehew (Recording the Beatles), Darian Sahanaja (Brian Wilson producer/bandleader), electronic music legend Larry Fast (Synergy), Pea Hicks of Optiganally Yours, Markus Resch of Mellotron Archives, and Michelle Moog of the Bob Moog Foundation.

Bazillion Points Publishing happily announces today’s long-awaited DVD release of the acclaimed and unusual music documentary, Mellodrama: The Mellotron Movie, by Dianna Dilworth, 2010 in NTSC Region 0 format packed with bonus features in a deluxe Digipak. Color insert booklet features essay by Mike Pinder (The Moody Blues) and Chamberlin / Mellotron production timelines.

“While everybody knows the sound of the instruments, most people have never heard of the Mellotron or the Chamberlin,” says director Dianna Dilworth. “I hope Mellodrama will change that.”

Mellodrama explores the five-decades-long rise and fall of the Chamberlin and its better-known successor the Mellotron—the first musical keyboards to play the prerecorded sounds of other instruments. Essentially the first sampler, its haunting sound has changed the production and texture of popular music, from the Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” and the Moody Blues’ “Nights in White Satin,” to Radiohead’s OK Computer and Kanye West’s “Gold Digger.”

featuring members from: The Beach Boys • The Moody Blues • The Zombies • King Crimson • Yes • Cheap Trick • Black Sabbath • Genesis • Refugee • Opeth • Latin Playboys • Goblin • Maroon 5 • Moog Cookbook • Änglagård • Optiganally Yours • Bigelf
plus: Fabio Frizzi • Jon Brion • Michael Penn • Matthew Sweet • Woody Jackson • Zac Rae • Patrick Warren

During 2009, Mellodrama screened at over a dozen international festivals, including the CMJ Film Festival in New York, Buenos Aires Film Festival, Documenta Madrid, Portobello Film Festival in London, Atlantic Film Festival in Canada, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, Indie Memphis, Tucson Film and Music Festival, and, at the invitation of Stephen O’Malley of Sunn O))), the Lausanne Underground Film Festival.

For more information, to view trailer, and see DVD details, visit:

http://www.mellodramadvd.com

Thank you! Any questions?

Above: Hellhammer, Birchwil, Switzerland, January 1, 1983. (Andreas Schwarber)

“Only Death Is Real” HELLHAMMER/CELTIC FROST Book Available for Pre-order

Bazillion Points Books is very proud to announce that pre-orders will be accepted beginning January 1, 2010 for the massive hardcover book Only Death Is Real: An Illustrated History of Hellhammer and Early Celtic Frost, by Tom Gabriel Fischer with Martin Eric Ain. These books will ship worldwide in March 2010. For more information and to place orders, visit Bazillion Points Books.

This formidable oversized hardcover runs 288 pages (including a 32-page color section), and combines hundreds of unseen early Hellhammer and Celtic Frost photos with a vast treasure trove of artwork and memorabilia. A substantial written component by Fischer details his upbringing on the outskirts of Zurich, Switzerland, and the hardships and triumphs he faced bringing his groundbreaking bands Hellhammer and eventually Celtic Frost to reality. In addition, the book includes an introduction by Nocturno Culto of Norwegian black metal act Darkthrone, and a foreword by noted British author Joel McIver.

Significantly, the pre-order date of January 1 marks the anniversary of the first Hellhammer photo session in 1983, and also kicks off a new year which will bring the debut release by Fischer’s new band Triptykon, along with his much-anticipated featured role as guest curator at Holland’s respected Roadburn Festival.

According to Fischer: “The earliest existing photos of Hellhammer were taken exactly 27 years ago, on January 1, 1983. At that date, I found myself at the dawn of a new period in my life, much as I do today. On that first day of 1983, we in Hellhammer conducted the first proper photo session as a band, at the tiny farm village of Birchwil, Switzerland. The year that had just begun would also see the recording sessions and release of Hellhammer’s three demo cassettes, possibly the most important and enduring aspect of Hellhammer’s legacy.”

“Now, on this first day of 2010, I am yet again embarking on a new stage of the path that is my life. I am once more part of a new group, Triptykon, and this year will see the release of our first album, Eparistera Daimones. It is coincidental, but no less significant, that this release will be preceded by the publication of Only Death Is Real, the book chronicling the very beginning of this path.”

Says Bazillion Points publisher Ian Christe: “There is no question that this book goes farther than any other source in exploring the origins of underground heavy metal. The wealth of visual information is astounding, both in terms of documenting early 1980s headbangers and exposing the still-relevant imagery of the first Hellhammer and Celtic Frost photo sessions over 20 years ago. On top of that, the written chapters combine Tom Fischer’s vivid stories with lengthy quotes from Martin Eric Ain and the other main Hellhammer members, all explaining in highly personal terms how and why extreme metal was born. I could not be prouder to play a role in making this remarkable book a reality.”

States Fischer: “This is a book about the real Hellhammer, the essence of that group, the aura it carried, and the truly unique spirit of revolution of the times in which it existed. It is a book about a group of outcasts—about persistence, dedication, and an utterly personal vision. I have worked very hard to make sure it will do justice to the work of a number of very unique people who shared the same ideas at a very unique point in time.”

http://www.bazillionpoints.com

Happy new year!

“Surprisingly fascinating.” –Philadelphia Weekly

“A study in the unpredictability of innovation.” – Rhizome

“An insider’s view on the history of the Chamberlin and the Mellotron, which isn’t always pretty.” – Echoes

“The Mellotron stays cool.” – Brian Wilson

“This is where sampling started.” – Jon Brion

Bazillion Points Publishing is delighted to announce the long-awaited DVD release of the acclaimed and unusual music documentary, Mellodrama: The Mellotron Movie, by Dianna Dilworth, coming January 2010 in NTSC Region 0 format packed with bonus features in a deluxe Digipak.

Mellodrama explores the five-decades-long rise and fall of the Chamberlin and its better-known successor the Mellotron—the first musical keyboards to play the prerecorded sounds of other instruments. Essentially the first sampler, its haunting sound has changed the production and texture of popular music, from the Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” and the Moody Blues’ “Nights in White Satin,” to Radiohead’s OK Computer and Kanye West’s “Gold Digger.”

Featuring Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues, Ian McDonald of King Crimson, Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys, famed L.A. producer Jon Brion, Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick, singer-songwriter Michael Penn, author Brian Kehew, (Recording the Beatles), as well as members of Opeth, Bigelf, Maroon 5, and former employees of the Mellotron and Chamberlin companies. While the musicians tell their tales, the engineers and experts deliver the gear porn by taking you inside the captivating contraption.

Mellodrama screened at over a dozen festivals throughout the world in 2009, including the CMJ Film Festival in New York, Buenos Aires Film Festival, Documenta Madrid, Portobello Film Festival in London, Atlantic Film Festival in Canada, Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, Indie Memphis, Tucson Film and Music Festival, and was specially programmed by Stephen O’Malley of Sunn 0))) at the Lausanne Underground Film Festival in Switzerland.

“While everybody knows the sound of the instruments, most people have never heard of the Mellotron or the Chamberlin,” says director Dianna Dilworth. “I hope Mellodrama will change that.”

Mellodrama: The Mellotron Movie DVD includes the 80 minute film, 30 minutes of DVD extras, and an 8-page booklet containing an essay by Mike Pinder of the Moody Blues and several illustrated machine timelines.

Preorders and more info are now available right over here:

http://www.mellodramadvd.com