EAST BAY ZINE FEST 2011

The East Bay zine fest got off to a roaring start. By the time I showed up with my plastique pop zines in tow, a good number of tables were already called for. I thought I was showing up early, but by the time I registered my name and walked into the infamous gilman street venue, the place was already buzzing with activity. I set up shop off to the side and wondered about the premise checking out everyone's handmade trinkets and goodies. It was a little overwhelming as much of what I saw looked absolutely fantastic. There were a good numbers of tables selling a wide variety of silkscreen prints and posters while a couple tables were in the business of pitching straight up socio-political and personal zines.

A couple of my favorites were the Degenerate Zine and The Chill'r Zine. The latter gave a step-by-step instructional manual on proper "chilling". This included stocking up on plenty of ice cold PBR and hitting the local vacant Oakland hang out spots. Simple enough but highly effective. The Degenerate zine focused primarily on the garage punk side of rock n' roll which I was pretty stoked on. Plus, the writer splits up his time between Maximum Rock N' Roll and San Francisco Weekly, so he knows what's hip. I should also mention that I was pretty impressed by the work of Adamxxx. He had a number of robot paintings for sale as well as a wide variety of hand made robot comics. Sorry, I'm a total sucker for anything robot related. He had a great set up and I'm going to try to and keep my eye on his upcoming work. Especially his "Tallguy zine" that I bought that has a great interview with Nardwuar The Human Serviette.

At any rate, the zine fest was a total blast and I met so many rad people. Plus, it was kinda neat to finally experience 924 Gilman Street. It was about as I expected. A good gross punk dive with layers of spray paint and flyers plastering the walls and ceiling. Now if only they had better shows, I'd hang out there a little more.