Monthly Archives: March 2021

Bugger Banksy

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When Exit Through The Gift Shop premiered at Chicago’s Landmark Theater, the city’s hipsterati were pissed into a frenzy when Banksy’s graffiti was discovered in quiet folds of the city. What followed in the summer of 2010 was the stress and congestion from gawkers trying to snap photos for social media. Debates of mural preservation or vandalism came into play. Chicago’s Graffiti Busters turned a blind eye and real estate developers raced to catch a ride on the coattails of street art popularity. But this all consuming crazy train of Banksy hype is to be expected in a major city. What if the eccentric artist paid a visit to an unlikely rural community with simple folks leading quiet lives? Small ponds ripple high and wide just the same.

In the South Wales Valleys are the deep scars of collieries closed in the 80s and the blue-collar communities that suffered as a direct result. Through struggle and adaptation, their economy crawled forward with fringes of tourism and unusual imports. What is a working-class lad without a side hustle? This is where we meet Glyn and his best mate, Kev. Childhood pals you likely remember from your own school days of smoking and goofing off.

Glyn enjoys a self-sufficient existence far from most people on the family farm. He maintains the front of tending to sheep while moonlighting as a profitable bud tender. Comfortably playing his part in a local black market that serves its community well enough. So when Banksy arrives with a thoughtless gift for the side of Glyn’s barn, the hot take attracts the wrong kind of attention. Suddenly the reclusive luxuries enjoyed by the hapless skunk growers are gone as social media lights up. Between thirsty journalists, locals trying to cash in, and art-scene charlatans, Glyn and Kev are left to sort out the chaos and protect their business.

Author Roy D Hacksaw was inspired by his own experiences with the 3-ring circus on the heels of Banksy’s Barton Hill installation on Valentine’s day of 2020. He completed the novel in 16 days while on lockdown. Quick read and a cheeky laugh, Bugger Banksy examines both sides of the coin on guerrilla-graffiti’s much larger impact.

The Scene That Would Not Die: 20 Years of Post-Millennial Punk in the UK

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Punks of a certain age are nostalgia junkies in spite of what they may tell you. Fond of orating personal experiences of formative years regardless of creative inclinations. Others are record keepers, documenting their scene through a camera lens, fuzzy tape recorder, or Xeroxed fanzine. At the turn of the millennium, the manner of capturing these moments was transformed seemingly overnight as the internet became more common. The DIY community had to evolve with the rise of social media, YouTube, and Bandcamp. 4-track recorders were replaced with laptops, cut n’paste became photoshop, and Facebook invites were favored over street teams posting show fliers. Even though punk remains a highly debated Schrodinger’s Cat, the scene continues to thrive through adaptation.

“Punk is never past tense,” writes British author and UK punk veteran, Ian Glasper. Sometimes known as “Slug”, Glasper has played bass for numerous bands such as Decadence Within, Stampin’ Ground, Human Error, A Flux of Pink Indians, and Suicide Watch– just to name a few. Glasper is also an ambitious historian of the UK punk scene, referring to himself as a “docu-mentalist”. Appropriately so as he started with Burning Britain: The History of UK Punk 1980-1984, published in 2003. Another 4 books followed to cover the mid 80s to present, ending the series with The Scene That Would Not Die: Twenty years of Post-Millennial Punk in the UK. Written factually as an encyclopedia but reading as comfortably as a fanzine, the book delivers 650 pages of 111 bands, 350 photos, and over 200 fliers. Glasper lets the personalities of the musicians he interviews shine through in a comfortable setting. The bands respond by sharing their stories of origin, the impact of social media, and classic drunk-punk anecdotes that come with the territory of playing gigs and touring. 

I was initially intimidated by the size of the book, right out the gate. Knowing nothing of the UK’s hardcore scene aside from a few classic staples. Yet I embraced my education and read The Scene That Would Not Die from cover to cover instead of picking and choosing. At the end of every chapter, Glasper provides a select discography of each band and even links where you can learn more and listen to the featured musicians. Perhaps it took me longer than it should have to finish, but I used these provided resources to properly familiarize myself with each group. Engineer Records and Earth Island Books just announced the release of a 56-track compilation album to accompany the second run of the book, which I snapped up pretty quickly.

Being in awe of his creative gumption, I reached out to Ian to pick his brain about his writing process and bookshelf. He welcomed the opportunity with incredible warmth, just like any old friend from your own local scene.

KR: Everybody sort of has a story of where their creativity first bloomed. How did you get started writing? How did that evolve into your start for Terrorizer back in 1993?

Ian: Well, I always liked reading, and writing seemed to come relatively easily (compared to maths, haha!) I used to love all the James Bond books when I was a pre-teen, and remember writing a story for English class which involved a quite gratuitous torture scene, that prompted questions to be asked about what I was being allowed to read at home. If only they knew… but more on my love for horror later!

Anyway, I got into punk, which was very empowering, and you were encouraged/inspired to pick up a guitar or a pen – or both, in my case – and create your own art. I started doing a xeroxed fanzine in about 1985, called Little Things Please Little Minds, writing off to bands with generic questionnaires and stuff. My friend’s mum would photocopy them where she worked when the boss was out for lunch! I did five issues, before I got too busy with the band and stuff, but it planted the seed, for sure.

Then I was ordering lots of records from Rob Clymo, who ran a CD distribution out of Cornwall in the early Nineties, and I was always asking him for obscure hardcore and metal imports, so he knew I was into the scene. When he started up Terrorizer magazine, he asked me if I wanted to do a hardcore column, and the first “Hardcore Holocaust” ran in # 3. I did my first full interview the following issue, and then contributed to every single issue until it folded a few years back.

KR: Your first book was published in 2003 and there have been 5 other titles that followed in the next 17 years. That’s no small feat, considering your music career and personal life. What kind of writing process or disciplines do you utilize? Do you have a strict writing schedule daily?

Ian: Well, they were all pretty big books, and each took about two years to write, and I had a year off here and there. But you’re right, I have a full-time job, and only write – and play music – in my spare time. As well as the six books since 2003, I’ve recorded six albums and six EPs… the number of the beast, right? On average I probably do two hours a day writing, or thereabouts. Although back in the Noughties, I would get insomnia quite frequently, so I’d be up really early and/or late, and did a lot more than that. But I don’t have a writing schedule as such, yet even when I don’t write anything, I always try to do something every day towards whatever I’m working on, even if it’s firing off emails, chasing up photos… it helps to know you’ve done something positive to progress your project every day.

KR: So what do you have sitting on your bookshelf? What do you like to read regularly or what are some of your influential favorite reads?

Ian: I’ve always read horror fiction, since as long as I can remember, and a lot of my favourite books are from that genre – but I’ll save that for the next question, haha! I’ve kind of grown up with Stephen King though, and his books have evolved away from straight horror, and I’ve followed him on that journey. I pretty much pick his stuff up as and when it’s released and devour that; I love his work because it’s really easy to read – he doesn’t make everything convoluted for the sake of it – and he fleshes out such believable characters. But right now, I’m reading a non-fiction book, Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall, which I like to do now and again, just to feed my head a bit, and after that I’ve got NOS4A2 to read, by Joe Hill, who is of course Stephen King’s son. I also really love to read musical biographies/autobiographies, and have recently finished books on Sick Of It All and Therapy?

KR: I had read that you were a big fan of horror and sci-fi comics as a kid, do you still partake in the genre? Care to name some favorites that stick out in memory?

Ian: Yes! This is pure escapism for me. I love horror films, and I love horror books. I got into horror fiction when I was a kid, devouring all the works by pulp novelist Guy N. Smith, who sadly died very recently. From there, I moved to James Herbert and Shaun Hutson… I was reading a couple of books a week all through my teens, probably hooked in as much by the graphic sex as the gore and violence, truth be told. A few times I would stay up all night reading if I was really engrossed in a book. I’ve already mentioned Stephen King, who is a master story-teller, but some of my other favourites were Graham Masterton, whose early books especially were wildly imaginative, Robert McCammon, H.P. Lovecraft, Brian Lumley, Whitley Streiber, Clive Barker… the list is endless. As far as sci-fi comics go, well, I’m not a massive comic fan, truth be told, but as a kid I consumed 2000AD and Action… gratuitous violence and escapism was my calling, I think.

KR: Considering that 2020 was a lost year for many around the globe, it did provide ample time to reflect and freedom to create. How did you keep yourself occupied during quarantine? Did you work on any new projects, writing or musical?

Ian: Well, the new book, The Scene That Would Not Die: Twenty Years of Post-Millennial Punk In The UK, really came together after COVID kicked in. It gave me something to focus on, and seemed a great way of reminding people why we love underground music so much when there were no gigs… I say that as if it’s past tense, but at the time of writing, there are still no gigs, and I just hope we get back to interacting in that way soon. But needless to say, I had a bit of extra time for editing and proofing and everything, and I got it over the line just the right side of the deadline (I wanted it out before the end of 2020 – so the title actually made sense, haha!)
I also kept myself sane by writing lots of music and lyrics, and a lot of that ended up being used by Zero Again, the new band I’m in, that basically coalesced during lockdown. We bounced ideas back and forth and we were chomping at the bit as soon as the rehearsal studios opened to play together. We did two months of hard jamming and then recorded a dozen songs just before they shut everything back down again. Which was great timing really, because we’ve since released all those songs, as two EPs and a track for a compilation, whilst we’ve been unable to get back together to play. Having that material recorded has helped keep the band ‘active’ whilst we’ve been unavoidably inactive.

KR: The past 20 years saw rapidly advancing technology, forcing DIY scenes to adapt and evolve. What do you think the face of punk is going to look like post-pandemic?

Ian: Hopefully much like it was before, but we’ll cherish local gigs and bands just a little bit more. The thing that’s really in question is whether we’ll be able to gig internationally the way we used to… and that’s partly due to the pandemic, and partly due to Brexit, I suppose. But mainly the pandemic. We’ll have to wait and see, but I hope that upcoming young musicians are still going to be able to drag themselves around the world on a wing and a prayer like we’ve enjoyed doing these last three or four decades.

KR: What advice would you give to novice writers out there looking to evolve their craft?

Ian: I would just say: be yourself, and let your personality shine through, because a few honest words are worth a thousand that are less so. And keep chipping away at it – if you’ve got a book in you, don’t stop until you’ve got it out, because if the last year has shown us anything, it’s to make your own ‘luck’, because you can’t take anything for granted, and you certainly can’t sit back and wait for opportunity to knock. As Nasty Ronnie from Nasty Savage once said, “Life is short at its longest…”

You can get your own copy of Ian Glasper’s latest book at Earth Island Books.

Eulogy for a Dive Bar

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It felt like centuries had passed by my cave before I emerged pale and pink-eyed from
whiskey and song; but the outside world and everyone in it was just as disappointing as they
ever were.
Fuck this city.
I traveled the endless cracked sidewalks of a shitty neighborhood, covered in smashed
tequila bottles and pornographic chalk drawings. A salty shuffle down a glittering path of
remorse and the whole time I’m crying under my black aviator glasses.
Walking around and crying.
It had been a weird day—after an even weirder night.
Several cans of RC were consumed to remedy the best/worst emotional hangover I’ve
encountered within a burning inch of memory. Most of that morning was spent scrubbing off all the sharpie X’s on my arms. I had held my brother down and scribbled them across his cyclist calves too. Intoxicated punk rock Voodoo rituals, I’m sure, just like throwing flaming matchsticks at one another. At this rate, we’ll surely kill ourselves before Halloween.
Well who the hell knows, man?!
The world may never know and God Damn I’ve been drunk a lot.
I was just so happy to have a few days off in front of me that I never bothered to look at a
clock or put the bottle down. Every last one of us pulled up our britches by studded belts
missing teeth and moved onto other dive bars. New mud holes, new shit spoons, and alters of watered-down liquor bottles to pray at. Burning through every poor-to-hip neighborhood from the South side on up, trying to find a place of our own. We sank every dive between here and there that had its moment of catching on just to fill the empty space in our heads and make us feel like we were part of something again.
The ghosts on those walls had a language that caught the beauty and viciousness of ordinary
talk. The plain-speak of thieves, vets, addicts, and terminal disciples that shave in the gutter.
Talk that has a fine, incisive, and dramatic tone to it. And we clung to those words like high
school hangers-on that never made it out of their hometown. Never noticed all the beautiful evenings we wasted in stuffy bars. Never considered that you’d end up on the floor after rocking on loose bar stools with loose women and air guitaring to Bad Company on cue sticks.
I might as well have been God Damned Ed McMahon, handing over my whole paycheck to a different bar each week. And in the morning, only the matchbooks and re-entry stamps will remember where I’ve gone.
There is a point for every old tavern when all the geriatrics start dropping off like flies. Lie
down and die from snuff and rotten livers or they quit drinking on doctor’s orders and hen
pecks. And then our generational blahs invade. Those soldiers of cool and idolized white trash that have fucked up one too many times in the night club district and consistently whined about
bumming smokes.
Fixies for Trixies, Wugazi, and “Jaymo-soco, bro.”
High fives for low lives, blood guts and fire trucks.
Feeling fired and inspired.
A/A propaganda, Buddhism for dummies, and Dharma Bum squat cults pushing up Daisy
Cutters.
Most are waiting for the moment when you stop talking to go on about their own
lives and it’s always a piss and moan twist and shout. Too many overusing the word “like”
and deploying fat jokes at their own expense. Even a polite laugh was a trap.
And here I was in my third decade feeling like a thing from another planet. Only capable of
relating to half humanoids that made careers of singing about isolation like Mark
Mothersbaugh or David Byrne.
So you move on. You move on because they’ve filled every booth and bike rack. Even the
can overflows with their top 40 hits. How cruel fate’s hand is when she puts a dollar in the jukebox.
Trapped in our own personal Hell of a spinning room, the night will roll upon that “break
down” hour. I told the truth and dispensed otherworldly advice, slurred and running to new
depths in circles and circles. Chasing its own tail and carving a gigantic ‘O’ into our brains.
Secrets and sins confessed. Discord, Manipulation, and Girlfriend Island.
These are truths channeled from another realm entirely. Some Shamen can unlock things with tortuous physical acts like sweat lodges or sun dances. Us scumbags consume our weight in cheap beer. So there are no longer arguments about the secret of life. Pretty sure we got it figured out…as long as we are able to find a pen to write it down before it’s forgotten.
Maybe it’s no secret at all.
Winter never fails to turn to spring.
The sun never fails to rise and shine an unflattering light onto our faces.
Hangovers get harder and every morning we notice pasty beer bellies dotted in bad stick n pokes, hanging over screaming hems. Cigarette lines scratched into lips and eyes and coal and makeup smeared across sunken cheeks. Another 7am Sunday morning glimpse into the future where we still lack any sort of direction. Errant ambition.
We could easily just drink away the rest of our youth…
Never giving up the dope, the wine, the stage, or measuring out insomnia through Nick at Nite TV shows, even after the landlord fixes the gas leak.
Under fed and overgrown from bad habits and characters into cardboard caricatures to hang on oily walls. Another brood of seasoned barflies that will live and die by law of the taverns.

-Originally Published in Wonderlust Literary Zine 2015

Hedge Riding the Sidewalks of Chicago

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The grinding wheels of freight trains were haunting cries of ambient soundscapes
polluted with graffiti. I watched them crawl along the horizon from my window with my
pumpkin spice coffee as silhouettes of parking lot gulls weave across a grey sky on the morning
of October first. Halloween season was here. The face of it has changed as I have gotten older,
making celebrating more difficult. Living alone in a post Covid19 Chicago raises the challenge
to be merry and spooky even higher. We’re all desensitized to fear of the unknown after 6
months of existing in an apocalyptic horror film. I was determined to celebrate by any means
necessary this year, hell bent on tricks and treats.
With the weather unseasonably agreeable, I decided to start off the month of October
with a trip to the legendary Haunted Trails in Burbank. A Halloween themed year-round
attraction that has been entertaining kids and kids-at-heart since 1975. Reopening in early June
along with Covid19 guidelines, they offered weekly deals to keep business rolling and asked all
patrons to wear masks.
Pulling into the parking lot on a weekday afternoon I was greeted alone by the iconic
fiberglass Frankenstein statue. At first, I wasn’t even sure it was open as not a soul occupied the
park. Even the arcade, loud as ever with every game blaring its pitch, was void of humans. I
wandered for a bit before coming across sleepy teenage employees, surprised at the presence of a
customer trying to treat themself to a windy round of 18-hole mini-golf. The course is decorated
with statues of vampires, ghosts, and The Creature From The Black Lagoon. With no real skill
and not keeping score, I whacked my little green ball through giant skulls and mini haunted
houses at my own pace before buzzing around the go-kart track solo a few times.
Arcades can be a little disorienting to begin with but without screaming children running
in circles around you it’s easy to be consumed by a game and lose track of time. That’s exactly
what happened to me in the Batman driving game and other spooky themed amusements. I blew
a small fortune on ski-ball until my frustration of losing got the best of me. Looking around and
finding the floor vacant, I boldly cheated by walking up the lane and plunking balls in the highest
score slots. The only other occupant was a young attendant at the prize station. She’d look at her
wristwatch frequently and time herself wiping down games with disinfectant, but otherwise it
was a ghost town.
Seemingly hours later I had run out of tokens and felt proudly smug about being the only
patron of the afternoon. It’s weird to have a beloved entertainment institution all to yourself so I
decided to mark the occasion in the photobooth. The irritable 19-year-old inside of me posed
smugly with a vape pen for each photo, puffing away and flipping birds like the punk I used to
be. But the vapor cloud was bigger than I realized when I stepped out to collect my photo strip.
Billowing out from behind the booth’s curtain. I did my best to wave it away casually just as the
security manager stepped out of their locked office. She was in her early 20’s, still a baby but
with tattoos and a serious disposition evident even with a mask. I decided to cash out my tickets
and leave while I could as the weed was quickly starting to turn to paranoia in my brain. Perhaps
the security manager could sense this or maybe she had watched me get high in the photobooth
or cheat at ski-ball like a miscreant. Whichever it was, she escorted the sole attendant to the prize
counter and stared holes through me.
I picked out as many sugary treats as I could from my ticket total, all the while white
knuckling the counter just at the security manager was doing the same. Nervously eyeing the
Bride of Frankenstein tattoo on her forearm, I silently scolded myself for trying to be punk in my
late 30s. Dripping sweat and getting light headed, I collected my candy and made a bee-line out
the door to the car. I sat there for a bit in a sugar buzz, wondering what the big deal was in the
end. It’s not like my parents would have been called or much of anything else besides maybe
getting kicked out. Even a ban from Haunted Trails seemed unlikely. Overall, it wasn’t a bad
start to the month of October and the Halloween season.

Originally published in Haunted Emporium Magazine October 2020

Whatever Happened to Saturday Night?

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I first saw the Rocky Horror Picture Show in the late 90s when a middle school friend let me
borrow an edited for tv version, recorded on VHS. It was the beginning of an obsession that has
lasted over 20 years, daring me to dream beyond the walls of my reality at a tender age. The cult
film and its fanfare have always spread a positive message of unity among the strange, where
freaks and Franks could have a sense of community. 2020 marks the 45th anniversary of Rocky
Horror, though few have had an opportunity to celebrate in the last six months.
Chicago’s shadow cast, Midnight Madness, have been acting parallel to the movie screen for
over 35 years and the Music Box Theater has been their home base. Averaging one to two
Midnight screenings of Rocky Horror a month until the theater closed March 17th due to
Covid19. Not only was the scheduled performance on the 21st canceled, so were all other shows
until further notice, leaving Midnight Madness in limbo.
For the Halloween season, the Music Box partnered with ChiTown Movies drive-in theater to
bring patrons a safe experience during their more popular October events. Previously, the Music
Box of Horrors was a 24-hour marathon but this year it mutated into 31 Nights of Terror at the
Drive-In. Nightly late film screenings, trivia, special appearances, and double features on the
weekends. Midnight Madness approached the Music Box and expressed interest in continuing
the tradition of their Halloween performances by working something out with the drive-in.
Opening night was cold and rainy, making me unsure of how the cast was going to pull this off. I
was nervous to go to Rocky Horror as if it were my first time with a big V marked on my face in
lipstick. Most of my adult life in Chicago I attended regularly. Each screening and performance
were unique, no matter how many times I had sat through the film. From break-ups to first dates,
hazing of friends and family, or just looking for an excuse to be publicly intoxicated in my
underwear. Though never a cast member myself, some of my oldest and dearest friends have
been part of Midnight Madness, making tonight somewhat emotional for me.
The shows were earlier in the evening than most are used to, but tickets disappeared just as
quickly as they would any other Halloween season. There was no opening virgin ceremony or a
dance party to warm the crowd up this time. Broadcasting live from inside ChiTown Futbol, the
Midnight Madness cast was presented picture in picture, shadowing in face masks and a little
further apart. Audience participation had also changed; throwing props was prohibited out of
respect to the drive-in and there was no roar of jokes being shouted over one another. This
offered patrons the ability to come up with their own call back lines, though one could hear some
classics shouted down the rows of cars if you had your windows open. Historically honking your
horns or flashing headlights was heavily frowned upon at drive-in theaters, but at Rocky Horror
it is the face of modern fan participation. To cast and audience the differences were undoubtedly
awkward at first, but all were quick to adapt. The discomfort faded as we picked up steam
because despite everything, it was happening.
My friends and I sang along as loudly in the car as we would have in the theater. I noted several
other attendees also dressed up in spicy lingerie or as favorite characters. We disrobed briefly to
get out of our cars and do the “Time Warp” before rushing back to warm backseats, giggling red
cheeked and lipstick smeared from facemasks. The Rocky Horror Picture Show and its entire
following is where the punks and weirdos could come together and wave their freak flags. The
tenacity of Midnight Madness to bring that message to the drive-in was a victory in the darkness
of these troubled times.

Originally published in Haunted Emporium Magazine October 2020

Review: It’s Coming Up The Stairs

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It has been almost 40 years since author Alvin Schwartz and illustrator Stephen Gammell
released Scary Stories to Tell in The Dark and its sequels. That is 4 decades of kids giving
themselves the creeps with this compendium of legends and folktales from around the world.
Accompanying Schwartz’s retellings of these historical stories are the charcoal and ink
illustrations of Gammell. Grainy images of ghouls and spirits designed to look right into the eyes
of the reader, daring the imagination to dive deeper into a child’s fear.
The series spawned a slew of horror books for young adults, delighting millions and
stimulating controversy among parents and schools that lead to banning them in some libraries. It
was even listed as the most challenged series from the 90’s by the American Library Association
and remained in the top ten of the 00’s.
Nightmares and offended adults aside, the series developed a massive cult following and
served as a muse to darkly curious and creative children. John Squires of Bloody Disgusting
curated a collection of art influenced by Scary Stories in 2017 at a small gallery in San Antonio,
TX. Memories of the art exhibit can be found on social media with new digital additions of
photography, music, paintings, sculptures and more.
Jenna Dalgety, a Chicago writer, grew up reading Scary Stories and states that the series
made up a large part of her childhood. The tales and artwork left deep impressions on her as a
lover of horror and aficionado of comics. Dalgety met Sarah Benkin, a Chicago based illustrator,
at a comic book convention and discovered she too was also a big fan of the Scary Stories series.
Having previously worked on a few projects together, the two joined forces again in 2018 to
create a tribute to the Schwartz and Gammell cult favorite. Dalgety penned screenplay-like story
lines with precision, knowing exactly what she wanted to see in a graphic novel to extend that
undulating dread captured in the early 80s books. Benkin delivered every gritty panel with the
same shadowy grey-washed landscapes that Gammell made famous. During production, the pair
traveled to the abandoned City Methodist Church in Gary, Indiana to be interviewed by Cody
Meirick for his highly anticipated documentary Scary Stories.
After months of tireless effort, Dalgety and Benkin’s collaboration It’s Coming Up the
Stairs was debuted on comiXology in December of 2019. The popular platform offered a more
unique experience of the graphic novel that could reach a larger audience, but Dalgety says there
may be a possibility to print a physical run in the future. It’s Coming up The Stairs offers 3
reimagined favorites from the original book. Updated tales to fit modern times of
hyperconnectivity and torture their characters in familiar Chicago-esque settings. The result
makes the suspense for any resident of the Chicagoland area a very real threat; whether
commuting home at night, paying a visit to spooky landmarks, or encountering the eccentric
characters of the city.
When asked if there were plans to continue with a modern and local feeling series,
Dalgety admitted that she and Benkin have previously discussed and expressed interest in more
projects down the road. You can find It’s Coming Up the Stairs and more of Dalgety and
Benkin’s work on comiXology.

Originally published in Haunted Emporium Magazine October 2020