First GCITW/SS Split Review

From Magic Muscle...

Is New York the “Greatest City in the World?” The intuitive answer is no; it’s rat-infested, dirty, and overcrowded–mostly with miserable and/or crazy people. At the same time, it somehow manages to be one of the bourgiest cities on Earth, where food, rent, beer, and weed cost more than almost any other city on Earth. In spite (or perhaps as a result) of all this, New York remains the greatest city for one reason: not only did it invent punk, but it has remarkably remained its standard-bearer through decades of international reformulation.

Today’s punk scene, lead by the Raw and Bung punx, is thriving in a big way and it’s awesome to have zines like this one and New York Rules to keep tabs on what’s up in the city and beyond. GCITW, written primarily by a dude with the presumably spoonerist moniker Deed Runlea, features four band interviews, most notably with the DOs (Kira Roessler fromBlack Flag and Mike Watt from Minutemen) and Boston’s Night Birds, a cooking page on how to cook with dried beans, a Seinfeld fan fucktion, and an excellent op-ed on the editor’s love/hate relationship with Occupy Wall Street. Overall the zine has a voice and sense of humor all its own–definitely not ‘PC’ but honest and raw and packing the kind of punk snot one should expect from a zine whose cover is a chain-strapped boot preparing to stomp on the millionaire admins of the newly minted Brooklyn Nets.

Denver’s Shit Sheet is all written by Mike Kneally of Albany Hardcore fame. Most of the content is a lenghty review of the new Husker Du book and an even lengthier interview with Mike’s favorite band, Leatherface. The Du review, littered with personal anecdotes and stories about the band he was disappointed were absent from the text, was pretty entertaining although irritatingly formatted into thin strips of white-on-black text that were sometimes upside down or cut lenghtwise. Was this design choice a failed experiment or DIY gone mad? Either way, the Leatherface interview’s more standardized lay out was a graphic breath of fresh air, although it could have been edited to be far more concise. I also would have liked to hear more scene-reportage about Denver, even though it is no candidate for best city in the world.

You can get the zine online here for just $2. I’m sure they also sell it at Academy.

Also check out Deed’s record label Shit Hawk Punks and his excellent show on Newtown Radio, Crust Never Sleeps.