BUFFZINE NEINE

Some things are so tangible that they almost buzz with energy, an old DC hardcore record, a thrashed and rusty stunt peg, a guitar played by Hendrix, the paint surface of a Picasso, Jim Morrison's leather trousers.

Zines are up there, they have an amazing tangibility, there so personal and free, there unreserved and brash and crude and fun, they represent a true art form of the working class starving artist and musical enthusiast.

The photocopied fabric of a zine is infinitely nuanced with selotape overlay, glue smudges, ink spills, spelling mistakes, tip-ex crusts and  fingerprints. The surface of a zine is alive and creased and folded through months of punk rock and beer spilt production. Dogeared pages that might have spent several years in a well travelled backpack culminate in the construction of a zine, powerful, poetic and straight from the heart.

A lightning bolt of visceral humanity burned into the folded A4 pages with hot carbon.

Zines represent everything the internet cannot reproduce, they represent ugly textural landscapes of free thought, they represent the voice of the repressed and vocal, they represent a world where communication and the underground press had to have real human links and strong bonds, they represent a hidden and dark world that was unaccessible. Through this inaccessibility grew a seed of fondness and mystery in the hearts of those who glanced into it's well guarded past present and future.

Zines are extra special.

"so what happened to buffzine?"

Nothing, nothing happened, thats the problem.

I'm sure Ratty thinks Buffzine 9 will still come out, like it's just on the backburner and there will be a sudden creative impetus.

You turn your back and six or seven years go by, thats just how it goes.

I found the start of Buffzine 9, I thought I might share its ugly beauty with you before its too late.

the cover

found tuxedo princess film roll

the page where Rhys' letter was going to go

unfinished spoof logan or DFTU advert

Wu Tang vs animal bikes page 1

Wu Tang vs animal bikes page 2

Wu Tang vs animal bikes page 3

Pondsy? something about ponds ford in sheffield infamous handrail sessions I think.

back cover, chronicle customization

Too bad she wont last, but then again who does?

It's defeating the point putting a zine (albeit an unfinished one) up on the internet. Are we all slaves to that which we hate? The internet was created to supposedly serve us but we've ended up serving its collective self and becoming emerged in its endless and pointless pages. The droves of people blindly walking into oncoming traffic while updating their Facebook status' are surely rock solid proof of that.

Don't forget the power of tangible media and don't forget to look up from your phone periodically for pot holes, bicycles, traffic etc.