The Boston Phoenix Guide to Playing Shows, Hanging Out and Finding Rad People While on Tour in Boston, MA
The Boston Phoenix
Self-Published
Street: 03.09
Made at SXSW for folks tryna get over to Beantown (and let’s not kid ourselves, ’tween SSD, Last Rights, Negative FX and Slapshot, Boston holds it up for classic punk n’ core). Not really a ziney zine, but more a user manual for active types, eloquently profiling things like Music Centric Neighborhoods (Allston, Cambridge, Jamaica Plains), locally owned bars (Neither Sam Malone, nor Cheers is mentioned), Non-Traditional Above Ground Spaces (Lorem Ipsum books has a zine library and sounds super rad), houses, bookers, collectives and eateries (How do you know when someone’s vegan? They’ll tell you a few thousand times). Not one for the porcelain pot, but good dashboard material for road warriors, freaky flag flyers and gypsy drifters looking for action in the great white north. Peep The Boston Phoenix’s website to cop your own and if you can’t tell me who Tony Conigliaro is, you’d best kneel that poseur kneel and scrape that giant Sox sticker off your mama’s Subaru. Sheesh, growing up in Draper must’ve been a drag.
–Dylan Chadwick

Sleepless #1
Zach Germanink
Self-published
Street: 03.09
Sleepless, outta Clevo, earnestly seeks to document the sludgy curmudgeons emanating from the rust belt’s teenie heart, but herby manifestos about fighting corporate music, an "InDesign" look, pixelated ads and overly positive music reviews make me wanna damn the rag entirely and just listen to Humanity is the Devil. Still, engaging interviews with Keelhaul, Vulture and Mockingbird that play out like real-deal dialogues (along with tales of pant-shitting and toilet hash) save it from the trash heap and the fierce regional devotion carries plenty of weight in zineland. I say with a few more issues they’ll either hit their stride or go tits up. For now, I see little need for substandard skate shots, murky live pics, bad comics and ads for tattoo shops across the country. Don’t try and snag a paper one, cuz they only give ’em to indie record store owners and, apparently, SXSW promoters. Corporate America, you’ve met your match. sleeplesszine.blogspot.com for more content. –Dylan Chadwick