Used Records & Tapes Zine Issue No. 1

"We’re always going to need record stores and all that goes with them. And we’ll always need zines and bookstores too. This zine is a marriage of all of those things."

From the Introduction to UR&T#1

It wasn’t all that long ago that vinyl was declared a dying format, dead even. Compact discs were the future, the record industry said. This justified a jacked-up price for shiny plastic discs that allegedly sounded better and lasted forever. Except they didn’t on both counts. It wasn’t a hard choice for me. Vinyl records were cooler and CDs cost too much anyway.

Something was lost in the rush to make CDs the dominant format, but record companies didn’t miss a dime. Consumers were gouged, but hey, that’s just entertainment. Anyway, music is a luxury not a necessity, right? Paying too much for music is not real suffering. It is insulting though. Now we’ve flipped the record. Vinyl is back. CDs are wack. 

Order a copy of Used Records & Tapes #1.

What is Used Records and Tapes?

Two artists/writers (and music nerds) Mike Dixon and Chris Auman, put their heads together to create this funny, nostalgic look at records of decade's past. Part illustrated review zine, part perzine, this humorous review zine puts the fun back in what is often a very boring and pretentious genre.

Reviews of records by A Flock of Seagulls, Asia, The Cars, Falco, Jay Ferguson, James Gang, Guns N Roses, Martha & the Muffins, Men at Work, Thelonious Monster, Mötley Crüe, The Joe Perry Project, The Police, Ramones, Thompson Twins, The Unforgiven, and Yes.

Let Your Gray Flag Fly

Keep the Flag Waving

Check out my lit./perzine, Gray Flag. These two issues are comprised of journal entries and writing exercises I created as a student in the Story Workshop at Columbia College in the early 1990s.

Throughout those years, like many people before and since, I held down shitty jobs, saw of a lot of live rock shows, consumed much crappy beer in cruddy bars, listened to awesome music, and managed to attend a fair amount of my classes. 

Back then most people I knew didn’t have computers. Of course, nobody had cell phones. It was the 90s. People pretended they didn't give a shit about success and careers and listened to grunge music.

Anyway, visit gray-flag.com to learn more. And visit RoosterCow Press for more of my comics and zines.