Just wondering how do people here feel about music mags / fanzines in general? Your favourites, the best ones, the ones you don't like, etc.

Hi Paul,i used to buy both Mojo and Record Collector,but its a rare occassion these days for me to shell out for either,i now get both Ugly Things and Shindig,2 great mags that covers the era and music that i like,i am quite excited about a new fanzine thats coming out titled Flashback,put together by Sunbeam records Richard Morton Jack,should be out soon.Thats about all i get these days.

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Ditto for me,too. I keep forgetting to buy Ugly Things but Shindig is a must. Uncut,Mojo and RC I very rarely get these days.

I used to like Mojo's "Hidden Treasure" spotlight on an overlooked album, but i think they stopped that feature. Or am i wrong about that? Anyway, that kind of info was useful. I always wondered why they had fifty million Beatles covers but not once do i remember a Badfinger cover. What's up with that?

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Joe - If it was Shindig it would have been Badfinger, the 'greats' on a cover sell more copy, so always with the Beatles et al. looking as all publishers do, at the American market.

I too go for Shindig and Ugly Things. #1 Flashback was supposed to be out in April, still not heard when it is now due. An issue of Ugly Things will keep me going for a month or more ususally, so couldn't fit anything else in!

Paul

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Yep, Shindig and Ugly Things. Will pick up one of the more mainstream ones id there's a band in there that interests me. Will be interested to hear from you all about the new Flashback zine.

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for me i usually get shindig/rc[only for a couple of articles tho] and im always on look out for olde zines on internet so if anyone has titles such as strange things[i think] or others id love to hear about them

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Thanks for the imput boys. I usually buy record Collector and sometimes Shindig but each mag seems to have its pros and cons

Shindig- great looking but reviews are just not objective enough for me. This has improved but at times it feels like a house mag IMHO

R.C. - best mag when it comes to 60s/psych articles but also covers stuff I have no interest in. Best reviews too.

Ugly things- Good but a bit too american/garage for my tastes. Also I'm not a big pretty things fan. But the reviews are at least honest.

I have also reduced my intake of mags since I got Galactic ramble and endless trip. I suppose all these mags push the latest releases rather than whats really good and I often feel my money would be better spent on a cd or lp.

The constant reissuing of already released stuff is a bit of a turn off to me - Small Faces being a case in point this month. This is usually for better audio or unreleased song to get you to buy what you already own .

That new mag does look interesting - but I think I'd prefer if SFA came back

Well said Paul,i would love to see Sweet Floral Albion back too,that was a fab e-zine,i dont think you could really better that,has anyone actually printed those and got them filed?,i was lucky at the time as i had access to a big printer,so i copied each issue and put them in a folder,i use that along with Tapestry and Galactic Ramble as reference quite often,but SFA covered a lot of ground and their A-Z uk pop and psych discography was immense.Sorry am i gushing here....lol.......We'll never have one like that again i feel!!But i really enjoy Shindig and Ugly Things too.

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Thanks Stuart,

I think I can honestly say that you have probably suggested more stuff of interest to me than many mags.

Anyone read any of the prog mags?Wallace?Any good?

Are there any acid folk mags? or 60s mags?

Just wondering

Mastermen do not read - as you say - "mags".
(The prog mags of the 80s/90s were particularly slim and atrocious. Most came out of Netherlands and France. Dont know whats going down in the literature today.)

I see magazines like Shindig and Mojo occasionally, but I must admit I'm not really keen on any of the monthly magazines. As someone said above, the Shindig reviews aren't objective, which makes them pointless. And while SFA started out really well, their growing pretentiousness and petty point-scoring meant that they disappeared up their own rectum long before the end.

As Wallace mentioned, any prog mags were/are so badly written as to be unreadable.

Thank you, Andy! Regarding the decline and fall of SFA, I had the audacity to even suggest such a thing here back in 2005 and got a ration of shit for it. SFA's final publisher took such umbrage at my remarks that he removed me from the email list; the joke was on him as there was never another issue after that. The petty point scoring and Paul Hodges' increasingly desperate attempts to pass off lightweight mid-'70s pop 45s as killer psych were all a far cry from the original spirit of SFA as exemplified by Dave Thubron.

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Maybe i look at SFA with rose coloured glasses,the original team of Dave T and Paul Cross was good,but at the end of the day where else were you going to get a fanzine dedicated to uk pop and psych every month and all done for free.These guys were not in it for monetary reasons they did it as originally they were collectors of mainly uk psych like me and you,sure i agree it got a bit ragged near the end of its life,but what did we as readers have to lose...nothing.......,as it cost nothing to read, and originally they encouraged readers to put pen to paper and send articles in,myself included.When we lost Dave T to the big man up the stairs,it lost its way,but i still found it enjoyable to read,and the info was still good,ok the A-Z of UK psych got diluted with the sound of early 70s pop,but even amongst those i found some goodies,and that was only a small part of the mag anyway.I dont mean to come across as argumentative with Scott(who i think of as a good mate) and Andy C,everyone has their own feelings about certain things we talk about here,and thats healthy and makes it an interesting discussion board.But i think you have to remember the amount of work which went into into SFA,by collectors for collectors.Of course it come to a halt like all good things,i for one would love another e-zine on the same sort of thing...anyone want to take the banner and get one together?..............

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I'm not sure what point scoring actually means in this context. Do you mean trying to find something someone hadn't found? I kind of agree with Stu that even some of the 70's stuff was interesting to find out about, even if it wasn't exactly psych. That's how i feel about the whole Toytown psych page on Marmalade Skies, for instance. Some of it is just bendy pop, but it's still fun to know about. I guess Mark Wirtz sort of exemplifies the cutoff line where psycch runs up against toytown, etc. I suppose everybody can decide how much to one side or the other they want to explore. I kind of enjoyed finding out about stuff by the Cortinas or Jefferson or something that might not really come across as psych, but had a fun sixties bounce to it. I do wish Laura's Garden had continued for more than one issue.
I don't know, I suppose SFA might not have hit all the marks, but I still wish they had made more than one CD from the stuff they wrote about. THere was easily enough stuff there to make another great CD collection.

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Can this be correct: Flashback #1 is 212 pages! Thats a book, not a magazine.

The David Axelrod and Affinity articles would be interesting reads. But "50's psychedelic"???

Sorry,pfft, but your link takes me to a German hip-hop mag of the same name.