Private Scandal Fanzine - Issue 2 (Slicks, THE TITS)

Feeling inspired by the Private Scandal Party Vol.3 gig, I wanted to publish a new issue of the zine.

Private Scandal Issue 2.

The previous issue was published in Japanese and by the time I got around to writing the 2^nd issue it was becoming more and more apparent that the final issue of More Noize wasn’t going to happen. Tony was relocating to Sweden and was spending more time working on new skateboard wheel company, Fast Skateboard Wheel Co.

I thought Private Scandal could fill that void that More Noize left with a sort of casual, but informative zine covering the Kyushu punk scene, specifically the more unknown bands outside of Japan that were only doing CD-only releases.

Given that we had interviewed Comic (of Last Child) in the previous issue, and Last Child was once hailed as the next Kyushu Punk Hero after The Swankys by their label Kings World Records it seemed that the logical follow-up to this would be an interview with the Slicks, who had also been hailed as the next Kyushu Punk Heroes once Last Child broke up.

It might seem like a gimmick or some marketing ploy by Kings World Records to bestow 2 bands with the title of the next “Kyushu Punk Hero” but to date, they have only done this for Last Child and Slicks, and I think it's deserved. Both bands carried that torch once The Swankys had disbanded and gone on to other projects (The Mercurys, The Brats, The Speakers, Space Invaders, etc).

Slicks advert from DOLL Magazine. They're described as "Kyushu's No.1 Punk Hero"

I also wanted to interview my pal, Yusuke, about his new band THE TITS. They’d played at the recent gig, and I was blown away by their performance and their 2 demo tapes were getting played regularly at home. Yusuke had wanted the band to have some sort of mysterious aura around them so his responses weren't the most insightful, and honestly, the questions I sent him were typical zine questions (Who's in the band? What are your influences? etc...) and in hindsight, a bit shit. It wasn't particularly informative but it was the only English interview with THE TITS you could read. I’m not sure they’ve been interviewed by another zine since…

I’d been drafting questions for Slicks and once I received the response to THE TITS interview I decided to abandon the idea of the Slicks interview and thought a retrospective article would be better, covering their previous bands, what they’ve done since, and try to bring more attention to the band.

I was talking to Slicks drummer, Mc (Tsushima), who was incredibly helpful with piecing together the puzzle. Akira Tozaki (Kings World Records) was also instrumental in the writing of the article, he was digging up old scans from Blue Jug magazine on Slicks vocalist Eater’s very first band Partizan that I’d never heard of. Akira also scoured the Kings World archives for old photos of Jokers/Joker Boys (Eater’s band before Slicks) and photos of Erects (their band formed after Slicks broke up).

Erects. Photo from the collection of Gigolo Joe.

In the end, we collectively put together a pretty comprehensive history of the band and I was chuffed with how it turned out. The rest of the issue consisted of reviews of gigs and releases from the 12 months prior and I published some photos of Private Scandal Party Vol.3 that Senna Chanel had taken.

I’d found an incredibly cheap printer,  the paper was super lightweight, almost transparent and the print was like old newspaper ink that would come off in your hands. You could barely see the photos but I thought it looked cheap and nasty like an old zine.

Looking at the issue now it’s funny looking at the very sparse TITS interview compared to the Slicks article which spans a few pages but whatever, I was happy with the finished product and the reception was pretty good. I printed 200 copies over 3 print runs and Tom at General Speech even printed some copies for distribution in the USA.

I’m not sure if the zine achieved the goal of bringing more attention to Slicks outside of Japan but just last year General Speech released an incredible LP compiling the first 2 Slicks CDs which sounds miles better than the original CDs and THE TITS went on to become pretty popular in the US punk scene, so perhaps the zine was the catalyst for this…who knows.

Slicks - Total Filth Collection LP on General Speech. Photo by Tom Mayhugh.