Carrie McLaren,
Stay Free!
Age: 28
Selection: "It's a Doughboy!"
(page 9); "Slouching on the Shoulders of Giants," by
Jason Torchinsky (page 123)
Recent reviews (from Factsheet Five):
"Lots of fun and very informative."
Sample: $3 and a few stamps from P.O.
Box 306, Prince Street Station, New York, NY 10012 (checks: Stay
Free!)
When did you launch your zine? What inspired you to do so?
 August 1992. up until then
I'd been working in a copy store and college repping for Sony
Music. to make the Sony job a little less awful (and as an excuse
not to talk to people) I'd started a local Sony "zine"
called Sonyland. It was extremely successful in that the execs
at Sony loved it while most of the locals thought it was a parody,
had no idea it was actually promoting (and funded by) Sony. After
I a) got fired from the copy shop and b) realized what I was
actually doing, I quit doing Sonyland and—since that was
the only thing I liked about the Sony job—working for Sony.
 Around the same
time, I decided I wanted to put out a single by archers of Loaf
and, since I really missed Sonyland, thought I'd make a zine
to go with it. That was Stay Free No. 1. Also around that time,
a guy who liked Sonyland approached me about starting a monthly
community zine. In January 1993 we put out the first issue of
Trash. After five consecutive monthly issues, I got really disillusioned
about the zine thing and moped around for about three months
(Trash kept publishing...and got really shitty!). Oh yeah, I
put out another SF!, too, with a couple other local bands I like
a lot, Spatula and (my roommate's band) Evil Weiner.
Anyway, three months post-Trash
trauma, a girlfriend of mine suggested I start doing SF! as a
tabloid a la Trash, and I did.
Why publish a zine?
Same reason musicians make
music and painters paint, I guess. The creative impulse. The
time/hassle/money loss seems worth being able to control the
context/editing of your own writing. Basically, I value my writing
more than anyone can afford to pay me. As long as they can't
pay me enough, I might as well do it on my own terms, write about
stuff I want to write about, etc.
What can you tell us about the selection you provided for
"The Book of Zines"?
 The
original plan was to get a couple friends of mine to come up
to him with our photographer around, take off their cloths (coats)
and we'd take a picture of the Doughboy "caught" in
action with this naked couple. (this was for our food/sex issue).
Unfortunately, Charlie, the guy who was planning to do it, found
out he could lose his scholarship for it and chickened out...as
did Sara. When they didn't show, the photographer went in to
take a picture anyway. He ran into a couple friends (the two
guys from Spatula...it's a small town) so they went in to ask
where the Doughboy was so they could take his picture. He had
gone to lunch. this was like 20 minutes after Jason and I had
talked to him. the Harris Teeter people said he was gone, so
the photographer asked if he could walk around with the suit
on...and they let him! (The person in the Doughboy suit that
we talked to was a Harris Teeter employee, he had no connection
to Pillsbury, the marketing reps travel around with this $900
suit and make store employees wear it).
Any general tips for aspiring zinesters?
1) plan on losing money
2) don't cut people's stuff
without talking to them
3) be prepared to back up
whatever you say in print. It can haunt you.
In my other life, I'm a:
I do the Web site and promotional
newsletter for Matador Records. Marketing, in other words.
Carrie McLaren
Jason Torchinsky
Doughboy
Sells Out
Back to Sidney...
// Index // Ahead to Teenage Gang Debs
|
