I risked my life to get this by continuing to cycle along the Euston Road instead of just crossing it as I usually do on the way home on my bike - yes - but I didn't go to Housemans with a view to buying Everything Else Is Even More Ridiculous, just thought I'd visit for a change. It's an old haunt; they used to stock my fanzine and I'd pick up copies of Vague and other zines in the late 80s/early 90s. Back then they had a good basement shop and Stewart Home worked there before he became a stinking rich Neoist superstar, but today the basement's full of crap, albeit it cheap crap.
Being above and beyond common Politics, as in so profoundly, deeply political that buying a book on Trade Unionism, Socialism or any of that stuff seems ludicrous (I wish King Mob was still alive, I'd join in the fun) I had to navigate all the Politics, heading for Dada and Surrealism...nothing to tempt me there...move on to the Art magazine section, where I was dismayed to see such examples of bourgeois capitalist crud as Frieze...fanzines?...not much about, except boxes of A5 products which, after a flick, I left to peruse the Art books section, then spotted Everything Else Is Even More Ridiculous. Mmm...looks interesting, not that I'd bought a copy in the eleven years ('97 - 2008) that this covers. By then I'd stopped buying zines. Besides, 'Noise and Politics' wouldn't tempt me.
So why now? Apart from the fact that the third fanzine revival in as many years is firmly under way and I am so shallow as to leap at any hipster trend going (the beard's quite magnificent now, by the way, as are the tattoos which completely cover my arms and legs, the torso work is ongoing) I found the amount of text totally alluring, the typewriter font headers (I'm sounding like a bloody graphic designer) but more to the point the articles on film, electronic music and society.
A decade after Rave the spirit lived on for some, as you can see in these collected issues. For this mob (can I say they had a collective mentality? Perhaps) issues of the right to party, travel, avoid criminal bills (and rent bills) is pertinent; a lifestyle, the continuation of Punk attitude through Rave politics and on, you know, the 'alternative' lifestyle. All to the soundtrack(s) documented in the music reviews of the magazine. Jungle/Drum'n'Bass is covered, I notice, so I can enjoy reading thoughts on that. A lot of the music is unknown to me, but it seems to be warp speed techno and rabid industrial post-Rave, er, Noise, which was never my kind of thing.
Still, I'm going to enjoy picking pieces from this collection. The site is here. I'm not sure where you can buy the book apart from Housemans but if you're interested I'm sure they'll tell you. First print run is a hundred so hurry up.
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