#13: The Holiday Issue
"Don't worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia." Charles M. Schulz
For the last eight days my finger has been far from the pulse of popular culture in South Western Australia drinking wine and walking across ancient, unmanicured landscapes. As such, there is no theme to this issue other than things-I-have-been-reading-and-listening-to-watching-and-looking-at-on-holiday including how to make a zine, how to destroy the Internet and how to give yourself permission to be creative. Enjoy!
Mooreish Words
One of my favourite things to do in Fremantle, where I currently am, is go shopping in its abundant second-hand book shops and record stores. My technique is to spend one day browsing, noting down all my potential purchases then considering them over a drink before deciding what I really want to buy the next day. These were the winners in the book category.
‘Make A Zine’ is a legendary, 25-year-old instruction guide to self-publishing short-run print publications affectionately known as ‘zines’. Zines have been around in one form or another since the invention of the printing press but have had a revival during the pandemic as the bored and housebound try to amuse themselves away from screens. In fact I was so inspired by the launch of zines like Speakeasy and Curious British Telly during 2020/21 that I conceived of Mooreish as a zine but didn’t know where to start. Now I do, so expect to see my first print publication on the shelves later this year!
You can read more about the pandemic zine boom here: ‘The Eclectic Zines Offering Escapism During Difficult Times’.
One of the reasons I think people are turning back to analogue formats (see my reference to sales of vinyl and cassettes below), is that the digital future looks so…bleak. Vice’s Edward Ongweso Jr went looking for the future at this year’s South by Southwest festival but found only FLUF (literally). Read all about it in ‘At SXSW, A Pathetic Tech Future Struggles to Be Born’.
Mooreish Sounds
On a brighter note live music is BACK in Singapore so I am looking forward to supporting Subsonic Eye at their US tour fundraising gig on May 13th at Gateway Theatre. To get in the mood I have been listening to their 2021 album ‘Nature of Things’, which sold out on vinyl and cassette via Bandcamp, which is a pretty good sign. Female-fronted indie-folk featuring dreamy vocals and lo-fi guitars, it pairs well with a Pimms on a sunny Sunday afternoon.
Fun fact: instead of tuning to the usual 440hz, the band tuned the album to 432hz: “It’s allegedly the frequency of the earth,” according to guitarist Daniel Borces in the NME, “and it heals you and stuff. So if you were to pick up a guitar with a normal tuning, you won’t be able to play along to the tracks, unless you tune to 432. Just a small, twisted easter egg!” Happy easter!
If female fronted indie-folk with dreamy vocals is your bag by the way, then get to the gig early to catch support act Sobs whose last release was 2018’s Telltale Signs, though I hope there’s more to come.
But wait there IS more, for the price of one ticket you actually get three bands on the bill including my personal favourite Cosmic Child who also released their dreampop album Blue back in 2018. Perhaps this is the start of a revival for both bands?
As a child of the 80s and teenager of the 90s the nostalgia is strong with all three of these bands who have clearly been influenced by the indie, shoegaze and dreampop of my youth. If you’re old like me but want to feel like a teenager again, get a ticket and support our local scene: https://sg.bookmyshow.com/events/subsonic-eye-friends/BWSUBSNF.
Mooreish Visions
Whenever I go on holiday I feel enormously inspired; I read about zine making and want to make a zine. I listen to new music and I want to go home, pick up my guitar and make new music too. The problem is, when I get home, there are jobs to be done and responsibilities to be resumed that always seem to take priority over creativity. The key, according to this impassioned, articulate and inspirational talk by Ethan Hawke is to give yourself permission, which I intend to…
Mooreish Art
Creativity has SO MANY upsides. For instance, in 2021, Oxford University Press (OUP) asked 8,000 children aged between 7-14 what words they’d most likely choose when talking about health and wellbeing. Sadly, the kids chose ‘anxiety’ BUT to help them deal with their anxious feelings, Singaporean magazine EYEYAH! invited artists from Singapore and 12 other countries to illustrate what anxiety looks and feels like and ways to overcome it.
EYEAH! has released 40 detailed illustrations in a collectable edition and an educator’s kit to help kids in the classroom. Take a look at some of the images in Designboom and purchase a physical or digital copy of the mag here: https://eyeyah.com/product-category/issues/.
Right, I’ve got a plane to catch, see ya back in Sing. Cheers, Nx