Thrill-psychers

Taking stock of Terrastock

by Michael Caito

Despite this weekend's Terrastock festival having sold out weeks ago, there are still ways to support the Ptolemaic Terrascope. To review a bit: The Terrascope is a music mag devoted to the experimental, often referred to as psychedelia, neo-psychedelia or just plain psych. Thumbing through any of their back issues (and accompanying vinyl 45s) it's easy to see why this genre is so revered. While spending loads of room covering many original players from the initial 1960s and '70s waves of British and American psychedelic pop, the Terrascope's parallel mission involves chronicling the fine golden threads of this genre wending their way through so many of today's chart-topping tunes. Its influence on everything from arena-rock (delicately described by co-founder Phil McMullen as "between-the-legs spliff-riff guitar rock") of the '70s and '80s, through new wave, funk, grunge, rap, post-punk, techno, industrial, house, trip-hop, etc. cannot be overestimated. The yeoman services of co-founders Nick Salomon (of the Bevis Frond, who perform stateside for the first time in Olneyville) and editor/ columnist McMullen are artistically invaluable. The tendency with archivists is to drop obscure band references like rain, but Phil's is no odds 'n' sods mental dustbin. Coil and Can mingle with Beefheart and the Bevis Frond and the Hampton Grease Band, understandable points of comparison, reflective of his writing style. Besides providing exhaustive cataloging and reviewing in this comparatively rarefied genre, the Terrascopers keep an honest ear out for future-shaping recordings from Europe, Asia, Australia and the Americas -- from grass roots bands whose lack of a flack budget (a.k.a., record label telemarketers) often puts them well outside the ken of lazy daily rags too busy covering incredible bores like Spice Girls. The founders are far from affluent (both hold day jobs; Phil has two children), and the Terrascope is still barely scraping by due to harsh British publishing laws involving publication classification and the dreaded VAT (value-added tax), both of which fly in the face of attempts to keep crucial -- though perpetually underfunded -- periodicals afloat.

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Terrastock Schedule

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Anyway, two points: kudos to Providence's Robert Jazz, who helped get the whole impressive bash rolling. His band V Majestic appear at Terrastock Sunday, where they'll offer tracks from their new self-titled CD. Secondly, there is the extraordinary double CD, Succour, distributed by Flydaddy Records, a newish Newport-based label which is supporting some of the visiting British bands who otherwise would have no product presence in the U.S. So even if you waited too long to grab your Terrastock tix for Rogue in Olneyville this weekend, proceeds from this fine 35-song release (also featuring Palace, Captain Sensible of the Damned, Pete Buck, Spirit, Robyn Hitchcock and of course Medicine Ball) help ensure the solvency of the Terrascope. It is available at discerning music vendors through Flydaddy. Ears open for their next compilation, Alms (featuring sometime-Block Islanders Peglegasus), though it's a limited edition.

I met McMullen a few weeks back. He was great -- knowledgeable, funny, and, I'd venture, more committed to the Terrascope than many so-called rock-and-rollers are to their own blinkin' art. That may or not be beside the point, but throughout the conversation his devotion and determination were apparent.

Phil McMullen: Back when the good old Terrascope was in trouble -- which I hasten to add it really isn't now, as we're back on an even keel again. We've still got debts but we've got enough to publish the next issue. Back when we were in real trouble I decided one way I could raise some money would be to auction off my copies of the early issues. I advertised in the last issue [saying I'm] selling my own copies, taking bids and the auction closes on a certain date. I had a lot of bids. An American collector got in touch and said I'll give you six hundred dollars for the lot -- 12 copies of the Terrascope. I said blimey, they're yours, and asked him to send the $600 down to Texas to help fund the Alms compilation.

Q: The Terrascope started in 1989 . . . .

A: Yeah, '89. I was writing for a magazine called Bucketful of Brains. Working backward from that very briefly, it was the Man Band who got me into writing in the first place. [Nigel Cross] was starting up a fanzine and he phoned me saying he was going to interview the Man Band, and asked if I could go along and help him out. I had no experience. I didn't know I could write . . . I was good in English in school and just assumed everybody could. It's a buzz now that all these years later he's writing for the Terrascope. He's my hero. He subsequently gave the Bucketful title to someone else, and it turned itself into an R.E.M./Flaming Groovies kind of thing, which I wasn't particularly comfortable with. I was actually writing about 75 percent of it and having to buy a copy to see what I'd written. This was about 1988. Nick Salomon, who I'd met in 1984, was starting up his band Bevis Frond, and we were firm friends. He grabbed me by the scruff one night and said, "Look, you're an idiot writing for the Bucketful. The guy's taking you for a ride," and that I could be of the best writers Britain's got for this sort of thing. He said we ought to start our own fanzine up. I said sure, well, I could write and edit it but have no idea how to publish it. Obviously he had some contacts in the publishing world and had a bit of printing experience as well. "Syke" Bancroft was one of these contacts, and besides being a genius artist -- literally, genius -- he knew how to physically put a magazine together. So the three of us got together and (laughing) thought up this stupid name which we've regretted ever since.

Q: Why stupid?

A: Because everybody asks what it means and it doesn't mean anything. Ptolemy was the Greek astronomer who decided the earth was the center of the universe. A fine mistaken principle to name a magazine after. "Terrascope" is just a word I made up -- a scope for looking at the world. Also, kind of reflective of Captain Beefheart's "Terraplane." Anyway, it took off in a big way . . . bigger than we ever thought it would. Bancroft is a genuine genius, and he just kind of dropped out. For about two issues, Numbers 17 and 18 . . . Nick was doing paste-up himself, and we were recycling old Bancroft artwork. With Bancroft I was always trying to up the quality of the writing to match that of the artwork. Then we lost Bancroft, and luckily a friend of mine, Mike Ware, his wife Davina is a graphic artist, and they live quite near to us in Bath. I've known him 20 or 30 years. Long, long time. Davina said, "I can do it," and she came up with some ideas. I literally sat there and wept when I looked at what she produced. It was exactly what we needed. Just perfect.

Q: Was there a danger of the end arriving before that?

A: Yeah, we were drifting in a big way. And Davina's stuff is just magical. She's really got the feel for what we're about, and it was really the savior having her on board. It's different but similar, and I'm back to the point of trying to up the writing to match her artwork as she constantly is producing better stuff.

Q: So we agree that there is no more heinous offense than crap written next to beautiful artwork.

A: I've always wanted the Terrascope to be a home for good writing. It sounds arrogant me saying that, but I feel it's always the thing that fanzines always fall down on is the quality of the journalism. I don't see any reason why a record review couldn't be in itself a short story. A creative thing, not reviews where "this track sounds like that and that one like that." A lot of fanzines . . . I put it succinctly once -- it was something like "people who can't write interviewing people who can't talk for people who can't read."

I am writing for an informed audience, and I assume they know more than I do. No matter which band I'm talking about there's always somebody out there who is a greater expert than I am on that subject. And we never endeavor to put the definitive article on any one band. The Silver Apples piece in [the current] issue probably is the definitive article -- because nothing's ever been published on them before. A lot of magazines say, right, "Here's a history of the band. Here's a complete discography. Here's a photocopy of their one acetate they did in 1972 and I'm the only owner of that and up yours." We haven't got that school-masterish sort of attitude. I always write as as much information as we can gather into any one place, nicely presented.

We've gained something of a reputation for picking up bands before they break it big. Nick often says that I can make a killing in A&R. We only write about things we like. We don't slag anything. I've just been absolutely lucky . . . the first ever feature on Ghost and Flying Saucer Attack, one of the early ones on Guided By Voices. Lots of bands who've gone on to become quite big on the indie circuit.

Q: Is it a luxury to work from a large enough pool to be able to be positive all the time?

Well, we're not positive all the time. I know I said it just a minute ago. The only exception is if a band who we have previously championed come out with something we consider to be a mistake. We will say so. Somebody new comes along and we don't like them we won't write it.

Q: Is that the main difference between a 'zine and a newspaper?

We use a fairly small typeface, and we don't have many adverts. There's a lot of reading crammed into the Terrascope. I don't edit things down for the sake of editing things down. If any of the writers have got something to say I try to get the point across. If somebody says. "What's your word limit?" I say, "As long as it needs to be." You don't have to do 3000 words to cram it all in. If it has to go to two issues, it will. But only of it really needs to. We haven't got that sort of limitation, really. It probably is a luxury, but it seems to be a winning formula.

Q: Were you surprised?

Shocked. Absolutely stunned. We started out producing just another fanzine. We seem to have a very high reputation and a healthy circulation these days, and I really don't know why. It's just a hobby, and everybody seems to think it's a business. It will never get much bigger than it is. We can only go out through record shops and not news agents. So it's really just a labor of love.

STARS & BARS. AS220 hosts Czech genii Uz Jsme Doma Saturday, plus Bob Jordan with Erin McKeown Sunday. All have strong recent releases. De La and Fat Bag hit the Strand tonight (4/24), and Container (formerly Sleeping Giant) celebrate their CD-release party at the Living Room.