New Balance

PEOPLE DO 'ZINES for all kinds of reasons. I've always done them first and foremost to preach about these three-minute shortcuts to nirvana that I've discovered: this amazing music that you absolutely have to hear. You may have heard of the fanzine I did from 1984 to 1995 called Chemical Imbalance. It was kind of a big deal at its peak (circulation 8,000), at least in the indie-rock world. C.I. expanded the definition of what a fanzine could be, covering punk rock, free jazz, comic art, art brut, and "transgressive" writing from its very first issue. (I didn't know what the rules were in the first place, so I wasn't aware until later that I'd broken them.)

I have always had an abundance of energy for things that I like and very little time for stuff I do not. This has made me a pain in the ass at most of my jobs and a poor student in calculus class, but a good fanzine editor and freelance writer. Unlike most of my slacker friends, I have no problem working day and night; it just has to be something I believe in. Not to sound too corny, but I have faith in the transformative powers of the cultural arts, if I believe in anything at all.

I would have made a rousing preacher, but my parents raised me without religious conviction. From an early age I fashioned my own belief that music is one of the most valid ways to commune with God (visual art, literature, and films also figure, but music is for me the most direct route). I may sound like a total freak, but you know that weird, low, funky bass line that starts the Bee Gees' "Jive Talkin'"? That particular song fragment—which I listened to over and over again—provided strict evidence for the existence of a Supreme Something-or-other.

Chemical Imbalance was the first international publication to print stuff by or about humorist David Sedaris; musicians Girly Sound (Liz Phair), Galaxie 500, and Steve Fisk; filmmaker Sadie Benning; and artists Alex Ross, Chris Ware, and Jim Woodring. After the third issue, I saved money from working on a lawn crew in my then home of South Florida to include a 7-inch EP, a concept which stuck. I put out previously unreleased music from Pavement, Sonic Youth, Television Personalities, Yo La Tengo, Sun City Girls, Opal, Daniel Johnston, Beat Happening, Mekons, Kicking Giant, and the first new music by Faust in 15 years. It was really important to me that people hear these bands; at the time, no other 'zine released real singles with every issue.

BUT I WAS JUST A KID then and not a very good writer to begin with. So I also printed bad poetry and the most embarrassingly pretentious, acid-addled record reviews in the history of embarrassing, acid-addled record reviewing. (The absolute worst was when I compared well-bred Boston indie-poppers Big Dipper to Raskolnikov, the tormented hero of Dostoyevsky's Crime & Punishment.) Most of my readers were forgiving; those who were not (Lydia Lunch and Steve Albini among them) sent excellent hate mail.

In the limited "black bag" edition of Big Black's infamous Headache record, underground guru/scribe Byron Coley wrote a short story in which a character named Mike McGonigal is birthed through the butt of the barber from Mayberry: "There's an art fag sticking out of your keister." This is, in retrospect, the highest compliment I have ever been paid. My agenda was far more gay-, art-, and women-friendly than the prevailing coolster ethos of the day.

I moved to New York City at the age of 18 to attend NYU. I worked weekends at See Hear, a dingy basement shop in the East Village that sold only fanzines and music books. Working there put me in touch with not only the entire mid-'80s 'zine scene but the hippest musicians of the day and dozens of like-minded freaks who soon wrote, drew, and made music for C.I. The 'zine went from describing existing bands and scenes to creating its own. I put together C.I.-sponsored rock shows with Galaxie 500, Go Team, Sonic Boom, and more; curated a group show in a gallery; and put together a video compilation for Atavistic. The amount of work was starting to wear on me, however, and I was unwilling to make the necessary changes to turn the magazine into my livelihood. It was an idealistic thing; I thought it would remain pure if removed from commerce, if it remained a crazy, obsessive hobby.

In June 1993, within months of releasing an issue that featured a skewered heart on the front cover (a color drawing by Raymond Pettibon), I was stabbed twice in the chest, mere millimeters from my own heart. It was a botched mugging in front of my Brooklyn apartment. After the open-heart and collapsed-lung surgeries, I freaked the fuck out and got heavily into drugs. I'd already been working on a drug habit, doing a bag or so of heroin a day. But after I lost my fear of needles in the hospital, it was less than a year before I sold all my stuff and was living on the streets. I hit bottom within a year and left New York for sunnier climes. I got clean for good on New Year's Day '95, did one final issue (the magazine's name seeming more than prescient at this point), and concentrated on freelance writing.