Spurzine's Page

A ziney bio
I first encountered zines around a decade ago (can't remember whether it was the Tasmanian 'The fall of because' or the mid-90s black metal relic 'Eternal damnation zine' that got in first, but they were near each other at least) when I was completing my VCE in rural Victoria (South Gippsland, to be precise... where the cows are). I wasn't sure whether I was heading toward photography, writing, or film-making, and thus applied for courses in all three areas. Writing, it seems, was the only discipline that would have me.

Around late 2001, I was completing a desktop publishing class, and wound up making my first zine. Didn't really properly grasp the term then, but it lit a bit of a fire in me. I printed out about 10 copies, forced them into the vaguely petrified hands of my TAFE friends, and then promptly went about other endeavours for the next year or so.

After finishing my second zine - a collaboration between a new writerly friend and I that took around about a year to get together (a production rate I sadly still adhere to at times) - I wound up in a very young Sticky nervously asking Luke if my friend and I could stock our lowly zine in there. He said yes (in hindsight, possibly bemused and amused - at the same time - at our youthful trepidation), and six months later I was one semester into my BA, and volunteering on a weekly basis in said awesome zine outlet. I learnt much in those days.

Sadly, after 3 1/2 years, I had to depart Sticky to make way for full-time work as a librarian... and for some silly reason, I had only produced one zine in that time (with the exception of submitting some pages to 'The fall of because' zine, queer collaboration zines at uni, and other places I can't clearly recall).

Two years after that, having talked about doing a mix-tape zine pretty much since leaving Sticky's volunteer ranks, I managed to churn out D90, which was quite distinctly different from my earlier efforts... and very, very badly photocopied. But, it got some positive reactions, and that kept me going. Around Valentines Day the next year (2009, that is), I churned out issue 2, and set about starting up a weekly zine called 'Dilettantes & heartless manipulators' (or 'd&hm', for short), which was based around a mixture of my love for music, eccentricly cryptic anecdotes, and mailing lots of letters on a regular basis.

Now, I'm glad to say that I'm at it quite regularly with d&hm, even if a fair chunk of the issues do sound/look/feel about as rushed as my earlier efforts have been (last minute person, sadly... well, it's not unheard of in the zine-iverse, but... ah well). Anywho, it's weekly, so, ya know... with any luck, the crap period will at least be shorter... right?

More came after... like D90#3, my Target 168 zine 'Moldovan Metal', my WeMakeZines mini zine folks group swap #2 zine 'True', and more thought on an elaborate one-off project I've been vaguely talking about for a little while now.

Also, since April 2009, I've been doing keyboards, programming, and spoken word for Melbourne-based zinester shitcore noise punk outfit 'The Church of Hysteria'.

Contacts:

E-mail:
spurzine [at] gmail [dot] com

Snail mail:
Spurzine
PO Box 41
Flinders Lane
Victoria 8009
Australia

A selection of zines of my making (excluding most group efforts I added to):
NOTE: For more info on each title, click on the thumbnails in my Zines photos albums. Click on the titles themselves to track down copies of the zines in libraries around Australia.

2001
Strap and buckle - spring edition

2003
As yet untitled
Asinine - issue 1

2008
D90 : a mix-tape zine #1

2009
D90 : a mix-tape zine #2-?
Dilettantes & heartless manipulators #1-?
'I know everything'
One dollar pornography
Moldovan metal
True
Travesty : musings on being a transvestite metalhead #1-?