our favorite inconsequential health problem – made debut at the Mass. Hysteria show Webster NY, the eighth month 16 August 03 (21 months since last). Venue is this old mahogany ballroom barbershop quartet grange building leaving the village; Elizabeth Comstock was the first to buy one, followed by Jordan Nittoli.

Welcome to the working week
No stranger to the great American layoff which put a damper on things a while. Ad agency jobs like that literally come once in a blue moon. Got free Joe Jackson, Annie Lennox & Kinks LPs out of it though. Later took a good advice and found a part-time job at the local mailroom which had 2 copiers to abuse. Some friends of H. Hill work there.

A tanker truck exploded by Kodak Park and took out a dozen houses, eyewitness reports say you could see the flash from our old Mobil. On the 5th anniversary of Judge Dread's death, the Slackers play here for $5. City News goes on record with us for a 'zine feature and Dave Hillyard returns. Things get real tough and the Blackouts say goodbye at Jillian's megacomplex on 5/3/03; the real power outage arrives later in summer.

The city has been threatening to get rid of our Electric Avenue pedestrian bridge, a relic of neighborhood days past for $1. We discover other odd roots connections with said hangout; area band guys in Mushroom took a publicity photo up there in the dead of winter [c. 1972 predating Bahama Mama & Big Roots lineups]. A coincidence 30+ years after the Ramona Park fact and before Eddy Grant's hit about Brixton. Structure is razed June 2004.

It’s been a little while. Seven years later and we’re still doing linocuts and putting photos of this trestle on page 3. An eyesore is expensive to maintain, plus it leads to the ominous wrong side of the tracks. Over the years, it has seen its fair share of rope swings, girls, smoking, drinking under, but mostly solitude. I remember one bad winter when some even dared spring off it to piled snow banks below. Or that summer they repainted it battleship grey from its previous ash white; man was I annoyed. You can’t go home again. Still, I had learned most of my favorite curse words and the names of cool metal bands there on the way to little league games. This was 1988, and I was on 40 & 1 baseball’s Detroit Tigers with one Dan Esler.

Later that same year Pan Am 103 crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland and one of the first ska zines started up in Glasgow. It was called Zoot, and a skin named Tim Wells became its London correspondent. As well as a 2003 interview with Wells himself, this issue has a good balance and writing from some new contributors. In the 5th grade, when Danny K and I upset a kid named Viktor, Justin called the F.B.I. on us. Likewise, it turns out Lee Scratch Perry upset Victor once too and Dave Cross tells about it. Probly in February ‘95, I read a reprint of the Patrick Smith article, “The Lessons of a Lost Sound” in Out of Bounds #3 from Arlington, VA. I wrote for his own Stargreen (the zine for the modern sentimentalist), which was about flying and world travel. Then last October, Mearns read a laughable story and had circulated it in a mass-forward. It was the full, unexpurgated story of what happens when dry ice is mixed with blue toilet acid at 33,000 feet. Said article first appeared in Airways magazine, and after reading it I realized the author was this same Patrick Smith, punk pilot zine guy turned Salon.com writer. When contacted, he didn’t believe anyone could make such a random association between the two. So when the world lost influential Clash lead Joe Strummer last December, we figured Smith was already on the case. As an early inspiration, it’s a pleasure to share his work in these pages.

Enjoy this issue, it took some time. With so much going on / new music out, it can be an overwhelming task to keep up on everything, but we again try to present a picture. Have long stayed away from including all the latest in current events, yet this time around a news section is attempted. Best place to go for even more global coverage is still Do The Dog skazine UK. 2003 sees brand new discs from Montreal’s Planet Smashers, NYC’s Rocksteady 7 and many others. HP! has finally sold out by conducting some interviews via email (those with Tubingen Germany’s Court Jesters Crew and longtime Kent ska man Arthur Kay) but I think they came out decently enough. New local groups have formed, more little venues have opened which means more scene. Big thanks to all bands, labels, promoters & everyone else who keeps us stocked and going! Send in your shit for the 9th life, I think we already started on it. All reader questions, submissions and any registered complaints are always very encouraged.

Speaking of nostalgia
Already a growth industry in previous years, the trend of craft scrapbooking skyrockets after 9.11 terror set in – archival adhesive achieves multi-billion abundance. Includes splices of Lord Denning's Report which is like the 1962 UK version of US Kenneth Starr Report for Clinton/Lewinsky. To learn more about Christine Keeler's sexcapades thru swinging London, rent the 1988 motion picture Scandal w/ska soundtrack selections by Gaz Mayall. A year after Back to the Beach with Frankie, Annette and Fishbone.

Nobody got that this contains two Deep Purple references on page 47, or that review #53 landed on page 53. Advertisers & local indie owners Justin Goellener [Analog Shock] and Jeremy Sarachan [Fantastic] went out of business 2003-04, as did the big favorite Dewitt NY Record Theatre. No MPEG3s made until March '03. Refused Clear Channel tax but won admission to Bosstones open-air High Falls with ballgame fireworks in background on the radio in June. Thanks Pete Spaker.

Witness a sort of Miggedys reunion at Bug Jar 7/3/03. Six years is a long time to live in one place – like a Favor St. church cobweb. Prodigal mixes of basement mastertapes of the sophomore Moon disc, Destined for Mispronunciation remastered and released online 2/2/04. Which will bring us to Mearns' scoop in the forthcoming issue. Get a digital camera, happen to meet Jah Crunchy himself and also Dr. Ring Ding; let's begin again. In spring, no.9 is about half written and anxious to see its future.