Yaz 5. You realise that the next one means you have to move onto the second hand in order to count the number of issues produced. Incredible.

Anyway, the usual warm welcome. Your departure lounge for the rest of the trip is pretty similar to each time you've visited before. Unless this is your first time. Actually, the rest of it is pretty familiar as well. Interviews, same questions from me, different answers, same mistakes from me, different gigs, same crap reviews from me, different albums, same whingeing from me. All in all, a home from home really.

Anyway, this time round to whet the appetite, there's interviews with Therapy?, dBh, Gorilla, Seratone. Heeby jeebies, what a read fest for you.

Tragically, due to a complete lack of interest, and hence good taste, there's no 100 guitarists who changed your life feature. But please don't let it upset you too much.

But God is this issue crammed with interviews. For the first time, there were too many interviews to go in, so some are being held back until the next issue. Actually, the next 3 issues are done in terms of content. I just need to actually type it all up. So, probably from the next one, it's goning to get bigger. More pages to fit everything in. To whet the appetite, here's a taster of outstanding interviews. Tura Satana, Will Haven, Pulkas, Medulla Nocte, King Prawn, Cynical Smile, Dog Toffee. Line up or what. And there's more in the pipeline.

Notice that all the interviews in this issue are with British or Irish bands. That's not coincidence. It's proof that the scene here is good, if it gets the support. And the bands cover a wide musical spectrum. something for everyone. But the support needs to come from you. Check out a gig, get the album / demo. Start your own zine. Then you can interview them, and I can read it all. Not all of the bands are big and well known, that kinda depends in part on people finding out about them and supporting them. Maybe some of these interviews will introduce you to some of the bands.

Also, be warned. It's likely that this thing is going to get printed properly. Few reasons. One is it takes forever to do them myself, and I'm thinking of going for a proper print and distribution. Maybe 500 or 1000. However, this costs money and may have the knock on effect of either meaning I have to charge for it (which I don't want to do), or that I have to try and get adds in it to cover costs (which I don't want to do either!). It's a tricky choice, but if I want to keep attempting to get reasonably big name interviews (which I do, in with the smaller bands), then I may have to. You sometimesd get asked about “how big is circulation” etc. But, well, I'll let you know what happens. If I end up charging, it would be a maximum of 50p and an SAE. But hopefully it won't come to that. But if anyone knows someone who knows a printer that would do it for nowt, then let me know. A cheaper alternative may be photocopying, though the quality isn't as good. So, sorry if you get a shite looking copy, but hey, it's free to you, so don't complain.

Next issue will also be bigger. There's just not enough room in 40 pages to do all the interviews, reviews etc. We're expanding around the middle!!!!!!

Anyway, welcome to May/June '98. Enjoy the flight.