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HOME / SLIPPY TOWN TIMES
Except where noted, all original text & art ©2008 Eddie Flowers
I was visiting Bloomington, Indiana, for the second time in the summer of 1975. This time I would be away from my home in Jackson, Alabama, for a month. And I had an official reason for being there: to edit the first issue of a new rock mag called Gulcher (the name came from Bloomington's nickname, the Gulch, not Richard Meltzer's book--I was against the name because I thought it would be confused with Meltzer, which it has been over the years--Meltzer himself didn't give a shit, and contributed to the mag as well as wrote liner notes for all three EPs by the original GIzmos on Gulcher Records). With me as editor, that first Gulcher was published by Bob "Mr. Bear" Richert, while Ken Highland was sort of contributing editor and in-house high-energizer. Bear had done a fanzine called Beyond Our Control, and then gone on to edit The WIUS TipSheet for an Indiana University college station. The latter was something of a template for Gulcher, from the tabloid format to the eclectic range of popular music covered. But for the first issue, which would be #0, Bear allowed me to put together an all-punk mag (it was the only issue of Gulcher I edited, although I contributed to most of the other issues). It included leftovers from my own aborted zine called Search & Destroy, as well as the never-published "punk" issue of The WIUS TipSheet. I pretty much had free reign, with the only stipulation being that we open the mag with a Stones concert preview. They were on tour that summer. You'll notice two full-page Stones ads. Yeah, that's the way this shit works. Anyway, I decided to just ask everybody I dug to write something. That's how we ended up with Lester Bangs, Richard Meltzer, and Mike Saunders! When Bangs got his copy of Gulcher #0, he was raving to everybody that our mag was what Creem SHOULD be! His contribution was a review that Creem had rejected. With permission, I published excerpts from letters that Cub Koda (Brownsville Station) wrote me. This led to a column called "The Vinyl Junkie" in later issues of Gulcher. After Gulcher stopped publishing, Cub carried on the column for years in Goldmine. The MC5 cover story by yours truly is definitely the work of a naive 17-year-old. I don't agree with a lot of what I said then, and I probably lifted a wee too much from Dave Marsh's 1971 Creem article--but so it goes! Anyway, hope you all dig this slice of proto-punk or whatever-you-wanna-call-it.
--Eddie Flowers
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GULCHER cover The MC5. |
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GULCHER page 1 "The Eddie-Torial" by Eddie Flowers. Staff, Friends, & Contributors. Illustration by Larry Nolte. |
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GULCHER page 2 "The Rolling Stones as Satisfaction: Sympathy for Jagger" by John Orman. |
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GULCHER page 3 Ad for Rolling Stones Atlantic product and local shop Karma Records. |
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GULCHER page 4 MC5 history by Eddie Flowers. |
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GULCHER page 5 MC5 history by Eddie Flowers (continued). |
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GULCHER page 6 MC5 history by Eddie Flowers (continued). Illustration by Carl Biancucci. |
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GULCHER page 7 Ad for Editype, where Gulcher publisher Bob "Mr. Bear" Richert worked. |
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GULCHER page 8 Interview with Wayne Kramer by Cary Baker. |
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GULCHER page 9 Interview with Wayne Kramer by Cary Baker (continued). Ad for Caveat Emptor, local book and record store, illustration by Eddie Flowers from a design by Caveat Emptor. |
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GULCHER page 10 "Dick Blum Throws the Party of the Century" by Richard. Meltzer. [NOTE: Dick Blum is Handsome Dick Manitoba's real name.] "Rag Mama Rag" by Graham Carlton. Illustration by Eddie Flowers. |
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GULCHER page 11 Review of The Dictators Go Girl Crazy! by Edny Surenuff and Top Ten Ken (Eddie Flowers and Ken Highland). Ad for A&M Records and Caveat Emptor. |
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GULCHER page 12 Review of The Dictators Go Girl Crazy! by Edny Surenuff and Top Ten Ken (Eddie Flowers and Ken Highland) (continued). |
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GULCHER page 13 "The Krazee Kensumer Guide" by Ken Highland. "The Rolling Stones as Satisfaction: Sympathy for Jagger" by John Orman (continued from page 2). |
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GULCHER page 14 Lester Bangs reviews Get Off. Illustrations by Eddie Flowers. |
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GULCHER page 15 Lester Bangs reviews Get Off (continued). Metal Mike Saunders reviews 16 Greatest Hits by Fabian. Eddie Flowers reviews Rockabilly Rebel by Ray Campi. Dave Newberger reviews Permanent Damage by the GTOs. Richard Meltzer poem "A Lesson in Lever." Illustrations by Eddie Flowers and Larry Nolte. |
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GULCHER page 16 Ken Highland reviews Brownsville Station live in Central Park. Cub Koda letters to Eddie Flowers. |
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GULCHER page 17 Ken Highland reviews Brownsville Station live in Central Park (continued). John Koenig reviews Brownsville Station live in Midland, Michigan. Ad for Armageddon LP and Karma Records. |
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GULCHER page 18 Interview with Les Variations by Ken Highland. |
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GULCHER page 19 Cub Koda letters to Eddie Flowers (continued from page 16). Ad for Editype. |
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GULCHER page 20 "Have Love Will Travel: The Sonics" by Metal Mike Saunders. |
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GULCHER page 21 "Have Love Will Travel: The Sonics" by Metal Mike Saunders (continued). Tom Bingham reviews BuckShot Records (the Sonics and the Droogs). |
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GULCHER page 22 "Have Love Will Travel: The Sonics" by Metal Mike Saunders (continued). Review of The Dictators Go Girl Crazy! by Edny Surenuff and Top Ten Ken (Eddie Flowers and Ken Highland) (continued from page 12). Ad for the Jam Factory, a local arcade. |
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GULCHER page 23 Ad for the Rolling Stones' Metamorphosis and Karma Records. |
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SLIPPY TOWN TIMES online #2:
Editorial
Home Blitz Interview by Tony Rettman
Music I Dig
Movies I Dig
Comix Section
Outro
FROM THE ARCHIVES:
Gulcher #0 (1975) online reprint
SLIPPY TOWN TIMES online #1