Ugly Things #33, #34, #35

(www.ugly-things.com) I normally wait until I finish a magazine or book to review it, but if I wait until I read every word of a hefty issue of Ugly Things it’ll be Malia Obama’s inaugaration before I put quill to scroll. I wish I actually had a job, so that someday I could retire and catch up on the mountain of 200-page, densely printed, super fascinating UT issues that might as well be my coffee table these days! #33 is so good that if it was just the book review section it would be worth $9.95. The Johnny Echols/Love interview is awesome, the non Brian McMahon Electric Eels interview (John Morton speaks!) electrifies, and glam god help us, Jobriath finally made it into UT! #34 is awesome because it shows that UT can go after the ultimate obscurities (the Bees of “Voices Green and Purple” non-fame) and the ultimate whats-left-to-say band (The Beatles, reflected upon by Cyril Jordan) and keep it all clever. I also love how 60s garage and 70s punk (the Viletones!) are on the same page in these pages. And I LOVE the increased presence of Avi Spivak’s illustrations. Not to mention that Ugly Things now comes with more Roctober writers on staff! #35 is the 30^th anniversary issue, and if they just celebrated by profiling the Seeds, the Nazz, Crawdaddy, and The Bleu Grass, a Jewish garage psyche teen band that won the 1968 Allentown JCC Battle of the Bands, well, as the Bleu Grass might say, dayenu! But this issue also contains Mike Stax’s issue by issue stroll down memory lane, and just seeing the covers and reading his memories was kind of magical…that he published his landmark monks and Misfits issues back to back is mindblowing! Maybe is there’s anyone still alive from Love in five years they could call their next anniversary issue “7 and 7 and 7 and 7 and 7 and 7 is…”