Questionaires
The first three issues of Ashamed & Bored were fairly small affairs, and being new to this fanzine lark I mainly relied upon postal questionaires to communicate with bands. Whilst these may be more restrictive than live interviews, they do provide a short and useful insight into a variety of bands. My tastes have changed a bit since those early days, but here are the original dirty dozen... ABDOUJAPAROV
Date: November 1998
'I've been writing a musical.'
This is the first ever interview with the ex-Cater USM frontman Fuitbat's new band. Thankfully that musical never emerged.DUSTBALL
Date: November 1998
'Shifty Disco are evil corporate slags that feed off The Man.'
One of my favourite bands ever, their full-throttle noise-punk should have brought more success. At present, Dustball are in a 'transitional' state.FOURTH QUARTET
Date: April 1999
'When we played the Bassment Club people were fully falling asleep. That was great.'
Shhh...Fourth Quartet continue to create some of the most delicate lo-fi music around and are winning new fans all over the country. Questionaire includes legendary comments about another local band being goths.KILTER
Date: February 1999
'Barney would like a haircut.'
Enter the world of one of the Guildford area's most sadly missed bands. Absorbing, screwed up post-rock rarely sounded this good.MOREAU'S ISLAND
Date: January 1999
'We're frankly pissed off with playing the game here, so we're not playing in Britain at all for the foreseeable future.'
Please come back! Moreau's Island produced some shimmering slices of sweet guitar pop a couple of years ago, but it's all been a bit too quiet recently. A debut album has been recorded though.PENFOLD
Date: September 1998
'We're improving as a band so much that each new song is better than the last.'
The first ever set of questions A&B sent anyone! Penfold have had a few line-up changes but they still specialise in bouncy, big-riffed pop-rock.SEAFOOD
Date: March 1999
'Kevin controls my mind with a piece of electric chese called Frank. Stop it, no, no Frank! Please stop, make it stop!'
A brief glimpse into the midly disturbed minds of Seafood. Not to be confused with the recently conducted opus interview at the Aldershot WEC coming soon to the site.THE SAMURAI SEVEN
Date: March 1999
'We sound like the Beach Boys fighting their way through the crowd at a Dead Kennedys gig!'
A perfect description if ever there was one of John Peel's favourite bands. If there was any justice, The Samurai Seven would be proper popstars.SNIDELINE
Date: October 1998
'Our plans for the rest of the year are to split up and form two supergroups!'
Indeed they did, and the result was Dreyfuss who were the most unhinged and abrasive noise-rock band in the Aldershot area. But then they split up too. Expect another incarnation soon.TRAVIS CUT
Date: April 1999
'Yes, we are punk-pop but we have an aggresive edge, especially live, that a lot of punk-pop bands lack.'
Guilty as charged. Let's face it, speedy punk is an over-saturated genre, but Travis Cut do it very, very well.TWISTER
Date: October 1998
'We always try and do a good show if it's to three or three thousand people.'
Always a confrontational live act, power-punksters Twister disappeared off the face of the earth after this questionaire. Was it something I said?WINNER
Date: December1998
''We rip off the best and we are the Spice Girls of punk rock.'
Still the fastest punk rock band you will ever hear, Winner are about to release their debut album. A frenzied and foul-mouthed live experience.