OP/Option/Sound Choice

[hsu%uicsrd.CSRD.UIUC.EDU@a.cs.uiuc.edu (William Tsun-Yuk Hsu)]

Being a relative newcomer to this stuff and not as cool as a lot of you,
a lot of what follows is from my readings and hearsay, but here goes...

Once upon a time there was OP, a legendary alternative music zine with
a pretty raw layout (from the ones I've seen anyway) but packed with
oodles of information and useful stuff. OP ended and people who used to
put out OP split into Option and Sound Choice. Option is slowly but surely
evolving into the baby brother of Spin. Sound Choice has gotten more
raw and raunchy in layout and production, and continues to cover truly
smalltime obscure but neat bands Option will not touch, such as 
Caroliner Rainbow. While the anti-Option flames in Sound Choice may
be a little extreme to most people, it is true that no issue of Option
that I own has mentioned Sound Choice. So much for friendly competition.

Other alternative music zines worth looking into when Rockpool becomes
too juvenile for you:

Unsound		The bible of abrasive music. This is for the hardass noise
		freaks. Excellent layout, tons of interviews, information
		and contacts. Somewhat irregular schedule (4 times a year?)

Interchange	An excellent xerox zine from England, also mostly on
		industrial music. Very irregular (whenever J. Smith gets
		around to it).

Re/Search	The last few Re/Search things have been books rather than
		magazines, and they cover more than music. They're all
		worth the cover price. Try the Industrial Culture Handbook.

Wiring Dept.	I have lots of problems getting this. It probably comes
		out more often than I can tell. Pretty slick production,
		covering mostly obscure west coast bands. A mixture of
		underground bands and trendy stuff.

Washington DC Period	Good DC-based zine on newsprint. Lots of pictures,
			interviews, reviews and comics. They've covered
			a large variety of music, from noise bands like
			Peach of Immortality to hardcore and guitar noise
			stuff.

Maximum Rock & Roll	Almost strictly hardcore. If you like hardcore
			you already know about this. There is some
			coverage of bands that are not strictly hardcore.
			Lots of information, contacts, etc.

Forced Exposure	Relatively slick quarterly (?) with some decent interviews
		and reviews. The only problem I have with this is the
		Forced Exposure "house prose" which several contributers
		use/abuse. Makes things like the Peach tour-diary very
		difficult to read. Most of the material is really interesting.
		They cover a wide variety of music, from Mission of Burma
		to Butthole Surfers to G.I.s.

Bill