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Joe is awesome at buying gifts.

Glad you like it!

Jungleland is a limited-edition, printed fanzine about Bruce Springsteen. Written by ‘second-generation’ Springsteen fans, it tries to explain the …

The Bruce Springsteen fanzine I edited last year is on sale again. It sold out after two months last time, and I’m really pleased to have it available for people again.

You can have a browse of the fanzine online here.

Someone’s haul from the Brooklyn Zine Fest this past Sunday, including a re-print of Jungleland - A Springzine. So stoked. Thanks for buying (whoever you are), I hope you enjoy reading it!

More photos to come, apparently.

Interview about the Jungleland zine in this month’s Loud & Quiet.

“…sharp and funny insights that non-fans can just as easily enjoy. Hell, Nebraska - An Appreciation might even make you buy a record.”

Damn right!

We passed the 100 mark this weekend, less than two weeks after Jungleland went on sale. This is so much beyond my expectations it’s unreal - thank you to every single one who reblogged, retweeted, told a friend about it, bought a copy or said something nice about it in person.

That something that meant so much to me seems to mean something to other people is a really lovely feeling, so thank you all.

If you’ve bought a copy, do let me know what you think - criticism as well as praise.

Have a great day,

Matthias

x

So yeah, the first 20 copies have been sold - thanks so much to everyone who’s bought one! I’ll try and post them all over the next two days. On the downside, this means that there are no more badges - unless I hassle Sean to make some more.

If you could continue ‘spreading the word’ that would be great - I’m fully aware the interest is probably going to die down, like, tomorrow, by which time I’ll still have more than 100 of the bastards left.

This is me right now, at my desk:

GIFSoup

It’s here, boys and girls - last week I received all 150 copies of the Jungleland zine, and I’m pleased to say that they look and feel beautiful.

You can order your copy here, for the bargain price of £3. The first 20 orders get a free Jungleland pin badge, made by Sean Haughton (aka Rock Star in Well Wisher).

Big Cartel will only let me upload one picture, so here’s a few more (excuse the slight blurriness, I got a little excited):

This is what it looks on the inside:

You can read some excerpts from the zine here, here and here.

So yeah - I hope you guys like it, I’m very happy with how this little zine project turned out and I’m hugely grateful to all the contributors who let me use their work.

Buy a copy, spread the word, get excited about the summer shows!

xxx

Matthias

Just sent the final designs over to the printer’s. The printed zine should be available to order online by the end of next week (I hope). This is what the cover looks like.

Soooo, I’m going to make some generalisations right now. These are purely based on audience reaction to Springsteen and his music drawn from conversations I’ve had.

When the general public talk about Bruce Springsteen, they often associate him with his mainstream, radiofriendly hit album “Born In The USA” and many have judged or dismissed his music based on the title track of that album, describing it as “cheesy” or “very 80s”.

Now, I’m only going on my own experience here. It usually happens at the part in the conversation where people ask:

“So, what kind of music do you like?”

And I, without hesitation, answer;

“The Boss.”  

“Who?”  

“Bruce Springsteen.”  

“What, that Born to Run guy? The old guy?”  

“Yeah, him.”  

Queue laughing, sniggering, or the simple reply;  

“…um…really?”  

Admittedly, this was a more common scenario several years ago, when I was an enthusiastic and naive 18 year old, and it was incredibly uncool to be such a shameless super fan of Bruce. The cutting edge of cool was like, Razorlight or some shit (this was, of course, before they were massive).

But back then, it seemed that to the average person like I was into “Dad music.” (I do also love Crowded House, Fleetwood Mac and Wings, so maybe they’re right.)

As the years have gone on, it seems that opinions have changed, and Bruce has made a few comebacks in the hipster scene - lordy, even H&M sold t-shirts with the Born in the USA album cover on the front (of course I know this because I bought one). It interests me, however, that The Boss will come and go in fashion, but, as the H&M T-shirt displayed, it has always been Born to Run and Born in the USA that people will hail as his greatest work. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love those albums.

Let’s face it, you can’t be a true Springsteen fan and not love the hits. But the highly contrasting, dark and haunting album Nebraska is not to be over-looked. It is badly recorded, it is drowning in loneliness and desperation and it is bare. It’s stripped down so much it’s not so much naked but skinless, with the nerves exposed and twitching.

I never knew music could be so below par sonically, and for that very reason, sound so great. Far from the victorious and energetic songs romanticising the American Dream in previous album Born to Run, themes of hopelessness, defeat, death and pleading curse through Nebraska.

[…]

by Katie Malcolmson. Full version will be available to read in the printed zine