Andrew Smith rants and the whole world says "Huh?"

Well, well, well. Just when you thought you'd finally seen the last of us, here we go rearing our ugly head again. The nap was good, thanks for asking. Ah, we just thought we'd change the frequency of Good Citizen from "quarterly" to "sporadically." Hey! It's only been fifteen months, get off our backs, will ya? I think it will have been worth the wait. If I do say so myself. And I just did. So what happened to us? Where did we go and what adventures did we have? Nosy little buggers, aren't you? But, since you asked, we wrote a lot of new music and we made a few albums and now we're itching to get back to the action. Things look a little sleepy around here, so we're going to wake you up a little, okay?

We are going to kick 1998 into gear with a flurry of activity that will make your silly little heads spin. The magazine that you hold in your hands is the first step. Good Citizen #6. Hope you like it. There are a whole bunch more coming, we almost guarantee it. And to make the magazine even more exciting, we're putting the whole damn thing on-line at the Big Heavy World web site. And to make sure that you're going to go check it out, we're putting the whole Matthew Thorsen-Craig Mitchell photo shoot on line. The whole thing. Yeah, you heard right. The whole thing. It's at www.bigheavyworld.com.

Next up is a compact disc compilation called Good Citizen Soundtrack to the Zine Volume Three. Damn original, huh? Fifteen original rock bands from the Burlington area. The disc will include brand-spankin' new tracks from Invisible Jet, Lindy Pear, DysFunk-Shun, Chin Ho!, Drowningman, Last Ones Standing, Joshe Henry, (sic), Somah, Non Compos Mentis and Aaron Flinn's Salad Days. And we'll have new album tracks from Zola Turn, D.Jarvis Band, Spill and Cranial Perch. All in all, over fifty-five minutes of new music from the Queen City. To celebrate the release of the CD, guess what we're gonna do? Throw a party! Shocker, huh? Club Toast is the place and December 26th is the date. It's a Friday night. The show is All Ages and it's five bucks to get in. Put it on your calendars now. We don't know how many of those bands are playing yet, but there will be a bunch of them. And since we haven't had a Good Citizen party in over a year and a half, we have a few surprises up our sleeves. Doors open at 9 p.m. Club Toast. 165 Church Street, Burlington Vermont. Go write it down, I'll wait. Go ahead.

Okay, what else? How about a 24 hour local music television marathon? Since we took a year off, our friend Karen McGregor thought of a great way to kick 1998 in the head right away. She has been filming bands around these parts since the 1989 Vermont Reggae Fest, and we've done a bunch of Good Citizen Video Hour television programs with her, so she has some great footage of our local musicians getting it on all over town. If you're in the Burlington area, we've got a very special treat for you. Starting at 9:30 p.m. on December 31, 1997 and running straight through 9:30 p.m. on January 1, 1998, we'll be hosting a 24 hour local music video marathon on Adelphia Channel 15. We're stealing the name of one of Karen's live music programs and calling the whole she-bang Uncut 24. Brought to you by Azure Moon Productions and your pals at Good Citizen, you can expect some fine footage shot on local stages over the last nine years. Classic reggae, folk, jazz, hip-hop, soul, punk rawk, hardcore. Y'know, the usual. Everything.

The next issue of this magazine will be in late February. As always, we need your help. The mission of Good Citizen has been to promote and support Vermont music by getting everyone involved. We've always figured that the more people, the bigger party. We mean it, too. We want your pictures, your articles, your music. Did you know that budding blues talent Seth Yacovone, who is the subject of a feature article in this issue, once wrote a review of one of his favorite local bands, a group called Mr. Dooley, and he just sent it to us. He was fifteen and he wanted to share the music he loved with other people, so he wrote a review. We ran it. That's how easy it is. Can't guarantee we'll run everything we get, but we'll try. If you're not a writer yourself, tell us what you'd like us to write about and we'll try to get on it. That's how easy it is. Send your stuff to Good Citizen at PO Box 5373 Burlington Vermont 05402. And you'll see just how easy we are.

Be A Good Citizen,

Andrew Smith