Whatever

Andrew Smith gets all self-important and talks about himself.

Hey, we're back. Like clockwork, huh? I know you're probably thinking "What? Good Citizen is sticking to a schedule? Conformists! Sell-outs!" Well, truth be told it's the middle of winter and we don't have much else to do, so here we are again. We're going to stick to a quarterly schedule if it kills us...or unless it kills us, I guess. We're thinking February, May, September and December will be cool months to have a new Good Citizen sitting around the state in tidy little piles. We hope that you agree, and if you don't . . . start your own damned zine, okay?

What are we doing? Well, since you asked . . . On December 26th of last year we had a great party at Club Toast in Burlington to celebrate the release of our third Soundtrack to the Zine, which is in stores all over the place right now. Go buy it. We had a rocking good time at the show and Joshe Henry, Spill, Dysfunkshun, the D. Jarvis Band, Cranial Perch and my band Chin Ho! all played short, action-packed sets to a very nice crowd. The album features fifteen Vermont bands and is a great way to sample a whole bunch of bands without taking much of a risk, so we hope you'll run to your local record store and get yourself a copy. Our first volume of this series is now out of print and fetching a pretty high price whenever it shows up on the used market, so get this new one while you can. It won't last long.

We've been sending the disc out to VIP's wherever we can find them, and our effort is already paying off for some bands. One band in particular has already been visited by a hot shot manager from New York City and if all goes well, their career may be headed in dramatic directions very quickly. And we'll be bragging about it all right here when it happens, so keep watching.

We've banded together with a Boston-based promotions company called the Planetary Group to tell the whole damned world about Vermont music. Good Citizen, Big Heavy World and the band Zola Turn have teamed up with Planetary's Adam Rabinowitz to send out a massive package called "The Burlington Bomb." Five CD's: Chin Ho!'s Low Flying Planes, Zola Turn's Cousin Battie, Good Citizen Soundtrack Volume 3 and Big Heavy World's Sonic Bionic and Pop Pie are all on their way to radio stations all over the country along with Good Citizen #6 and the Big Heavy World catalog. Adam will be following up on the package and encouraging his contacts to check out all this great music from Burlington. Hey, uh, thanks Adam!

What else is happening? Oh yeah, on Thursday, April 2nd at Club Toast, Good Citizen is happy to present a live taping of the Good Citizen Video Hour, our local cable access television program that airs every Sunday night at 10 pm on Adelphia Cable channel fifteen in the Burlington area. Filmed by Karen McGregor of Azure Moon Productions, we'll have five bands rocking the house including Chin Ho!, Never Again (formerly known as Last Ones Standing), Zola Turn, Spill and one more band that we'll announce shortly. Come on down and get the back of your head on television.

And finally, there are a whole bunch of cool people working really hard on the next Burlington Music Conference. The BMC will happen this summer from July 29th through August 2nd and will be a pretty exciting event in Burlington music history. Over a hundred bands will play during the five day regional conference, and if you're a musician who wants to get involved, contact Tom or Victoria at the BMC ASAP. OK? Check out the ad in this issue for more details.

Okay, have I covered everything? Oh, one more thing: please make it your mission to call whatever radio station you listen to and request local music. You will make a difference in the lives of real people. Isn't that better than helping Eddie Vedder? I'm sure that he's a nice guy and all, but he doesn't need your help. Local bands do.

Be A Good Citizen,

Andrew Smith