SHEBANG ISSUE 3 LAUNCH PARTY!

After almost two years in the making we're proud to announce that SHEBANG ISSUE #3 IS READY TO GO! As long as all goes smoothly with the courier tomorrow morning, we'll have issue #3 in our hands by midday!

As an extra special suprise, we'll be launching the issue at Eagle Legs' FIRST London party tomorrow evening (Wed 30th March) at the Macbeth pub in Hoxton, where you can be the first to pick up a copy and to meet the whole team in person (we haven't all been together in the same room for three years, so it'll be quite an event!). A lot of our contributors and folk featured in the issue will be there (including Charlot Webster with her mixtape exchange (bring a cassette!) and Nikki from The Great Cake Escape covering the venue with cakes), so please come along to say hi and have a drink to celebrate with us.

Eagle Legs is Shebang's sister clubnight run by Liv and Ru, and to mark our London launch we'll be joined by guest DJs Colours, Dance Magic Dance, Off Modern and Wanda Whiskey, playing Riot Grrrl, Motown, soul and our favourite indie hits. We'll also have a zine table, so please bring along your zines/distros!

More on the event can be found HERE, and QUICK - there's only one day left of our preorder offer, so take advantage before the price goes up! Just CLICK for our online shop (overseas readers, please get in touch to sort out prices).

A HUGE thanks to all involved with the new issue, as always we couldn't do it without all of our talented writers and illustrators, and hope you enjoy reading it!

Lots of love,

Liv & Lynsey xx

Fundraising Art Fair for Japan

On the 3rd April, the folks behind the London Zine Symposium will be holding EGAKU (meaning "draw" and "imagine" in Japanese); a zine/print/art fair at Jaguarshoes in Shoreditch to raise money for the thousands affected by the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan. The organisers are trying to get as many donations as possible to help raise money, and are asking for zinesters/creatives to get in touch if interested in donating towards the cause. So far the list fo people involved includes NoBrow, Okido, Laura Carlin, Jean Jullien, Anorak Magazine and us!

The event starts at midday and goes on 'til 8pm, and if you can't make it down but want to help, then you can donate via this link. More on EGAKU here.

International Girl Gang Underground Zine

We recently got an email from Brooklyn/San Francisco-based International Girl Gang Underground, telling us that their in-the-works zine was ready for reading, and want to share the news!

The International Girl Gang Underground (IGGU) zine is a collection of stories, artwork and critical work on the subject of what effect the riot grrrl legacy has had on DIY feminist cultural production, twenty years on. Put together by Kate Wadkins (of For the Birds Collective, Brain Waves) and Stacy Konkiel (of Soul Ponies), the zine is available both online (with additional content) and in printed form.

Contributions come from writers, activists, musicians, and artists from ten US states and five countries; with original cover art by Philadelphia-based artist Sonrisa Rodriguez-Harrison. The online resource also has a directory of feminist cultural projects, and is still being added to. IGGU also want to encourage submissions of music reviews and zine-related content that will be released on their website.

The print zine is now available for purchase through the IGGU website. For futher info, see GIRLGANGUNDERGROUND.ORG or contact the editors at GIRLGANGUNDERGROUND(at)GMAIL.COM

Women of the World Festival

Liv and Rushka have just spent the weekend at the The Southbank Centre in London, taking part in the Women of the World Festival! It was a total honour to be asked to get involved - we were helping out with the Zines event, run by London-based female arts collective Storm In A Teacup (check out their blog to see what they get up to!).

The whole event was really well organised; our area had a live music stage curated by Emmy The Great, tables strewn with paper, scissors, a typewriter, a badge-making machine (!) and other materials for those wandering in to make up their own zines (run by creative collective Soupa), and a long shelf with everyone's zine collections on display for visitors to have a browse.

(Photo by Reena from Nest)
A few of us also gave talks about the zine-related projects we run, which was both terrifying and also a lot of fun. We spoke about Shebang and talked about how we came to get into zine culture and all that it has to offer. Our Powerpoint that we'd prepped the day before wasn't compatible with the laptop being used so we kind of had to wing it, but luckily made it through without forgetting too much! There were also really insightful talks from Reena and Anna from Nest, and Ellie and Bex from VV Collective who all do great things to help promote female artists.

(Photo by Clare from Soupa)

We also had a good chat with Katie from Fat Quarter zine, a female-friendly mag bursting with interviews, reviews and features to inspire and entertain. Definitely a new favourite!

As with all zine events, it's great to meet other collectives and zinesters face-to-face to chat about what everyone gets up to and to share tips and encouragement. We also met tons of cool girls with an interest in zines but who weren't sure how to get more involved with the zine scene or how to get started, so hopefully even more new reads will start springing up as a result! The weekend was a huge success and I'm sure the Teacups will return next year to spread some more ziney joy.

Oxford Zine Fair - Saturday 9th April

Unfortunately we're not able to make it, but there's a very special zine fair coming up in Oxford on the 9th April which celebrates all things DIY in the music community. The event is part of the city's 'Editions of You' festival, focused on giving musicians and music fans a chance to show off their handmade releases and zines.

They say: "Editions of You celebrates and showcases self-publishing and self-releasing musicians and the handmade editions and releases they create. Taking the form of an exhibition, zine fair, live music events, talks and happenings, Editions of You at the O3 Gallery and Oxford Castle seeks to unearth the underground culture of DIY artistry that combines music with artwork."

More details can be found here, and if you have a zine and want to get involved, you can contact Ellis at ellisjones(at)gmail.com.