Several years ago I had the chance to work in Demark and live in Copenhagen for three months. Copenhagen is a very nice and cool place. The people are great and I met about a dozen hip dudes and dudettes. My goal in Copenhagen was to try and meet the old hardcore band called the Electric Deads. Instead, I met Anderz Nielsen--former boyfriend of the Electric Deads' singer--after his band's show one night. Anderz is such a great person; he showed me around and introduced me to a bunch of great people. Through him I met Ole Kirk and Peter "Mr. Big Guy" Markham. Peter was peddling this giant slab of coolness called Moshable--the baddest garage/punk/pimp-daddy/swank fanzine I had seen in a while. It was loaded with cool photos, great interview lineups, schlock B movie spreads, pinup gals and tons of reviews. This once-little 'zine had grown to become the number one music journal in Scandinavia. These guys had the pulse of Scandinavia in their hands, giving insight into bands that went on to define the major explosion of that scene. I have followed the continuation of Moshable and the rise of Bad Afro Records. Since the Moshable guys were losing steam and going to call it a day, they wanted to go out with a bang. Moshable and Bad Afro records have put together a two-day "Adios Moshable" festival to coincide with the last-ever release of this mighty fanzine. Last fall when I was in Copenhagen, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Peter to get the history of Moshable and what future plans he has. Lars was unable to attend this meeting to give input about Bad Afro Records, so I emailed him some questions later. Besides getting the scoop on Moshable, I also had many a drunken night with the badass bowler of the Devil's Lane Gang. I would like to thank everyone for a great time and Ole and Peter for letting me watch their house and kitties, Lars for the fabulous photos and "Mr. Big Guy" for his gracious hospitality.

Peter Markham: I lived in a small town and was extremely bored. When I was in school the other kids went to play soccer and I sat at home receiving letters and trading records from all over the world. I started writing a fanzine when I was 13 years old. It was mainly a metal magazine called Metallic Beast, but I interviewed all major metal bands of that era--Metallica, Slayer, etc. It lasted from 1984 to 1987. Lars from Moshable wrote his first-ever published article for Metallic Beast.

Lars was the one who started Moshable?

Peter: Lars and a guy named Simon started Moshable in 1986. I joined about four years later. My fanzine was getting a little too out of hand, with me doing just about everything, but I had a friend Ole Kirk contributing some for this.

How many pages were you running and how often did this come out?

Peter: It was quite big--54 pages 8x5 format. I published it in both Danish and English. In three years I put out four issues. I also had distribution in America.

You were not involved with the startup of Moshable--what was your involvement upon joining?

Peter: I tried to start another fanzine with a couple of other friends and this was too much work. I thought since they already had a fanzine running I could just contribute and not have to do all the mail order and letters. I joined them in about 1989; a few years later I was doing the entire layout and it got a lot bigger.

What was your main musical focus?

At this time, it was just two people and coming out twice a year?

Peter: Yeah, something like that, but it was a lot smaller and photocopied and sort of cut-and-paste layout. Did you see any of the earlier issues?

No, my first issue was around number ten.

Peter: The first issue they actually joked that they were going to have a Kiss poster in it, but we had a Kiss interview years later.

Starting up your own fanzine and joining Moshable helped you beat the boredom of the small Danish scene. This also helped you get other exciting music from around the world?

Peter: Yeah, I also have really good friends all over the world, like you, because of this fanzine. I can travel everywhere because of the people I have contacted.

There isn't a state in America that you can't go without a place to stay?

Peter: Maybe Alaska, but it is also a way of being involved with music when you didn't have what it takes to play the guitar or the drive for it. The main thing to doing a fanzine is we're big music fans.

Peter: It was mainly after the Sub Pop thing. We got exposed to a lot of bands, like Thee Headcoats and bands you never heard of before. There wasn't much of a garage scene here. At least not in Copenhagen, which was attached to the hardcore punk scene. There still isn't much of a garage scene here. I think through the mid- to late '80s, bands like The Lyres, The Cynics, and The Nomads were the bands [that people knew of] around here. Lars was into these bands, but at the same time they were also into hardcore. Moshable still covered garage bands, but not as much as hardcore. Lars said there were two albums that changed his way of looking at punk rock: the first Fugazi LP and the first Mudhoney mini-LP. These were very different from everything else. I think garage was still in the underground in the late '80s, all those mop-top kinds of bands, like Stomach Mouths from Sweden and Lust-O-Rama from Norway. Of course The Nomads were around, but they had turned into a more of a straight rock band.

You have interviewed Soundgarden?

Peter: Yes, this was set up by a special connection through Lars, he was writing for a major music newspaper. When we met them, their management people said that we couldn't smoke around them because they don't smoke. We asked them if we could drink beer? The management said, "no, just drink some coffee." Soundgarden were bumming smokes from us and the bass player, Ben Shepherd, kicked open the hotel bar so we could have some beer. It is pretty funny meeting all these bands through the years, there isn't any difference between them and us. It is just that they play music and we don't. When we talk about music they like pretty much the same bands we do.

What are some of the positives and negatives of writing for Moshable?

Peter: You get to meet a lot of people. It gives you a good excuse to talk to bands you admire. Pretty much every band I've met are nice people and some are a little flaky. Of course all the freebies that come with it. You don't have to pay for music and you get into shows. You do have to listen to a lot of very bad music, though.

Peter: Advertising is actually what you really have to be involved in. A lot of labels promise you things and you constantly have to remind them that they promised you this ad. The deadline was two weeks ago and you still said that you wanted to have it. This is really a bit frustrating...it mostly has been some of the small labels, a lot of people who run them have jobs and the label is just a hobby for them. You can understand that, but a lot of the bigger labels are flaky. The most professional label I've dealt with is Estrus Records. He [Dave Crider] always gets his ads out before deadline and he always does what he says he's going to do. Estrus is the best label, even Epitaph Europe are kind of difficult. There are about 40 people working there and you talk to five different people. One is going to pay, you have to send the magazine to another one and the third person is going to do the ad. This is a bit frustrating.

How many do you print for each run, are they distributed worldwide, and do you have distribution?

Peter: We print 1,500-2,000 copies worldwide. We distribute mainly in Europe because it is extremely expensive to mail them overseas. This has probably killed our fanzine because we could do 10,000 or more copies worldwide, but we don't have that kind of money for postage.

1  2  3  Next->