I keep asking Todd not to send me any zine I can’t read in fifteen minutes, and here he sends one that’s over three hundred fucking pages. The Carter Family biography I’m reading is barely longer than this Big Takeover and I’ve been reading it for two weeks. So here’s what I can get from the BT in fifteen minutes: Paul Westerburg (Replacements) cover, smoking cigar in western shirt. Interviews with the Flaming Lips, Wire, Mission of Burma, Mike Ness, Mike Watt, Pere Ubu’s David Thomas, Kim Salmon (Wanda rejoice!) and some other people who play music. Articles on the Hot Snakes, Promise Ring, Sleater Kinney, Superdrag and more people of music-making. Also an article on some punk festival here in SoCal where all the old granddads of punk played, even the Sex Pistols, and I don’t remember even hearing about it. A couple of things I found that I like: every article has every band mentioned in bold type, and the record reviews are organized by writer rather than band. I saw a full-page ad for the editor’s old punk band, Even Worse (they have a CD out of stuff recorded in '81). Thumbing through the thing reminds me of getting my fingers all over the Sears Wishbook as a young shaver (because of the paper, not the fact that I want so many things in it). Every single back issue (back to 1980!) is still available. There’s a new Heroine Sheiks record (though I couldn’t find a review of it because the reviews are arranged by writer rather than by band). Ringo Starr’s son plays drums for the Who. Time’s up. Good shit. –Cuss Baxter (The Big Takeover,