Read: Girl Gang Zine

I've been a regular visitor to Maren's blog for a while now - every entry makes me want to book an impromptu flight straight to Berlin to see the subjects of her beautiful photography in person; her illustrations are delicate and ALWAYS depicting super cool girls (Wild Flag, 'Rebel Girl', the Las Robertas design for their recent European tour) and she has impeccable taste in music.

About a year ago, she told me about her idea for a zine around the theme of 'Role Models', and I must have typed out some answers to a few questions she emailed over. And then promptly forgot all about it in the midst of some winter blues and job worries.

But Girl Gang Zine has arrived! And what a fine papery read she is. I have no idea how Maren and Kristina managed to get SO many well known women involved - the contents page reads like the best party ever: Grass Widow, Brilliant Colors, Super Wild Horses, Cassie from Vivian Girls, Electrelane, Marnie Stern, Tavi Gevinson (Style Rookie/ Rookie Mag), Karin from Fever Ray/The Knife, Kate Nash, Zola Jesus & others, all openly chatting about their music, art, feminism, love, life and all the rest of it, in an incredibly candid manner. To have a page of my own about my zine, Shebang, is quite mindblowing & a total honour.

The zine is as lovely as you'd expect from two such talented girls - all images are illustrated, with text a mixture of hand-written intro's and typed Q&A's. A few of the women featured are new to me (The Blow, signed to K Records, in particular), so I've got plenty to look up, as well as others to revisit. With a quote from Kathleen Hanna kicking everything off, it was always set to be a winning read.

The zine is available from the Girl Gang Zine site - get yours quick!

Video: Vivian Girls - I Heard You Say

I was lucky enough to interview the Vivian Girls (as Katy, Cassie & Ali) many years ago, before their first Brighton show at The Freebutt. They were a really fun gang of friends, sharing sweet stories about their school days together and how they were still star-struck from when Thurston Moore watched their set from the side of the stage. They are also the single reason I started to change my mind about the appeal of tattoos:

Two and a half years later and Ali has left for Best Coast, replaced by new member Fiona Campbell, and it looks as though the messy, fuzzy garage of old has also developed into slicker, dreamier pop with more focus on the harmonies (though this could just be down to the production of the new record). Either way, it's still sounding pretty sweet.

The new album, Share The Joy, is out in April and is available to preorder here