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Smash It Up was a Toronto punk fanzine. This issue came out in December 1980. This issues starts out with a report about local bands by Randy Swagger, which included information on the Points, the Sharks, the Government, the Demics, Martha and the Muffins, the Civilians, Teenage Head, Blank Generation, the Spoons, the B-Girls, the Secrets, True Confessions, the Viletones, Tyranna, and the Bop Cats.
The first interview is with the Slits where they wind up talking about Sid Vicious death, which had just happened.
There is an interview with Martha Johnson at a Hamilton show, where she sheds some light on how crappy it is to be signed to major label. I wish she had more space to elaborate.
There is an article on Ultravox which was done around a show they played in Toronto supporting "Vienna". I didn't realize that Midge Ure was in the Rich Kids and was offered the guitarist spot for the Pistols when Steve Jones left. This all seems weird talking about him as a guitarist in light of Ultravox being a synth band.
There is a review of a Joan Jett and the Blackhearts show with lots of photos.
There is an amazingly designed piece on a Siouxsie and the Banshees show on November 18th, 1980 at the Music Hall.
There is part one of an interview with Bangkok who were a new band that featured Mickey Skin of the Curse on vocals.
There is a back page ad for Edge Records which I am guessing had something to do with the Garys and were reported to have been releasing the Sharks record.
This is another issue of Smash It Up that came out somewhere in the fall of 1980. The editorial on the second mentions that this is the eigth issue to come out in the year so I imagine it would have been out in September or October. The cover is in Russian and in true Smash It Up fashion fills a need to play with the name of the publication. It was a provocative thing to do given that 1980 was the height of the Cold War being played out through a nuclear arms race. The zine plays up like a Russian issue that has been translated. The circulation of the zine was somewhere between 25 and 50 copies and was sold for $0.20 a copy.
This issue starts out with an interview with Gary Numan at the Holiday Inn, which was more like a shrug off. On the same page is a playlist and a list of new releases that had just come out.
The next feature is a piece on heavy metal with brief descriptions of bands like Sabbath and Priest and Saxon and KISS.
The next piece is about a band named the Civilians and they were about to release a record on Star Records (the label that put out the first Forgotten Rebels LP). The Garys thought they were too metal so they never booked them.
There was an interview with the Demics just after the album had been released. One of the big concerns by that record gets asked which is about the album sounding too overproduced.
There is a piece on the Sharks that took four attempts to get. The inteviewer spent some time trying to interview the band (four times) and there are some answers but different members in some of those times. But at the end the interview read a bit like the Tyranna interview that followed. I liked te Tyranna interview better.
There is a review section on punk films and one of those was a showing of a film named Crash 'n Burn about the club in Toronto that was shown in an art gallery. There was reviews of "D.O.A.", "Punking Out", "The Great Rock 'n Roll Swindle" and some reggae films like "The Harder they Come" and "Dread, Beat and Blood". There is also a big piece on a film which had the Clash in it called "Preacher Man".
There is also some great record reviews which includes one of the Talking Heads "Remain in Light".
The back cover had a neat poster photo of a band named the Feds that promotes a new single and a show for November at the Edge.
Thanks to Dhaibid James of Moondog Ballroom for loaning us the issue to scan.
