The first whiff of Wooooo came recently when the Massive brain trust were hanging out
and sipping lattes at its regular neighborhood nosh-and-coffee chill spot, Brown Café
on Hester St. in New York's Lower East Side.
Our usual energetic and friendly Aussie waiter suddenly thrust into our hands a copy of the new magazine,
as well as an invite card to the mag's launch party at local Mex-tapas bar Barrio Chino
(see photo of party, right).
The card read "Kegger." Well, that definitely got
our attention--the crew at Wooooo have got
mad skillz on the promotions tip.
Wooooo is essentially a local hipster zine that's like a cross between Interview and Flyer magazines.
Like the former all its features are raw Q-and-A style interviews with celebrated creative types. Unlike
Interview, the creative types (musicians, artists, DJs) questioned in
Woooooo are either obscure or mostly of minor celebrity (for now, at least).
These interviews are short (a bit too short sometimes), usually just a couple of pages. Among those who get
the interview treatment are Vespa-loving Italian Simone Pace from seminal New York indie band Blonde Redhead
and Brett Anderson, a.k.a. Donna A., who as lead singer of another New York rock outfit, the Donnas, has appeared frequently on MTV and VH1 and
is probably the most "celebrity" of the bunch.
Like Flyer, Wooooo is small--about the size of a large post card and just 32 pages thick--and can almost fit in your pocket. Unlike Flyer,
there are no listings or entertainment coverage. In fact there are no "departments" per se. The interviews are the
only content.
Our favorite interview is a conversation with a woman named Fang who crafts "fake sharp teeth" out of dental enamel
for goth kids. The Wooooo mag clan prove they won't hold back on asking a touchy question, as in this screwball they
threw at Fang:
What's up with the black folks going goth? Is that weird or is that just me?
Are there a lot of black goths? Is this a stupid question?
Uh, No ... "stupid" is not quite the word we had in mind.
By the way, it's pronounced "Wooooo" like a ghost's "Boo!" but with a "W" instead of the "B" and with five "O"s.
Or if this works better for you, like the "Wu" in Wu-Tang Clan, but spelled with those five "O"s. Take your pick. At any rate, the magazine
will be free and published quarterly.
Beside its size, what's most striking about Wooooo as you flip through it the first time is its overall design and layout,
which is equal parts clever and cryptic. Printed on a quality matte-finish paper, the mag doesn't feel cheap to the touch
like so many zines do.
The graphic design and illustrations are first-rate with an arty edge underscored by the two-color
printing (black-and-white with a deep lavender) and photos that are rendered with a large dot-pixel effect
like that of newspaper images when you look at them really close-up.
And also by the way, yes, we know, we know ... yet another magazine. As tiresome and unoriginal as the stream
of new mag titles and one-off zines may be for some, the Massive loudly applaud all efforts to be culturally productive
and to muster the energy and time it takes to produce a new entry into the info-saturated mediascape, especially when
its local, independent and well-made.
And remember for all those zines that come and go, some of them are quite good and stick around and eventually grow
up into great big magazines. Wooooo Magazine, welcome and big up to ya'!
--Instamatic + The Kid From Kyoto
RELATED LINKS
+ Wooooo Magazine Official Web Site
+ Lower East Side Tenement Museum Web Site
+ Barrio Chino [Citysearch]
+ Blonde Redhead Web Site at 4AD
+ The Donnas Web Site
