Total Blast started in 1988. It was done by ‘Mike’ Michael Gough a.k.a Hyper Dermick (from Cathays, a suburb of Cardiff, the capital of Wales). After being on hiatus for some twenty-five years, it was revived for a couple of issues…
I have #4 (1990) in my collection. That, aswell as #2 (’88), is also available online. Besides cartoons there were also reviews and interviews with HC/punk bands. #2: ‘Instigators’ & ‘The Disturbed’ (Glasgow). #4: ‘Rectify’, ‘Disarm’ (Merthyr Tydfil, Wales), ‘Doom’ & ‘Filthkick’.
Brob
I did 4 issues of Total Blast from 1987-90. I got the name from a Vivienne Westwood quote in The Observer (newspaper). They were doing a 10th anniversary special of punk in 1986. She was saying how it revitalised everything and “it was a total blast”.
My zine was inspired by zines featuring the bands I wanted to read about, that weren’t getting coverage in the music-press or played on radio-stations. The written part was familiar interviews and reviews with bands of the time. It could be fairly scrappily presented with one issue being handwritten when I found myself without a typewriter. There was a crudely drawn comic-strip that was influenced by a comic punk-zine of the time called Ivor The Anarchist. This was about a fictional anarcho-punk band called the Thrashoholics and this first run of adventures ran for four years. The zine was a great way of getting to know more people and sometimes I was helped by people passing on their writings/comics after abandoning their own plans for a zine. The zine was sold at local gigs. I resurrected Total Blast for two issues in 2016/17 , still put out other zines and have contributed art/writings to the likes of Cubesville and Light Goes Out.
#1 was with ‘The Heretics’ [Cardiff] & ‘Heavy Discipline’ [Kettering]; #3 with ‘4Q’ [Colwyn Bay] & ‘Culture Shock’. #5 & 6 were comic-strips.
Mike
‘Rectify’ were a political (anarcho) punk band from Nantyglo/Blaina (north of Cardiff, in Wales). Wayne ‘Pig(gy)’ Cole sang, Mark ‘Wedge’ Wedgebury played drums, Andrew ‘Footy’ Foot was the orginal bassist (he had left the band by ‘91, to be replaced by Rob ‘Newt’ Newport) & Michael ‘Mudgie’ Mudge (R.I.P.) played guitar but left and Greg Comber joined… In 1990 they did a tape entitled Ebullition. They already had a split-LP out with ‘Bazzy & The Budgies’…
Brob Tilt's zine-world 2 