No need for any special introductions, by now you all know about my (beginning) involvement with Tigersuit zine and how much I am eager to spread the word about it. This interview was done to show you what it is all about and to get you ready for what is coming up. Read away, this is a long one!
M: Zdravo! I'm Dimitar (or in short Mitko). I'm still young, I'm passionated about DIY and hardcore/punk, I have various interests and love to communicate with people all over the world. If you want to get in touch with me, just write me an email and I'll try to reply you as soon as possible.
F: Здравей! I’m Filip, 17 years old, yo! Still in school and obsessed with DIY, design, photography and some other things.
2. I guess the first question should definitely be about how it all started, so lets take off from there. How did you come to the idea about making a zine and what is the general story behind it?
M: I'm reading and collecting zines since 2003/2004, but I have an interest in contributing to zines since 2005 when my friend came out with the idea to do a zine called Straight From The Inside. We prepared a lot of stuff for a short time, but it was very hard to find someone to do the layout. We didn't want to print a zine with some bullshit layout, the idea was to do something really worth it or not doing it all. That's why Straight From The Inside zine was never printed on paper. At the same time a friend of mine, who is a famous Bulgarian skateboarder, printed the first issue of his zine Катарзис (the Bulgarian word for Catharsis), it was actually a zine with Bulgarian translations of some texts from Days of War, Nights of Love and other CrimethInc. stuff. I was very excited about it and together with some other friends we decided to start a website where to publish all of the stuff that we did for Straight From The Inside and expand it with the Crimethinc. translations, texts about DIY, politics, veganism, dropping out, freeganism etc. We were very passionate crew of young people and the idea was to become some sort of Bulgarian cell of CrimethInc. collective! The website is still going strong and you can check it out at www.diyconspiracy.net In 2006 our friends from a small Bulgarian town asked us to release their CD, the band was called Old Joe’s Anger and we decided to start a small DIY label using the name Straight From The Inside. So SFTI became a label and a small distro. Since 2005 I have been contributing with columns or interviewing bands for different paper zines all over the world.
The idea of Tigersuit Zine came out in summer 2010. I met Filip on my birthday and I liked his artwork. He did the header for diyconspiracy.net and he was very excited about starting a paper zine. I was travelling a lot during the whole summer and the idea was to put out a zine with travelling stories and interviews with different people I did during my travels (I went to some great shows and festivals). And Filip was very enthusiastic to do the layout.
The problem was that my cell phone was stolen just before coming back home to Bulgaria in August. All the interviews that I did were recorded on the phone. I’m very mad about this, there were some amazing interviews there. But we didn’t stop there. I wrote a report about Fluff Fest 2010 and began sending interview questions to some cool bands. I did the interview with Analena, Filip
the one with Lost In Bazaar, our friend (he plays in Expectations and Throat Fisting) interviewed Anchor, one Swedish guy (I met him at Fluff Fest and he is a singer of Forever Young, check them out!) wrote a report from the Gothenburg hardcore scene and so on. We started Tigersuit #1 on September 3rd 2010 and finished the zine on September 11th 2010!!! Really, we did the first issue from scratch just for a week! There was a Placebo show in Sofia on September 13th and I was selling the first copies of the zine at the show of the indie/pop band from the UK. The second issue was much better (it took us much longer than a week) and it came out in December 2010.
The third issue is in the works and is going to be out in March 2011. All of the 3 issues are in Bulgarian language only, but we’re planning to put out a Best Of Issue (Tigersuit #4) in June that will be in English language (!) and feature the best interviews from all the 3 issues so far. We’re planning to print best of issues in English each time after doing 3 issues in Bulgarian. So my dream is to print issues 5, 6, 7 in Bulgarian as well as #8 in English before the end of the world in 2012.
About the name: Tigersuit is a song by the Italian emo-punk band Raein. They are awesome!
F: Well, Mitko said pretty much everything, so the only thing that I can add here is that I wanted so fucking much to put out paper zine, but it was very hard to find other people who share the same pinch to do it. There were some people who liked the idea but he was the only one with whom to do it for real.
3. Were you guys friends prior to the beginning of this project or did you meet thanks to it?
M: No. We met on my birthday in 2010. I was searching for someone to do some artwork for me and we were communicating for a short time on the internet before inviting him on my birthday party.
F: In such a small country like ours the nice people don't have any other chance but to meet in one moment or the other (:
4. How many of you are involved in the work for the zine?
M: Only me and Filip are doing all the layout, editing and hard work for the zine. But there are some friends writing columns, doing interviews etc. Some of them play in Bulgarian hardcore bands such as Резервен план (Rezerven Plan) and Expectations.
5. Can you tell me something more about the Bulgarian underground scene? In a way, did it manage to inspire you to do the zine?
M: There are not so many Bulgarian bands that I’m interested in. Though, there are some good bands and we’re interviewing one Bulgarian band in each issue. We did an interview with Bright Sight for the first issue; with our close friends Expectations for the second; and Indignity (my all time favorite Bulgarian hardcore band) for the third issue. I’ve broadened my horizon on underground music so much in the last 5 years and I’m listening to a lot of different bands and music styles. Although, there are not so many interesting bands in Bulgaria and despite the fact I’m doing a zine, I don’t go to shows so often as I did before. Some of the guys from Expectations are doing For The Kids booking and they are very passionate about organizing and booking shows of good bands from abroad. They booked shows for Ruiner, Carpathian, Confronto, L’Homme Puma, Sofy Major.
What inspires me to do a zine? Mainly the communication and the ideas part of the International DIY hardcore/punk network. I know hundreds of people from all over the world who are really inspiring and seeing the amazing things they are doing I just can’t sit down and do nothing. Greg Bennick from Trial is one of them, Brian from Catharsis, From The Depths, CrimethInc. is one of them, and there are many more.
F: Well, IMHO the Bulgarian underground scene is sort of stuck right now. There aren’t many young bands to pop up, there are bands who still do shows, but they play for 5 or 10, or even more years and there aren’t many new releases.
6. I'm always interested to ask about gigs in the Balkan region. Are they happening often in your local environment?
M: There are shows in The Box club in Sofia very often, but I’ve seen most of the local bands hundreds of times and I’m not very much into their music. I respect the people in these bands, but I don’t feel so motivated to go to every show as I was doing in the past. It’s much harder to book a show of a foreign band, because the people are going to shows only when a bigger band like Sick of it All or Agnostic Front is coming to play in Sofia, and there are just a few people for the smaller DIY bands. I have a lot of friends throughout Europe and I’m more excited about going to shows in foreign countries. And I would love to visit some great European festivals such as Cry Me A River, Fluff Fest, Play Fast Or Don’t, Punk Illegal…
7. Are there any more zines in Bulgaria or similar music related projects with which you can collaborate somehow?
M: There were some paper zines in the past, but they weren’t very serious and stopped doing it after a few issues (and a very long break between the issues). There are some nice projects, but in the form of blogs and webzines. We’re the only DIY hardcore paper zine that is active in the moment, but I hope we can inspire some kids to start a new zine soon.
8. What have been your experiences with diy attitudes, good and bad, both regarding the zine and in general?
M: The bad experience is generally the lack of money. The shipping is very expensive when you order stuff from abroad and it’s very hard to run a zine, label or distro in a country like Bulgaria. There are very few people interested in buying records or zines. I’m sorry to say this, but my experience is that the
older people from the Bulgarian hardcore scene have an elitist attitude towards younger kids like us. They think they know everything and are not interested in supporting the things that we are doing, because "they’ve heard it all before", they were interested in ideas, communication, activism when they were our age, but now they are not interested anymore and they talk to us as we are some hopeless romantic idealists, not in touch with the reality, which of course for them means to find your comfort and complacency. There are also a lot of negative reactions towards things like politics, veganism and/or straight edge. Some people don’t feel comfortable when we express such ideas. On the other hand there are some younger kids who have a lot of enthusiasm, but it’s not so easy to spread the word about the things we’re doing and reach them. Most of the kids didn’t know about the existence of the first issue of our zine before the printing of the second issue, which received more feedback and “advertisement”. Feel free to contact me if you have any ideas how to approach more kids without the need of money or using non-DIY channels of communication and advertisement. We still don’t want to do a facebook account or group for Tigersuit, no twitter and no bullshit myspace!
F: To quote Zegota: “Feel! I'm still here and just as real. Is this where we're left? Down, down, down. Wandered in on this. Lost on my own over time. Inside I find LOVE I've never known. There are things we should see. Given the chance hearts may dance. Though, no safety lies with this. If everything’s at stake yet there's nothing left to lose. So intense, so ON FIRE. Let loose in open fields. Every chance and every risk. All for life. And all for love. And all with honesty” DIY!
9. You have been writing intensively about veganism, animal rights and issues concerning animal cruelty. Are you part of any activist group or is the zine the only way you contribute? Do such groups even exist in Bulgaria?
M: Yes, I’m vegan and I’m contributing in any way possible to raise awareness and inspire action about human/animal liberation. I don’t find it necessary to go into details about the variety of approaches and things I’m doing in the area of animal rights, but I should make it clear, that for me veganism and animal liberation are not just a personal choice or a diet. I’m very influenced by the writings of such activists as Steve Best PhD., check out www.negotiationisover.com and http://drstevebest.wordpress.com/
Some mainstream animal rights/vegetarian groups exist in Bulgaria, but I’m not much interested in supporting them, because they are very elitist and middle/upper class, focusing on vegetarianism (instead of veganism) as simply a diet and consumer choice through buying super expensive and exotic foods from “ethical” capitalists, they ally with religious morons instead of social movements and they are striving for institutional reforms and legislation (if not looking for the “divine truth” and coming of Christ). I don’t like how they are using the same rhetoric as the abusers - they say that ALF are terrorists, they shouldn’t allow people with “extremist” views in their organization etc. They don’t tolerate different approaches, they’re just a bunch of pacifists with no rational social thinking, who believe that the animal abusers will see the Enlightment and stop abusing and murdering non-humyn animals, when they see how many people start eating tofu instead of meat. A lot of vegetarians are into Christianity, Krishna or some bullshit sects like Supreme master Ching Hai or the worst of all, a Bulgarian spiritual sect called Byaloto bratstvo (White Brotherhood).
So, instead of supporting such “animal rights” groups, I’m concentrating more in the field of some social projects like the project Life After Capitalism, which is a project based in Sofia with the main goal to analyze and reveal the true exploitative nature of the current capitalist system and neo-liberal agenda, to show why there are so many people around the world suffering from and opposing capitalism, what kind of alternatives and strategies are possible to be build and developed in a future society, where the spheres of economy, politics and kinship should be based on solidarity, equity, diversity, and justice. There is a website www.lifeaftercapitalism.info and the collective is organizing events such as lectures, open discussions and writing/translating texts by authors such as Michael Albert, Robin Hahnel, John Holloway, Chris Spannos and others. Some of the alternatives presented (but not limited to) are Participatory Economics (Parecon), Participatory Politics/Society, Inclusive Democracy, Gift Economy, different approaches to the libertarian theories and practice. In 2010 the collective published a book containing some of the best publications that appeared on the website in its first year of existence. The book is called “Докато питаме, вървим” (“Asking we walk”). The name of the book was taken from a Zapatista slogan, used by the sociologist John Holloway. The collective is now translating in Bulgarian language the book by Holloway himself called “Crack Capitalism” (Pluto Press, 2010). Some people in the Life After Capitalism collective are supporting veganism/animal liberation, others not.
F: Our friend xMissuesx from Резервен план (Rezerven Plan) released a benefit animal rights compilation with a lot of hardcore/punk/hip-hop/acoustic songs about veganism and animal liberation. The money from the compilation have been donated to different AR causes and ALF prisoners. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p5WuOKfY0A
10. You did some very interesting interviews with Atanas P. Slavov, Raoul Vaneigem, Richard Paulin...how did those happen?
M: Actually only the interview with Atanas P. Slavov was done by us. He is a Bulgarian sci-fi writer and our friend. It’s a great pleasure for us to know him. He promised to write a column for Tigersuit Zine in each issue. He was the “chairman” of the Bulgarian sci-fi club “Ivan Efremov” and published a lot of books and journals about sci-fi and dystopian literature, he is organizing very interesting events and discussions dedicated to the social and political aspects of the science fiction and he is also contributing to the Life After Capitalism project. He is eating raw vegan food and he is one of the most intelligent Bulgarians I’ve ever met. You know that fanzines originally came from the science fiction clubs. And he is very interested in sci-fi fanzines, the history of zines and independent publishing in general.
The interviews with Vaneigem and Paulin
were old pieces, published originally in French or English language and we just translated them. We’re focusing on our own author material in the zine, but there are some great things published in English or other languages that I know no Bulgarian would read if we don’t translate them in our language. That’s why in each issue we’re translating something interesting published before us. The interview with Raoul Vaneigem is originally from “La Libre Belgique” (2008) and the interview with Richard Paulin was conducted by Claudette Vaughan for “Abolitionist”. All the interviews in the third issue are conducted by us. But we are planning to translate some of the stuff from the legendary No Answers zine #9 by Kent McClard, done by him before HeartattaCk and being published together with the Downcast 7” on Ebullition. I’m talking about translating the same zine which contained the “rage against the machine” phrase, later used by Zack De La Rocha to form his new band after Inside Out.
11. Do you think that zines can take on an educational role? Did you ever think about the possibility that your columns or interviews can change someone's mind about a certain matter?
M: There was a song called “Education” by a vegan straight edge band called New Winds from Portugal. The lyrics of the song are about zines as a tool for education and spreading ideas and community spirit within the hardcore/punk network. I really hope that the columns and interviews can change someone’s mind about certain matter, influence people to make positive choices, inspire creativity and critical thinking. I’m very happy to send zines by mail-order to kids living in a distant town, I know how much pressure do they feel living in a small town with no hardcore or DIY scene, fashion stereotypes, the feeling of isolation and apathy within their peers, and the shit they get from their family and friends if they speak about things like veganism or straight edge. I hope that the zines and records are something really worth it and a real form of communication for them with same minded people living very far away from them.
F: Definitely! The whole idea behind the zines is to spread ideas, DIY ethics, tips, recipes for disasters and etc. In my opinion there must be more zines with recipes about cooking, making Molotov cocktails, turning a bicycle into record player, how to smash the system etc…
12. How does the process of doing interviews go for you, do you have a predetermined list of questions or just go with the flow?
M: I’m putting a lot of thoughts and awareness when thinking of the interview questions, I don’t have a predetermined list of questions and I’m using different approach depending on the person/band I’m interviewing. And I try to interview bands in different genres of underground hardcore/punk community. People with different attitude, mindset, opinions, lifestyles. Some of the zines that have the biggest impact on me are HeartattaCk, Inside Front, and Profane Existence.
13. Are your interviews done live or via mail? And which do you prefer?
M: Some of them are done live, some via email. I don’t know which is one is better, it depends on the person/band that you’re interviewing. Both ways are great if you’re striving for communication and discussion. I’m personally a shy person and feel a bit nervous when talking with inspiring people face to face. So, to some extent I feel more comfortable doing it via email. I won’t forget my first “live” interview back in 2006, me and my friend interviewed the punk-rock collective P.A.W.N.S. (Power And Wealth Need Slaves) before their show in Varna. We were very shy teenagers, but the interview went great and this is still one of the best interviews I’ve ever did. Ann and Shaun from P.A.W.N.S. are both historians and some of the most intelligent and outspoken people I’ve ever found in the punk scene. And their lyrics are really amazing. If you like intelligent punk with political message, inspired by bands like Nomeansno, Dead Kennedys, The Avengers, Submission Hold etc, you should definitely check out The PAWNS collective.
14. Time for you to ask something!
M: Are you still listening to Saetia and why do you like this band? Are there a lot of people in Serbia who ask you about where the name “Natures with no plagues” comes from?
Yes, I am still listening to Saetia, but not as much as before. Despite that I still love the band and definitely see them as an important figure in the screamo genre. What made me like their music is pretty hard to explain, but most probably the fact that never before have I heard and sensed such honesty and passion in music. You can literally touch all the emotions evoked in their music, it's unbelievable. I remember that when I heard them I instantly fell in love with both them and later with the whole genre.
Believe it or not, I think that only two or three people here asked me about the name. Not a lot of people listen to this kind of music here, basically that is the reason why the blog is in English. Similar to that, I think that generally a low number of people from Serbia follow my blog and to be honest I don't know how much of them visit, aside of a few people close to me who follow my work.
15. Care to share your top releases for the last year and all time favorites?
M: Wow, the hardest question. I’m listening to really a lot of different stuff. My favorite band seems to be Rudimentary Peni and I love insane people like Nick Blinko. OK, some bands that have impact on me: Crass, Conflict, Subhumans (UK), The Mob (UK), Riot/Clone, Zounds, N.O.T.A., Crucifix, Youth of Today, Minor Threat, Discharge, Life, But How To Live It?, Los Crudos, His Hero Is Gone, Unbroken, Trial, Catharsis, Tragedy, Orchid, Pg.99, The Assistant, Funeral Diner, Raein, Amanda Woodward, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Gather, 7 Generations, Ampere and many more. About top records of 2010: new Run With The Hunted, The Saddest Landscape, The Effort, El Banda, Thou, Rosetta, Agrimonia, Envy and many more. And I love the stuff by Eric Ayotte that came out in 2010 and I’m glad that I saw him performing live.
F: Don’t know about the records, but some of my favorite bands are: The Saddest Landscape, The Birds Are Spies, They Report To The Trees, I Would Set Myself On Fire For You, Raein, From The Depths, Noisy Sins Of The Insect, Dollores (new band from Ukraine, check them out!!!), Reversal Of Man, Suis La Lune, Saetia, a lot of crust, powerviolence, grind… The list is endless.. =)
16. What are your plans for the future?
M: To finally visit Cry Me A River, to visit Fluff Fest again. To be in good health, to be passionate about everything I’m doing, to find more nice people who share relevant ideas and are brave enough to fight for their desires. About the zine: there are so many great bands, that I haven’t interviewed yet, so many things that I want to see printed in Bulgarian language, and a lot of great people still to meet.
F: To go at Fluff for a first time, to buy shitload of records and zines, to finish school… To support local (but not only) bands. If you want some artwork to be done I would like to do it, just write me :) I hope to publish a portfolio soon (:
17. Do you play in a band beside working for the zine? And do you have any other hobbies?
M: No, I don’t play any music and I can’t sing. I have a lot of hobbies, but don’t want to make this interview any longer with talking about my hobbies.
F: Not yet, but this summer I'll play harder the bass, so I hope that the first Bulgarian screamo band will appear soon. Besides that I love origami and photographi.
18. In the end, thanks again for talking for the blog. Any final messages for the readers?
M: The first two issues were completely ad-free, but the printing cost is very high. We don’t work any jobs and it’s really expensive to print Tigersuit Zine. So we’re doing advertisements for Tigersuit #3, you can get in touch through email and send us your ads. We don’t want to have fixed price for ads. It’s a donation price. You can still send us an ad for Tigersuit #3, which is in Bulgarian language, but if you send an ad that will be published in the third issue, we will use the same ad again in Tigersuit #4 that will be in English. We’re always open to communication. Write us at sfti.diy@gmail.com or tigersuitzine@gmail.com
Go vegan, listen to Lepa Brena and Ceca Veličković! Be creative, take care and watch the Monthy Python’s movies (or Serbian comedy movies, if you already have watched Monthy Python’s stuff!)
F: Question everything and do it fucking yourself!!!
“Now all we need is courage and a brick. To breathe strength and beauty into all our lives"
