Fanzine exhibition at the public library of Sint-Niklaas

Some of my zines are part of this exhibition about fandom, music, and zines:

 

FAN ZIJN expo

“Fan zijn, wat is dat juist? Misschien ben je wel een stiekeme fan en blijf je graag wat meer onder de radar? Met een slaapkamer die volhangt met posters van je idool of wie weet, zelfs een dekbedovertrek. Maar wat als je net met Jan en alleman wil delen van wie jij fan bent? Hoe toon je dat ‘fan zijn’ aan de wereld? Door een t-shirt van je favoriete band of artiest aan te trekken? Of ga je all the way en maak je zelf een Fanzine from scratch?

De Bib verzamelde Fanzines van vroeger en nu, die veel meer coveren dan het vertellen van een muzikaal verhaal. De makers ervan schrijven niet enkel óver, maar ook vóór hun gemeenschap, hun subcultuur. Deze Fanzines zijn verbluffende, visueel prikkelende documenten die getuigen van een enorme Do It Yourself-attitude.

Dat de streamingplatformen intussen de wereld hebben veroverd moeten we je niet vertellen. Dat de cassette bezig is aan een heuse opmars en terugvecht voor zijn ereplaats is wel groot en vooral verrassend nieuws! Treed naast de platgetreden Spotify-paden en (her)ontdek de fysieke ervaring van de cassette.

Echte fans herken je meteen aan hun band shirt. Trek je coolste bandshirt aan en vereeuwig jezelf op onze wall of fame!

FAN ZIJN is een onderdeel van PPPUSH-IT”

More info @ UitinVlaanderen

More info @ Pppush-it

When?

Visit on Saturdays or Sundays from May 7th – June 20th 2021

Free entrance: book to visit

Where?

Bibliotheek Sint-Niklaas
3 Hendrik Heymanplein
9100 Sint-Niklaas
Belgium

 

Virtual Swansea Zine Fest – now!

This is happening now! (By the way, you can hear me read from one of my zines this afternoon…). Follow this amazing virtual zine fest on Facebook or Youtube.

Zines I’ve read in 2021 (April – birthday edition)

My birthday happened in April – second one in the pandemic 😮 – and for this occasion I decided to treat myself and order lots of zines online. If there hadn’t been a pandemic this past year, I would have travelled to zine fests all over Europe and spent lots of money on zines there so I could just as well support the zine community through mail order and give myself some fresh reading materials at the same time. 🙂

The zines I read in April were mostly zines I still had lying around, a lot of them rediscovered by reorganising my boxes (yes, boxes plural!) full of unread zines. It kind of felt like attending a zine fest at my own home. 🙂 Some of the zines I had recently ordered or swapped also arrived on time for me to read them this month.

So the zines I read this month included writings and artwork about covid, crafts, experiences of a brown girl, gardening, music, anxiety, travelling, body hair, organising a housing co-op, and much more.

Scroll down for links to where to find these zines and for more photos:

Lost Luna mini-zines #1-3

I’m announcing a new mini-zine* series: Lost Luna Zine and as you may or may not know, #1 + 2 + 3 are already out!

Lost Luna is the name of my solo music project and I felt like making some zines to go along with the music:

Zines I’ve read in 2021 (Mini-Zine March edition 2021)

Ziiiiines! Last month was Mini-Zine March so I tried to read at least a few mini-zines (typically an A4 sheet of paper folded into a booklet) but most of them came in other formats and sizes.

I read zines about the Marvel Comics films, recovering from and coping with mental illness, unexplainable phenomena, bedrooms, outfits, a female composer, women in metal, documentaries of bands like L7 and the discographies of Hole and Buffalo Tom, as well as zines with amazing artwork, retro collages, and even a golden-glitter silkscreened cover that turns into a poster. There are newsletters (some including a sudoku!), poems, comics, interviews, personal writing, and more, proving once more the diversity in style and subjects found in zines. Go check them out if any or all of them appeal to you and go make your own zine!

More photos and contact details below:

Lost Luna’s Shadow Play EP out now!

I’m excited to announce that “Shadow Play“, the debut EP of my solo project Lost Luna is out and available to listen to or download now!

❤

Today, April 2nd 2021, Lost Luna releases its first EP “Shadow Play”. Home-recorded during the covid-19 lockdown and completely DIY in every sense of the word, the EP offers a mix of lo-fi discopunk and alternative rock songs about the beauty industry, racism during the pandemic, and feeling alienated at work.
“Shadow Play” is available on Bandcamp to listen to for free and as a digital download. There are also merch bundles including zines, postcards, and buttons for sale.

I’ve put together two merch bundles for the “Shadow Play” album that also include a digital download of the songs. Both bundles contain 3 mini-zines especially made for this release: one with the lyrics and song stories, one about being a musician during the pandemic and reclaiming space in a cismale-dominated world, and one about some of the musicians and bands who’ve been inspiring and influencing me to make this EP. The deluxe merch bundle contains additional mini-zines about playing guitar, finding creative  inspiration, and what I like about zines.

The 4 buttons that are included in the merch bundles betray some of my main inspirations: queercore, riot grrrl, and mixtapes. And then there’s one with the Lost Luna logo of course.

Finally, a home-recording-themed postcard is included in each bundle and 4 extra postcards featured my artwork are part of the deluxe bundle. The postcards are also for sale separately.

Enjoy listening! ❤

• Lost Luna on Bandcamp
• Lost Luna’s blog
• Music on Echo’s blog
• Lost Luna on Echo’s blog

Announcement: “Shadow Play” digital EP by Lost Luna out tomorrow!

Lost Luna’s Shadow Play EP will be out tomorrow on Bandcamp Day!

It’s a digital release only (for now) but I will offer some merch bundle options too.

Find Lost Luna on Bandcamp and her blog and check back here tomorrow for more news!

Read how Lost Luna started and how the EP happened.

Reviving Lost Luna – my one-grrrl-band

Lost Luna is the name I invented for my “one-grrrl-band” or solo music project 20 years ago or so. Ever since I was in my mid/late teens, I wanted to play in a band and write and record songs. But because it took a while to find band mates with a similar musical taste and DIY-attitude (or anyone who lived nearby, played an instrument and wanted to jam at all), I decided to start making music on my own. I’ve since played in a few bands – now in the amazing Lavender Witch – but from time to time I still pick up where I left off with Lost Luna.

Read on for memories from the “early days” and my current plans:

One year since confinement – making quaranzines

Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and lockdown several calls for contributions for quaranzines have been launched. While the pandemic keeps spreading and a lot of us are still (or again) in some kind of lockdown situation, making zines as well as reading about other people’s experiences can bring some relief. I’ve made or contributed to several quaranzines myself, which you can find below. I’ve also gathered some resources for online zines, creative ideas, and mental health support.

 

One year since confinement – crafty projects as a means of survival

It’s almost exactly one year ago that the covid-19 pandemic started being taken seriously where I live and that a (semi)lockdown was instated. So it’s a good moment to reflect on that past year. A scary year, a difficult year for most people, with a lot of loss, loneliness, fear, frustrations, sadness, anger, and grief, and some beautiful moments in between. I’m happy I decided to start drawing about what things were like more or less since the beginning because I tend to forget things so fast, like everyone else probably. So much has happened and so much has changed since then. It’s important to document this time for so many reasons. That’s why the “quaranzines” that were made all over the world are so valuable.

In this blogpost I want to focus on one of the positive things that happened to me during the past year: the crafty projects I created in the early days of confinement. Somehow I got really busy and energetic in the first few weeks/months of staying at home. Partly it might have been the stress of the whole virus and lockdown situation. I couldn’t sit still and just relax, I had to keep doing things. Even watching tv shows and films was hard – no worries, I’m back to normal binge-watching mode now 🙂 … In those first weeks and months I started writing several songs and worked on several of my own (quaran)zines as well as contributed to compzines (compilation zines: zines with contributions by several people) about the corona virus (I’ll write more about that in an upcoming blogpost). I also created fabric panels or curtains for some shelves in my living room, made face masks, and sewed patches on clothes. Finally, a bit later on, I made my own oracle card set. I’m so lucky that my body and mind reacted in this way in this scary, stressful, and sad time.

Read on to find out more: