Elijah Jamal Balbed – Butch Warren
Sneaks – X.T.Y
Astronaut Jones – Farther
FAR EXP – Get On Your Grind
Golden Looks – Hey Say
East Ghost – Jericho
Bossalingo – Round Midnight
Carni Klirs – A Respite Amongst the Palms
Five State Drive – Dry Clean Express
Soundtrack to Sleep – All We Do Is Talk
Sleeves Off a Vest – Number 9
Medications – Kilometers and Smiles
Hailu Mergia and the Walias – Muziqawi Silt
Philip Lassiter – Liquid in Love
Cigarbox Planetarium – Memory Loop
June Gloom – Dealer
Sri Rama – Refreshing
Lifted – Medicated Yoga
The Dwindlers – Pale Blue Dress
Aerialist – Proteus

She’s killed a bike.

Taking place somewhere in Baltimore, the slaughter, remarkably, is captured on film — in the new music video from Moolchan’s minimal punk project, Sneaks.

“X.T.Y” is the video’s name, the visual counterpart to a tense tune on Sneaks’ 2014 self-titled release. “X.T.Y is about whatever’s not on your side,” Moolchan writes in an email. “For me, it is anxiety. But then again, it makes me feel alive.”

More alive, certainly, than the kid-size bicycle that meets its fate at the video’s end. But at least the poor thing had a thrill in its final moments — the grainy, VHS-quality video shows Moolchan astride the bike, tearing up Baltimore’s streets alongside a BMX skillfully maneuvered by a guy she calls Reefer.

Reefer sports a devil costume. “He had a lot of tricks up his sleeve,” Moolchan writes.

So did director Ryan Florig, who spotted a trio of young girls at the skate park and immediately cast them in supporting roles, Moolchan writes. The girls goof around and pull shapes, bringing a childlike innocence to what’s ultimately a snuff film.

Moolchan expresses no remorse for the gruesome killing.

“We wanted an ending!” she writes. “Also, it was filmed on the day of the ‘Blood Moon,’ so we were just going with the spirit.”

Sneaks

Pure Disgust

Priests

Priests

Screaming Females

Loud Boyz

All images by Cassandra Mullinix.

“I was just like ‘OK, this is a girl zine, this is gonna be great. I was being really sarcastic about it because I really like to focus on the inclusiveness of things,’” says Skeiky, who also works in food PR. “My ideal is always, ‘Why doesn’t every zine just have more female contributions?’”

But Skeiky eventually warmed up to the idea because Scharbach and Martinez had a strict rule: female-identified contributors only.

John Scharbach — better known as Crucial John, the vocalist of D.C. hardcore band Give — has spearheaded other zines before. He met Martinez, an artist and then-prospective American University student, at a Give show in her home state of Florida. He dug her art, so Scharbach advised Skeiky (an occasional Bandwidth contributor) to follow Martinez on Instagram.

Skeiky tapped “follow,” and out of this 21st century friendship, a 20th century zine emerged.

Skeiky took all the photos for Strawberry Dreams, mostly of live performances from punkish bands like Gouge Away, Downtown Boys and D.C.’s Sneaks and Priests. Martinez contributed a heap of drawings and a piece of writing, which opens the zine. Crucial John, the token man, handled layout and passed out the final product while touring Europe with Give.

“I think it’s important for everybody to consume media that makes them kind of uncomfortable.” —Farrah Skeiky

“I think it’s really good that [Crucial John] was part of this idea because he’s just being a really good male ally to women in the scene,” says Skeiky. “He’s setting a really good example — he’s not using his voice in the scene, which is a pretty strong one, to decide what should be in it. He’s using his voice [for] something everybody should be reading regardless of their gender.”

The zine’s founders stress that while Strawberry Dreams skews female-identified, they think everyone can — and should — read it. Skeiky points out that while cultural products created by men are considered open to all audiences, products made by women are often seen as specialized, or for women only.

“I think it’s important for everybody to consume media that makes them kind of uncomfortable,” Skeiky says, “because it means that you’re reading about something that you don’t know a lot about… or something that [makes you] realize you feel guilty [because] you haven’t given it much thought.”

Skeiky, Martinez and Crucial John plan to produce more issues of Strawberry Dreams this fall — with Issue No. 2 expected to arrive in the next month — and they’ll keep the finished product short and free of charge. After that, they may reevaluate both the zine’s size and cost. They say they’ve already been flooded with submission inquiries, so serious growth could arrive seriously soon.

The team’s distribution plan is a wonderful mix of old- and new-school: They distribute hard copies at shows, while folks with the digital PDF version are encouraged to email it far and wide.

The zine’s aesthetic is clearly influenced — like a lot of subculture right now — by the 1990s. But Skeiky and her partners (who have only been in the same room once, at a recent Ceremony show) want to go broader.

“There’s no denying that we’re not influenced by older punk zines, especially older riot grrrl kind of zines,” says Skeiky. “But we also recognize that there were a lot of things missing at the time from early riot grrrl zines, because that feminism was primarily for white women… and feminism can mean different things to different women.”

Hard copies of Strawberry Dreams are available at Joint Custody, Upshur Street Books, Smash Records and Meats & Foods. To get a copy in the mail, email your mailing address to strawberrydreamsfanzine@gmail.com. The zine’s second issue is forthcoming.

Strawberry Dreams Fanzine: Issue No. 1

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