GAJOOB Magazine started back in 1987 as a small xerox zine. It wasn’t strictly about underground music people like me were creating in their homes mostly on portable 4-track machines. The zine also had political rants, newspaper collages, poetry and stupid world news.
I sent the first issue out to as many people as I could, including many home taper types whose tapes were being reviewed in magazines like Option and Sound Choice, or Maximum Rock n Roll. I was looking for regular people making personal albums. I was also interested in graphics and art. I worked in a copy shop and my career is in graphics. So, naturally,ddd I also began hooking up with other underground artists.
The second issue featured underground band Theatre of Ice and local artist Duncan who illustrated the cover and was featured in the small zine. The print run was larger this time, so I had it offset printed. For some reason I thought Harrison Wine ink would be cool.
I won’t go into an issue by issue history of the print zine here. I just want to give you an idea that GAJOOB was just about underground music. It was a zine about people making art in different ways. As it progressed it became immersed more in the underground music scene with a large focus on enabling musicians with contacts for getting their music out to more people.