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Dogbane Beetle

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The cover page of this eight-page mini zine has a little cut out bat drawing from the Trader Joe's newsletters in the top/middle right area and an entry band for a show at a venue called The Smell along the bottom of it. To the left of the bat are the words 'FOLK PUNK' and between that and the entry band is the word 'INAUGURATION'. Thus, the name of this zine: Folk Punk Inauguration.

The first page has half of a hot pink entry band for The Smell on it. Above it, the page reads “I've gotta say, I've been skeptical of folk punk for a while, now. I feel pretty strongly that the culture of folk punk now is what traditional punk wished it was, but I was never too sure of the music. It felt a little too weird, and I'm a bit of a snob about voices sometimes (not on purpose, I promise) so I was just unsure. It’s been growing on me slowly, though – especially after a show this Tuesday.” The second page starts “To be honest, the night started out sort of shit. I took the train and got harassed, and got there almost half an hour late, too. The energy inside changed everything right away, though. The crowd threw a billionaire skull piñata around and beat it up for toys, and everyone looked trans as fuck, and I knew I was in a good place. Moon Bandits, Rent Strike, and (of course) Sister Wife Sex Strike all played and fucked it up!” Below that, there's the text “(I can totally draw)” and, below that, an incredibly rudimentary stick figure drawing of a crowd of people looking up at two people on stage.

Page three starts with the phrase “Some HIGHLIGHTS”-- the 'Some' made out of two cut up words ('So' and 'me') from some book and 'HIGHLIGHTS' written in black Sharpie and highlighted with yellow highlighter. Below it is a bullet point list, which is also continue onto page four, that lists that “the pit was so fucking cool! great energy... so much joy and lots of two-stepping”, “the outfits... holy shit, do people know how to dress! so cool + creative”, “the aforementioned piñata - so silly + fun”, “when SWSS come down into the pit for ‘Electricity’”, “when the pit turned into a lot of people (including me) dancing with our partners during ‘Gentleness’”, “Rent Strike's song about hydraulic press videos”, and “the way the bands talked to us: so friendly & funny & felt like family (will come back to this one). Across the bottom of both pages is a sticker for Unity Skate Co. of two naked people, one colored in orange on the other's shoulders (and the other is colored in pink). Underneath the sticker across the right side of page four is a strip of Washi tape in dark blue, red, and black colors, with eyes and lips.

Page five has the word 'MERCH' written across the top left side of it with a squiggly line drawn underneath it. Next to it, starting on the right side of page five and going all through the top of page six is an orange sticker with the word 'QUEERS' in a black bold font with underlining. Page five starts out saying “A lot of the merch was sliding scale, and the vendors were so cool! I had to get stuff!” and then leads into a list of things I bought, including “Sister Wives Strike Back (Deluxe) CD”, “Rent Strike fox (?) on fire shirt”, “Moon Bandits ‘Squash Cops’ patch”, “Moon Bandits ‘Crocs not Cops’ sticker”, and “Moon Bandits 'Protect Trans Kids' Raccoon-filled sticker”. Under the 'QUEERS' sticker, page six simply states “Anyway, the show was amazing if you can’t tell. But there’s something more there, too. Getting to mosh + sing + scream and be happy + sad with other trans people – other nonwhite people too, oh my God – was so new + beautiful. It felt like family + home in such an unmistakable + necessary way. I’m so grateful.”

The back cover has a sharpie drawing in the top left of a weird fidget toy I got from the billionaire skull piñata that got thrown around during Moon Bandits' set, which is sort of a little orange handle and two (yellow and pink) weird extensions that are made of a ball and plastic legs that attach to the handle. The little extensions swing 360 degrees around the handle and can hit each other and make noise. Next to it is a little note that says “a weird fidget toy from the piñata” and has an arrow pointing to it. Underneath it is a drawn on dashed line and then text that says “by Xalli”, “apr 19, 2023”, and then notes that my social medias are “insta: desertfirelight”, “tumblr: canineical”, and “neocities: tehuan”. At the bottom of the page is a continuation of the entry wrist band that's on the cover and first page of the zine for The Smell. This part of the band mainly says 'EXIT' on it.