I'm pretty sure I wrote about Nick Bannerman's Niche Homo fanzine in real time here on this blog a dozen years ago, but whatever. Perhaps I'll be able to give it a more nuanced and sophisticated appraisal in 2023, though that's unlikely. For one, it wasn't a sophisticated publication and would never claim to be. This-here is issue #4, which I'm pretty sure came out in about 2010. I'm also quite sure it was the last issue, and please correct me if I'm wrong.

Nick was reading this blog at the time and sent me some issues, and wanted me to contribute to their Mixtape Wars feature in the next issue, so I did the done thing and made a mix-tape of some tunes I'd recently been digging. Or perhaps just tunes new and old that I thought were worth discussing, got my brother to make up a tape cover for said comp' and physically sent a cassette off to Ol' Blighty. Kids, that's how we did things in ye olden days. Well, perhaps not. Such an activity was laughably archaic in 2010, too, but we fanzine dorks have our ways of doing things (usually the worst and most tedious way imaginable).

I was hugely obsessed with 1940s/'50s R & B/rockabilly/jump-blues/proto-rock & roll during this era of my life, hence the seemingly incongruous inclusion of tracks by Elmore James, Jimmy Reed, Joe Houston and Amos Milburn with the likes of William Parker, Die Kreuzen, Brian Eno and the Meat Puppets, but hey - that's how I roll. Maybe some Ramleh-loving Limey wouldn't know what on God's green earth to say about Milburn's "Chicken Shack Boogie", but I could've waxed lyrical about it until you all went home. Thing is, so far as I know, #5 never came to be and I haven't heard from Nick in a decade. He sent me a couple of emails telling me it was long overdue and in the works, but I never saw it. 's OK. Such is the haphazard, random life we live.

Niche Homo was a solid read. I was a premature musical grump a dozen years ago - I'm much more relaxed, open and willing to all newcomers now - so much of its musical contents wasn't necessarily my jive. I mean, the magical appeal of Sic Alps still largely remains a mystery to me, though I've seen Oh Sees live several times (they just played here again last week) and my conversion to their ceaseless boogie took place a decade ago. The article on UK under-the-counter post-punkers The Homosexuals is a great one, interviewing singer Bruno Wizard and unlocking some of the mythology surrounding the band. Ditto the Ramleh piece, with a lengthy interview with Gary Mundy and Anthony di Franco.

The Mixtape Wars article sees Vibracathedral Orchestra's Julian Bradley battling it out with scenesters Ian Cockburn and Nick Jones, discussing the merits of lack thereof concerning the music of Sonic Youth, Miles Davis, The Dead C., They Might Be Giants, Etta James, The Smiths and all points between. What a fun bonding activity!

In the grand history of fanzinedom, Niche Homo came pretty late, but it is, as it says, superior toilet reading, and much better than its name.