IN THIS ISSUE OF COSMIK DEBRIS: Mike Smith, former frontman and keyboardist for the legendary British invasion band, The Dave Clark Five, returns to America nearly 40 years later with his new band, Mike Smith's Rock Engine. He talks about old times and new. Art cars? They're vehicles that have been turned into works of art, and few do that with the creative flair of Herrod Blank, the subject of John Sekerka's Tape Hiss Interview. Timothy Gassen's book, The Knights Of Fuzz, is one of the few accepted "bibles" of garage rock, and a few years ago it was updated and issued on CDROM, opening it to a larger audience. The musician and author is interviewed by Fred Mills. Music attorney Dina LaPolt returns with another entry in the popular series known as Music Business Microscope, this time telling us about royalties recording artists in America ain't gettin', and defining the new rules on webcasting royalties and how an artist goes about gettin' those. The 13 O'Clock news brings you all the strangeness CNN forgot to mention, while our columns are bursting with great reading on everything from Resident Bush's rush to war to Senators for the blues to sleeping to rap to dirty media tricks to a sendoff for Zally. All that plus a ridiculous number of reviews of all kinds await you in the March issue of Cosmik Debris Magazine.

COSMIK RADIO!: Due to popular demand, Skip Heller's "A Show From California" is being held over a while longer, and now that it's on an actual Real Server, you can listen to it immediately after clicking, so check it out. You just need a RealAudio Player to listen. If you don't have one, go pick one up. Cosmik Radio is just the kind of Net-Only audio that radio station program directors don't want you getting hooked on. So go ahead. Inhale!

FORMER DAVE CLARK FIVE FRONT MAN MIKE SMITH - He's got fans all over the world, he's influences some of the biggest names in music, and after thirty years of the quiet life, Mike Smith and his new band, Mike Smith's Rock Engine, are headed for America again. DJ Johnson cheated at several rounds of drawing straws in order to be the one to do this interview.

ART CAR TALK WITH HARROD BLANK - After a long hiatus, John Sekerka returns with a most unusual entry in his Tape Hiss Interviews series. Harrod Blank is an artist who creates motorpieces. Wait... masterpieces. That is to say... Well, his art is vivid, brilliant, and some of it can go from 0 to 60 in 7 seconds. This you've gotta see.

MUSIC BUSINESS MICROSCOPE - Public Performance & Webcasting Royalties. Did you know that recording artists in America were getting ripped off? No, really - they're only getting half the royalties they should. And now there's Online - when we first heard there would be a radical royalty charge levied against Internet broadcasters, the numbers being thrown around were terrifying. Now that the dust has settled some things have been nailed down and the realities are much clearer. Music attorney Dina LaPolt focuses the microscope on the actual dollars and cents and tells the musicians among our readership just how to go about collecting their money.

TIMOTHY GASSEN: THE KNIGHTS OF FUZZ - He's been the front man for The Marshmallow Overcoat and The Purple Merkins, a music journalist for many magazines (including this one), a play-by-play hockey broadcaster, and, perhaps best of all, the author of The Knights of Fuzz, a book considered by many to be the bible of garage rock reference books. Originally published in 1995, it was updated in 2000 and re-released on CDROM with plenty of extras. The CDROM version is still being discovered by new convertees to the cult of Garagism. Fred Mills had a conversation with Gassen and was nice enough to share it with us here at one of his former haunts.


TIME FOR THE THIRTEEN O'CLOCK NEWS - Osama just phoning it in? Ted has no staying power? Harry teens? What's it all meen? It's 13 O'Clock, stupid, stop trying to make sense of things and drink something with alcohol content, pronto. The weird news thingie is on.


CD & RECORD REVIEWS - From the blues of Snooky Pryor to the thunder of The New Bomb Turks, with plenty of bluegrass, jazz, hip-hop, Cuban, pop and kinds of music that's hard to peg. Go get 'em!

EVERYTHING ELSE IN REVIEW - Concert, books, audio books, and a stack of film reviews. Hey, we don't just listen to CDs all day long, y'know. Not all of us, anyway.



CLOSET PHILOSOPHY - What the hell is going on out there? All these voices within our country and from our allies clearly saying "No!" and Bush just keeps forging ahead as if he's hearing "Yes." It's like the military equivalent of date rape. Of course, there are more philosophical ways of looking at things when Rusty Pipes is in the house, which he is, so get on in here and pull up a chair.

COSMIK BLUES - It's the Year of the Blues! Eric tells us how that came to be, how it's being celebrated, and how you can take part.

PIGSHIT by GARY PIG GOLD - Zaaaaaally!!!! That was the cry when the young ladies desperately tried to get the attention of their favorite member of The Lovin' Spoonful, Zal Yanovsky. Sadly, Zal's no longer with us, having joined the growing number of rock greats where ever it is they go. Gary Pig Gold takes a fond look at the Spoonful's wild one.

MASS APPEAL MADNESS - Sleepin' to the gentle strains of rap? Why the hell not? Jason Thornberry can't imagine having it any other way. Can you? This month he shares his best nocturnal discs.

MEDIA CURMUDGEON - Karl's going back to basics, giving us more information about how "the media" operates. This month: how they make commercials such an insidious part of watching TV.



CREDITS - The names and e-mail addresses of the people responsible for this thing.

COSMIK RADIO - Want an hour of music that fits the personality of Cosmik Debris Magazine? That's right, Sinatra segues into Megadeth into Peter Tosh into Man Or Astro-Man into... well, you get the picture. It's a little something we like to call Genre Whiplash. Or maybe you're in the mood for a trip into The Fog Machine, our mix of music of the ethereal variety. All you need is a RealAudio player. Come on in.

OUR OWN WEBSITES - Many of the Cosmik Debris writers have websites of their own. We have some links right here.



We're terribly, terribly sorry about last month. Really, if we could have been here, we would have, but first there was a problem with the Real Audio server, and then it was the search engine, which we spent several days trying to fix before someone said "Hey, Bozo, we don't have a search engine." By that time, one of our computers had come unplugged, though at the time we thought it was a virus and so we shut down all the others and sat shaking in fear for two weeks until someone noticed the cord hanging there. By THAT time, of course, they were having a marathon of Junkyard Wars on cable, so we really didn't have time to get an issue out, and besides, the coffee maker stopped working for no apparent reason. As you can see, things were a total mess. So we plugged in the computer, bought a new coffee maker, taped Junkyard Wars, fixed the Real Audio server problem, and finally we were able to download porn again. The issue, of course, could wait until March. So here it is, the March issue, only a few days later than we'd estimated, and it's a pretty frickin' good one, so dive on in and enjoy.

DJ Johnson
Editor

Did you miss an issue? We now have many of our back issues online, including sound clips and extras. Check out interviews with The Witches, Electric Frankenstein, the Vampire Beach Babes, Jeff Berlin, Curve, Michael Shermer, Steel Pulse, Transglobal Underground, Mark Helm, The Southern Rock All-Stars, Ottmar Liebert, Jason Noble of Shipping News, Phil Vassar, Joel Dorn, Mark Cline of Love Tractor, Texas Terri (of Texas Terri & The Stiff Ones), Mike Keneally, Chris Shinn of Unified Theory, Alley of Wise Monkey Orchestra, Mario Escovedo of The Dragons, The Clarks, Big Ass Truck, Richard Cheese, Paul Krassner, Tony Iommi, Ron Dante...