What the heck is a pop boffin?

Howdy again y'all, and welcome to Pop Boffin. I'm Lara Jenny and some of you may know me from such zines as slampiece or from such superhuman feats as climbing over the ten foot corrugated iron fence at Glastonbury.

Six months ago I left my home in bustling London. No more morning commutes on the Jubilee line, packed in with all manner of extremely annoying persons planted on this earth simply to aggravate me. On the other hand I do miss walking on Hampstead Heath on a polleny spring afternoon, Rasa and Wagamama (mmm, food), indie bands at the Barfly and Liz, my slampiece collaborator. Anyway I'm living in my hometown Vancouver again and life is ace.

So this is the second issue. I’ve tried to make the content a bit more unusual and interesting. I’ve also tried to make it look even better. I think I’m doing ok with aesthetics but I’ve been trying to come up with a better way to organize and orient the content of the zine. We’ve thought about a good vs evil zine, an ‘artist review thyself’ zine, a diary approach and many more. By issue 3 expect something groundbreaking.

It was New Music West 2000 this month and I saw a lotta bands. They were all good but nothing was spectacular. In fact the only musician I've seen and listened to this year who really got me excited about music is the lovely Miss Neko Case. Her latest release is Furnace Room Lullaby, a record full of songwriting and musicianship at its best that goes far far beyond the country genre it may first seem to spring from. To find out more about her awesome talent visit www.mintrecs.com.

I’ve decided that I should become a documentary filmmaker. I’m not sure why I didn’t think of it earlier. I’m especially interested to make a film about fandom, maybe something general or about an indie type band like Sloan and their American devotees, but also about teenagers and what they really get out of their relationship with the Backstreet Boys. So if you have video equipment I can use (state of the art, toys, I don’t mind), if you have a new ‘concept’ for the zine or if I’m just annoying you, email popboffin@canada.com.

And for those of you who don't know, a boffin is UK slang for a keener or cute nerdy geek type person. Therefore a good thing. Make sure you order a paper copy and come back often because I'll add stuff to the site as often as I can.