Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Shat Upon Zine



Shat Upon was a great zine published by Andy "Rusty" Smetanka and friends out of Missoula, Montana during the 1990s. I think I scored my first copy through a touring Missoula band like Sasshole or Humpy. I was kind of amazed from the get go because I always thought of Montana as a punk rock wasteland. Granted the aforementioned bands, along with a few others like The Fireballs of Freedom proved Missoula had a music scene happening, but it was big enough to support a large zine? Shat Upon usually clocked in at at least 40 full-sized pages. Each issue covered a wide range of topics, from band interviews and tour diaries, to reviews, Montana history, and funny personal stories. It was like 3-way split between a punk music zine, humor zine, and a zine about Montana... which rocked. I used to trade issues with Rusty and write little notes back and forth, there's still one from him in the issue I scanned in.

Smetanka went on to write for the Missoula Independent newspaper as arts editor before moving onto video and animation. He made short stop animation films for The Volumen, and later did a Decemberists video for the song "The Taine," which you can see here.

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