Discorder magazine is the extremely long running monthly freebie published by CiTR the radio station at the University of British Columbia. As of 2014 the entire 32 year run can be read online. My book/comics column titled Subtext ran 30 times in the early 90’s. I can’t believe it either! I didn’t actually ever attend UBC but they were a fairly inclusive bunch at CiTR. I was positively elderly being in my late 20’s at the time.
There’s a bit of a learning curve to viewing. If you wish to isolate the Subtext pieces, on the main page click on the Text by Year graph 1989 – 1995 (more then you need, but trust me), and search for Subtext (avoid the recommended query to find all items in collection as it brings everything with the word subtext) 31 results should come up if you ignore that. To view the issue click on the cover for everything, which you can scroll through OR hit Show Details, then click on the detail which will bring up that particular Subtext within the issue. Use Sort by Relevance to bring up the oldest to newest issues. Still with me? I find the process somewhat laborious but worth it. When on the Subtext page you can use Toggle Fullscreen (on the right) and then magnify. The clarity really is great. These Discorders are a treasure trove of Vancouver music/arts history.
A list of the main subject matter from each column, by month/year/page number:
- Dec 90–pg.20: La Loca poet
- Jan 91–pg.19: Re/Search Modern Primitives
- Feb 91–pg.18: Paul Bowles
- Mar 91–pg.21: International Womens Day
- Apr 91–pg.28: Apocalypse Culture / American Psycho
- May 91–pg.28: Colin Upton / Rick Gibson
- Jun 91–pg.25: John Giorno
- July 91–pg.18: David Lynch
- Aug 91–pg.23: Music books
- Sep 91–pg.28: Science fiction / William Gibson
- Oct 91–pg.19: Clive Barker / Nardwuar
- Nov 91–pg.33: Leonard Cohen / Anna Banana
- Dec 91–pg.12: Computing / local weekly’s
- Jan 92–pg.10: Re/Search Angry Women
- Mar 92–pg.14: Shock Rock / Dead Elvis
- May 92–pg.12: Crad Kilodney / Peter Bagge
- July 92–pg.07: Local poets / Alice Tepexcuintle
- Sep 92–pg.09: Steven Jesse Bernstein
- Nov 92–pg.06: Comix
- Jan 93–pg.11: Suzi Bright / horror
- Mar 93–pg.09: Emily Prager / Maus
- May 93–pg.09: Hard Core Logo / Cliff Burns
- July 93–pg.11: Comix (here on in I went comics crazy)
- Sep 93–pg.16: Comix / music books
- Nov 93–pg.08: Comix
- Jan 94–pg.07: Female poets
- Mar 94–pg.07: Kim Deitch / comix
- May 94–pg.07: what else? Comix
- July 94–pg.09: Review Big Star SF trip / APE San Diego
- Sept 94–pg.07: Chester Brown
open.library.ubc.ca/collections/discorder
Here’s the cover art I put together for the March 1989 issue of Discorder. Incognito using my “pen name” Jaye., this was my first and only published artwork.
