Make New Friends is a one-page fold flyer/zine for interviews, commentary, art and poetry. On the front side is the folding booklet and the reverse side is the flyer for said upcoming show. I’ve never been that into self promotion, but as most of you who do some kind of art or music or poetry know, promo is all part of the creating of awareness in your community. You are alive and doing something you love. When you set out to be a musician for instance, you probably thought you just needed to learn how to play or write, but you realized there’s a lot more to it. You became a booker, a recording producer, engineer, arranger, performer and a smiling face on the scene with a fist full of handbills. What I have noticed about the average handbill is it’s done on flimsy computer paper with an artistic afterthought of an image which I usually rediscover three weeks after the gig in my dryer after doing laundry (this is a self criticism too, yall). An ongoing celebration of the current thing you set out to do and love becomes humdrum and rote after decades of routine and is ultimately diminished. What I’m trying to do here is interview my peers. They all have an interesting take on where they are coming from, what they are doing and where they are going. MNF celebrates their stories and is a reminder to everyone not only to show up and hang out but also, a reminder that in the new dark ages we must come together and grow our community bonds.
Make New Friends Vol III & IV
I put together two editions of Make New Friends for our field trip to New York last November. Here is a little journal entry and the printable PDF downloads courtesy of my new friends at the local print shop, Adrian and Josh:
Starry Skemes played two great shows, one at the PIT in Williamsburg and the other at the Caffiene Underground in Bushwick, two very interesting and different steps in the communalist direction, the only way forward through our current prevailing nonsensical atmosphere of cruelty, small mindedness and overall lack of seriousness.
The P.I.T. (Property is Theft) is a great community space/bookstore/record store reminds me of a combination of SF favorites Adobe Books and Bound Together. Bill and I went by to check it out the day before the show where we collated the new Make New Friends zines. The PIT was holding a benefit for the families of ICE kidnapping victims. The night of the show people were there writing letters to prison inmates. It was inspiring to see this kind of praxis happening. Saw some great old friends at the show and met some new friends as well. Thanks to Shell Shag for everything! 
The next night we pulled up to the Caffeine Underground for a night of mostly experimental music. Colleen from Sub America attempted to stream the event but the audio came out super mangled. It was a great learning experience for future livestreams. Overall the event was more of a salon vibe and a mixing/mingling/coming together/collaboration of our friend groups. It was heartening seeing all these creative people meeting up. Thanks and praises to GT Arpe for putting the show together (check out his new LP here).
Make New Friends Vol II
Brand New Flyer/Zine Make New Friends Vol. II. Click here for link to downloadable/printable version. I learned the 1 page zine fold technique from Mikey of Mission Mini Comix years ago. I took that teaching to the New Traditions Elementary School where my daughter went and taught all those kids what zines were and how to fold the 1 pager. Funny, years later one of the kids saw me and said they were making zines in their high school. I made a few zines for the kids including how to make noise instruments, Arabic script and Chinese characters. See, zines are a great way to teach yourself as well as teaching others and can be about any of your interests. Tip: great way to not waste time on/escape from social media/screens. Make New Friends features the musicians I play shows with. The reverse side is the flyer for the show (this time designed by my friend in Scotland). Playing live shows is all about getting people out and presenting the chance to meet new people, so this zine is about that, but also a little background on the performers. It’s a tiny thing, but it’s an old DIY community music scene building praxis we need more of. MNF is about people and their creativity, sharing their methods, giving their point of view, humor. Unprofessional and unabashedly amatueristic. I I have a few copies left, contact me if you want one. Also as noted, you can print it out for yourself. Follow above link to the PDF. Print it for two sided and follow the rough guidelines for the folds. It should be 8 panels. Fold “hamburger” wise and cut in the center/middle between the two inner panels. Press together “hot dog” wise. The cut should form a diamond shape when folding into the zine/booklet (check out this YT vid for a visual). Shout out to Adrian at our local print shop for always coming through with the graphic design strategies for all my weirdo ideas.