A STRONGHOLD OF PROFESSIONAL ARTISTS, MUSICIANS, WRITERS, AND CERTIFIABLE A-1 LUNATIC GUERRILLA PROMOTERS OF OUR GREAT FROZEN TUNDRA. WE GOT WHAT YOU'RE LOOKIN FOR....

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FOR ALL LAWYERS AND CONCERNED CITIZENS

THE METHODS OF PERSUASION USED BY THE ISSUE ZERO MAGAZINE "STREET TEAM" ARE COMMITTED BY A FACTION OF OUR ADMINISTRATION, AND THOUGH WE SUPPORT THEM IN VOICE, THEIR ACTIONS ARE NOT OUR OWN.

OBJECTIVES SUCH AS:
1 STICKER PLACEMENT ON SOUGHT AFTER, GENRE AND STYLE-SPECIFIC PRODUCTS, I.E. CD'S, CLOTHING, BOOKS AND SIGNS,
2 USE OF STENCILS AND AEROSOL, INK,
3 POSTERS AND TICKET TAPING,
4 RAISING AWARENESS IN ANY FORM, AND IN ANY ELEMENT, OR MEDIA.

THESE ARE THE ACTIONS OF RENEGADE, GUERRILLA PROMOTIONS OFFICERS WHO RAISE OUR FLAG.

THX, MGMT

Sunday, April 27, 2008


You know when you go to a late-night hole-in-the-wall pizza joint so many God damned times, at any hour of the day or night, you can get a 'Za, on fuckin spot? No? Huh. It's called a reputation, in case you didn't know.

Chito's, located in the 48 hours-a-day Carnival that is Lansdowne and Bloor, A.K.A. "Junction," has got mad deals on pizza, and has one motherfuckin huge log of greasy-ass Shwarma meat on a spike for all the resident psychos to see in the window. $10 bucks for a large pizza? $11 for a X-large? Open late? It's like Heaven, in Hell.

The place is small, but if you stand outside of this place for five minutes, you can see at least one of every form of life walk by, and give Migael, the fuckin man when it comes to spinning pie, the "signal," or the "YoWhatsup?"

Maybe you never find yourself in Junction, probably cuz it is literally crawling with the crazies, but if you did, even by accident, get your ass to Chito's and get fed. What? Don't believe me?
YABEDAAXSMBDY, STR8 ^

ISSUE ZERO: MIKE SHEARD, COFFEE TIME MURAL NINJA

There's a lot I could say about Mike Sheard. Aside from the issues that all artists have, i.e. delusions of grandeur, fits of laughter, feverish coffee drinking, Mike also has a unique gift...the ability to spend all night in a Coffee Time, and not join the legions of the damned by sunrise. He has used this down-right phenominal super-power to create a mural at the outright funhouse that is the Lansdowne and Bloor Coffee Time. Now, some might look at this piece, and say, "Wow Mike, that's a really big cup of coffee you painted."
But I look at it and see something compeating with the place in my heart strickly dedicated for Godzilla, which almost got Mike killed the other night when I thought of it that way. I let him live. Why?
Because he does great work, and will toil through the night to get the job done. He is but one of several artists We here at Issue Zero represent.
Contact us through ISSUEZERO@GMAIL.COM for Mr. Sheard's availability.
ISSUE ZERO IS PROUD TO LET MIKE CONTINUE HIS WORK (or live) DISPITE HIS ARROGANT ATTEMPTS TO SUPERSEED GODZILLA.

Friday, April 25, 2008

ISSUE ZERO: ChemicalRobotiks: Not all cigarettes are created equal



So here's the story. I left the bar last night and had six dollars (cash money) in my pocket and a need for a fucking cigarette. What pack of cigarettes can you get for six bucks you ask? Well, several, actually, and all of them are whole new realms of foul. Lets name them off shall we: Putters, Chiefs, no name native shit, Natives, Dis Count(yes, it is spelled like that), DKs, Podium and a whole shit storm of others I cant even remember right now. Anyways, back to the story. I enter this shit-hole of a convince story with my six dollars and ask, what pack can I get in here, while thinking about all the terrible possibilities. Low and behold, I found a whole new level of low. The brand he handed me is called TRAD-A rouge, its a red pack with lightning on the cover, it only coasts 6 bucks for a large king, and these could easily be the harshest cigarettes I have ever fucking smoked. They don't taste like a cigarette at all, actually, more like if you were inhaling the smoke from burning paper. Yum. To top it all off and really drive the message home that these are some ghetto-ass cigarettes, one of them, right in the center, was actually ripped in half. It looks like someone ripped one for Batch, put it back in, and sealed the pack. Fuck, if you see these, don't be enticed by the crazy cheap price, put them down and walk away slowly, if not for me then for your lungs sake. They will thank you in the morning.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

ISSUE ZERO MAGAZINE: YOU WIN THIS TIME, FACEBOOK


Understandably, Facebook has rules. Not so understandably, I break them. To me, Facebook rules mean as much as the STAFF ONLY sign at any one of the concerts I've broken backstage to, in fact, much, much less. As it turns out, our "friends" at Facebook, don't like it so much when you pick random people, using a search targeted at those with similar interests, and send them messages concerning, oh, I don't know, let's say, an up and coming online magazine, namely, this sexy motherfucker you're reading right know.
It all happened when I found this one guy, after looking up the words "Toronto underground" named Abe, whose profile picture was of him chewing on a fat nug of what looked like some damn good weed. After hundreds of warning windows stating that what I was doing was gonna get me shit-canned, I pressed the send button, and like Neo, waking from the matrix into a crewl new world, I was ejected off Facebook.
I hope they give me my shit back. I wrote some "sensitive material" on the ol' FB to my fiance on more than one (fuckin loads) occasion.

But now I know better. Oh yes, even as I write this, not-so-nice ideas of how to fuck with people are boiling to the surface.

THAT'S IT, FACEBOOK, I'M PULLIN YOUR CARD.

ISSUE ZERO: QUEEN STREET REMAINS, A PLACE FOR YOUR PAINT

As I made light conversation with the manager of the flagship store of Suspect Video in order to draw attention away from the fact I was putting ISSUE ZERO stickers on everything in my path that was outside of his line of sight, I learned a terrible secret. The leftover merchandise and memorabilia of Suspect Video's Sister store, at Toronto's own Queen St. Hellmouth, post-empyro, was bulldosed into the foundation like that painting of the guy waking up after being buried alive during the black plague. The manager said it definately sealed and approved the insurance claim, but there was alot of good shit still down in there, mixed in with all the rest of the heritage buildings, $40,000 worth in melted parafenialia from the headshop, Jupiter, and all the equipment "They" used to make one mother of a drug-lab burn-out. I have to say that all those sites down there are probably in the process of being turned over, and are gonna be moulded into a trendy little gentrificating crutch for the hipsters to lean on when they sell the whole fuckin idea of rejuvinating the site to better the downtown core, primarily, because they're shit scared of the local fare, making it that much easier. But for Now, dear Readers, Vandals and Extreamists, if you go there now...
you'll find some prime advertising space.
Ladies and Gentlemen...

START SHAKIN YOUR SPRAY PAINT

Friday, April 18, 2008

Monday, April 14, 2008

ISSUE ZERO: THIS IS THE SUMMER OF OUR GETTINBENT

I probably don't have to tell you people, but as the heat in this city reaches stupid, brain-dampening temperatures, just like it does every summer, people are gonna commit some appropriately proportioned idiocy. Personally, I can't wait to join the ranks of suckers dragging my sorry ass out of bed to go to work to grease the wheels of this terrible machine, only to reach that oh so dangerous quiting time, when we all join that other group of society we briefly joke about (leaving out key information for the sissy-eared and mostly-pansy) at lunchtime with our co-workers, most of which are passing acquaintances whom we'll never see after we leave the position, and who just couldn't understand. So why not regal them of tales of moon-howling, random beverage-injesting, and uber-lunacy?
Good question...
I'm not gonna lie, what the hell would that do? I might as well warn those around me. I can't help but relive my evening-befores when some middle-aged, obviously-never-chugged-straight-liquor-and-fell-off-a-dock-before, TV-guide-subscriber asks what I did for fun over the weekend. At least I'm honest.
Hey, it's not like I didn't sit there and listen about their evening at a super-intriguing, mega-niffty tea party with the Smiths (you know which ones you are,) the Jones (you pasty-white loaves,) and how they conversed with their inside-voices about their khaki-exploits, so guess what?
Now you're gonna hear what I did last night.
Hold on to your socks, your shoes, wallet, genitalia, logical thinking, and your house key...
But remember, you only got two hands.

LET THE OPENING CEREMONIES BEGIN.
ISSUE ZERO, REPORTING FOR DUTY...
2648

Friday, April 11, 2008

ISSUE ZERO:Chemical Robotiks: I HATE FEIST!

Howdy partner. Heres a little something I need to get off my chest. It involves a bitch and her god awful band known as Feist, Leslie Feist to be exact, but who really gives a fuck. You probably heard her song on that Ipod commercial. You know the one, the Ipod nano commercial where they keep peeling them back and her fucking song is playing on each of the screens. That was the first time I had ever heard that song, and I thought, ok, fuck it, good for her, she got payed. I would be over joyed too if I was a relativity unknown artist that hadn't even really broken into tv or radio play yet and I sold a song to be used in an Apple commercial. You know the bitch is getting payed for that one. I figured she would get payed and go the fuck back to where ever she came from, like any other one hit wonder, but no, I was wrong as a mother fucker.

The rage really came to a boil after watching the Junos this year. she won 5, count 'em, 5 mother fucking Junos to a chick that was only ever heard of because Apple saw something in her funky ass. They should have given those awards to Apple, as a thank you for telling us all which artists we now like and what is trendy. Honestly, Feist sucks ass, she sucked in Broken Social Scene(which as a whole sucks a fair bit of ass) and she sucks now as a solo artist. She has no stage presence, her vocals sound like the scared whimpers of a battered house wife, she can't play that fucking guitar she lugs on stage with her, listen to her play, its one fucking note over and over again, and she even dances and holds the fucker up like she is deep in some crazy ass solo. People need to get their heads out of their fucking asses and stop being such a bunch of sheep.

Here's another thing, stop calling that bitch indie, or underground, or any of the other names they use to describe her like she is some off the beat hipster. The day she took that giant check from Apple and was jetted right up front in the public eye was the day she forfeited her underground membership card. She is as mainstream as you can get at this point. Her song played on that Apple commercial three and four time every half hour for months, no one hasn't heard of her at this point. Watch her performance at the Junos, if you aren't totally sickened by her I commend you.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

ISSUE ZERO: KINDRED CAFE; between Here and Reality.












DIRECTIONS.
  • Find yourself at Wellsley Station.
  • Go one block South.
  • Go one Half a block West.
  • Face South, yer lookin at it.
At first glance the Kindred Cafe is a wonderful use of Stucco, a towering mass of white framed windows, and what at first and incorrectly seems to be a pretty big chimney. That is actually the clientèle smoking whatever they can get their shaky little Cancer/Glaucoma/Epilepsyhands on...because this is a safe haven for the dangerously sick that need to. Kindred casually allows others to visit, too. How would you even ask anyways?
"Are you sure you're sick, man?
You look fine to me, dude..."
Fuckin stoners.

But the fun doesn't stop there, no sir! The extremely paranoid (they were a bit retentive about a bear-masked man posing at their counter without permission, hey! better to ask for forgiveness..) service-staff offer a wide selection of gourmet coffee, a fully functional kitchen, and milkshakes packed to the god damned eye-balls with the good, sweet Cheeba we all remember stealing from our old man, and by that I mean, the really strong stuff.

The building is four floors tall, if you include the rooftop patio, where you can get, as Snoop Dogg would say, "high as a muthafuck." (pictured above)

The two floors in between are single rooms that can be rented for a measly $10 per hour, which is a stupid thing for Kindred to do, considering each room is equipped with PS3's, XBOX 360's, satalite feeds, big-ass flat screens, and leather couches and smoking parafinailia, like pipes, and The Volcano, (retail $900) a professional vaporizer. Plus, each rooms door locks from the inside, for all those stoner's that can actually get it up after inhaling anything out of the Volcano. (Me.)

When you try to strike up a conversation with the average customer at Kindreds, the most excited response you'll get is the one you give them after trying to get them to fuckin even talk, cuz those people are there for one thing, and one thing only...to get lit, God bless their martyrdom.

ISSUE ZERO SALUTES KINDRED CAFE FOR THEIR EFFORTS TO EASY THE PAIN OF THE SERIOUSLY SICK, (kudos) AND LETTING ME AND MY BOYS TO COME IN AND GET FUCKIN RETARDED.

Thursday, April 3, 2008

ISSUE ZERO: MUSEUM STATION, GO FUCKIN FIGURE.

Lets say you wanted to know how the Hell I got this picture, then lets say you could even get me to tell you, but could I let you live? I don't fuckin think so. On top of that, just to fuck with you, and to "stir the pot," I'll say this, I didn't need an Exacto knife, or a drop of liquor, or even a nap in a dark corner until everyone at the Museum Station booth went beddy-bye.
Oh no, far less effort was required for this little adventure...
Which should send a God-damned wake-up call to my ever-ready gate-crasher instincts....
ISSUE ZERO IS ONE GOING WHERE NO MAN HAS GONE BEFORE. BILLY SHATTNER, LOVE YOUR SHIT, BUT YOU CAN GET FUCKED.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

ISSUE ZERO: ChemicalRobotiks: One finger salute to Earth Hour

We went to earth hour and got some good footage of the event but lets look at Earth Hour for what it really is. And for the record, I don't hate the environment, I hate bullshit media stunts. Fuck Earth Hour and fuck you too for thinking it's anything more then a drop in the bucket. You want some real lasting change stop driving, leaving your fucking lights on all day, and producing so much garbage. You can do that, then come talk to me. Don't drive your gas guzzling car to an earth event and then claim eco-friendly. Whatever, here is the video, and fuck you too.