In the early 2000s, I published a music magazine out of my 300 square-foot apartment in Gainesville, Florida. Fusion was a free rag dedicated to the local music scene and its culture. !To me, Fusion was more than a publication and business. In my twenty- something mind, we were making art on 30-pound newsprint paper with a four-color cover. As far as I was concerned, we were creating a conversation that would someday be as highly regarded as Vice or Maximumroacknroll or any other of a handful of influential zines I idolized so.

Guts and Conviction The story of a music rag by Fred Smith

I poured my heart into Fusion, because I bel ieved it was a col laboration that contributed to the collective good of the scene. We interviewed bands of national fame (Against Me!, Less Than Jake and The Roots actually granted us interviews), as well as hordes of amazing local and indie bands you’ve probably never heard of.

Through it all, we offered something most in-it-for-the-ad sales pubs didn’t: !Opinion. A relentless one at that.

Fusion’s band of misfit rock journalists had something to say about music and the sounds that surrounded the Gainesville scene. !We took a stance on issues like file-sharing (Napster reigned at the time which pre-dated the iTunes store) and took potshots at pop-stars we thought put the poser in composer (who could forget Matt Umbarger’s brilliantly titled, anti-corporate-radio rant “Stroke, My White Hives, Bitch!” or Kelly Westerlund’s poignant road journal “Diary of a Merch Girl”).

We also propagated unmerciful perspective on our scene’s culture. !I remember a certain rapper-turned-stage-clown who refused to talk to me after I published an eight word review of his insipid album: In case of fire, please toss this in.

Unmerciful. We had to be. The competition was saturated with the comfortably lukewarm.

Kumitephoto by Pat Lavery

I believed that my gang of musical misanthropic writers deserved to be paid, even if I (their publisher) didn’t. Lack of capital didn’t stop me from paying my scribes in CDs (our rag was bombarded with free promos I let writers keep after turning in an appropriately biased review). !When CDs as a currency began to lose their value, I was quick to offer whatever fare I could swindle from local restaurants in trade for an ad in the next issue. When that didn’t work, putting the writer in touch with his or her intoxicant of choice always seemed to do the trick. !Gainesville was the perfect kind of town to accommodate such a timeless tactic.

Despite failing miserably as a business, Fusion managed to earn a dedicated (albeit modest) readership. What we lacked in polish, we more than made up for in attitude. !Our writers gave a damn and in turn gave the mag a voice that resonated with a certain type of Gainesvillian. !It’s been more than a decade since our last issue and I can recall verbatim an anonymous fan’s farewell bidding: “I’ll miss Fusion. It was my go to Sunday-morning-hungover-on-the-toilet literature.”

Sometimes you aim for a mark and land a direct hit.

Army of Ponchphoto by Aires on Mars

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