In March 1988, sassy magazine – founded by then-24-year-old Jane Pratt for teenage girls “who felt like outsidersbut which could still pass for normal in a high school cafeteria” and “didn’t want to completely reject mainstream culture, but didn’t want to fully embrace it either”—debuted on newsstands. 35 In the years since, the less glossy magazine has laid the groundwork for millennial/Gen Z feminist publications teen Vogue, cheater, Bitch, Chest, stir, Jezebel, hello gigglesand Pratt’s later publications, Jane And XOJaneAnd it inspired this lovingly crafted Tumblr account”Sassy Magazine Livesand book How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time,
groundbreaking magazine really changed several The lives of the Gen X girls, including future Eagles of Death Metal/Palaya Royale bassist and fashion designer Jenny V, who today can still claim they won sassy‘s “Biggest Cure Fan” contest, thanks to his figuratively bloody-brained — and a literal blood Oath.
Growing up on a farm 30 minutes from the population of 80,000 in the “dreary and desolate” mining town of Sudbury in Ontario, Canada, Vee recalls,sassy was a magazine that spoke to me because seventeen did not do. It was on the cusp of the alternative wave that was upon us, and I felt like it was written by your cool old friends. It certainly wasn’t condescending. Admittedly it was a bit ‘controversial’ at times. this was good. It was different. It certainly wasn’t your typical teen magazine.”
During his eight-year tenure, sassy featured cover stars like grunge power-couple Courtney Love and (magenta-haired) Kurt Cobain and ’90s it-girl Julianna Hatfield to Central America; coined the term “Cute Band Alert”, with that unisex monthly honoring college-rock heroes such as Sloan, Lucious Jackson, Guided by Voices, The Lemonheads, Wayne, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Bikini Kill and Bratmobile; induced recurring Phil Hartman Sketch On Saturday night Live, ran a “Dear Boy” advice column with guest writers such as Iggy Pop, Billy Corgan, Mike D of the Beastie Boys, and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth; and even created an in-house indie band sassy The staffer, Chia Pet, is best known for the feminist anthem “Hey Baby” and a deadpan cover of the Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me” for a Planned Parenthood benefit album.
Back in the late ’80s, V’s only connection to alternative youth culture before was sassy Along came MTV, thanks to his parents equipping their house with a satellite dish. Even at age 10, the self-described “weird little girl” who “felt out of place everywhere I went” was rocked by her own cute-band-alert, “Close” by the Cure. To Me” music video. V says, “I’m not an ambassador for Sudbury. … I think it’s just a grim, gray place most people don’t go, and I could feel He. From a young age, I just had this sense of wanting to get out and needing to escape. So, treatment became my escape of sorts. … They gave me hope in this city where I felt isolated. Somehow, as a young girl, I could relate to the songs of (frontman) Robert Smith.
“The music was Everything To me, like a fantasy world. I decorated my room with all the Cure posters. I painted it purple. I hung a chandelier. That way I could express myself, that’s how I found my creativity and sense of expression that gave me something to do. It was more than just listening to music. It became my world,” Vee continues. “And then I found a Cure fan club called Other Voices that was based in Norman, Okla. I had pen pals, and that was my social network. We would trade tapes and send each other these wonderful packages we put together. We photocopied pictures from magazines and painted them with watercolours. It was a truly epic kind of pre-internet social network. It saved me, 100%, when I thought I had nothing and nowhere. And besides, the Cure’s music inspired me to play music myself. If I didn’t have him, I can’t even imagine who I would be now.”
A few years after her “Close to Me” awakening, a 14-year-old Vee reflects on her work. sassy In his gothic purple bedroom in the fall of 1990, he figured out a great way to impress his Other Voices mates. “I was an early fan of the magazine and I was flipping through it, and there was a full page ad in sassy That said, ‘get mixed with the cure! Prove you’re the world’s biggest Cure fan!'” recalls V, whose favorite band was about to release Mixed up Remix Compilation. “So, right there I knew, this was not a random draw. It said, ‘Send us something at this address Certification You are the biggest fan of Cure. Well, I play to win… and I knew This was something I could conquer. and i was determined to win it.
“I was like, ‘I get this,’ and my teenage brain is going crazy; it’s completely taking over my life,” Wei continues with a smile. “I had some time here to work on it, because there was a six-week deadline, so I used every moment. I found out with FedEx how long it would take to ship from New York to their offices, and I worked to that deadline.”
Wei says that she “sees herself as a poet,” so she “decided to write 365 poems dedicated to the cure. I probably already had up to a hundred, so furiously – at school and After school, any time—I was writing poetry, usually in response to a song. I’d listen to a song and then, in a kind of stream of consciousness, write the poem and put it in a black Duo-Tang folder. which I decorated with red nail polish. It was the whole thing.
V then says, a little hesitantly: “And I wasn’t going to mention it—I was going to save it for whom, I’m not sure—but I also signed, for sassy competition, with each poem my own blood,
As if He It wasn’t enough to prove to Pratt that she really was the biggest Cure fan sassyK reader, V “decided I needed to build a dollhouse. Yes, a cure dollhouse, I painted each room differently. It was three stories. I tiled the floor with small black and white tiles. I made a doll I made a Robert Smith doll with a little button down shirt like hers. I remembered that Robert Smith loved Christmas and Christmas lights and decorations, so the whole thing was Christmas-themed; Because there was a December deadline, I made it Christmas-themed. I also had tiny little Christmas trees with little black spider decorations and Robert Smith ornaments.
“Therefore, He I had access. I put the poetry book in the dollhouse, packed the thing, like three feet, in a box, and FedExed it. I spent about $200 to ship this item; At that time I had two jobs. I sent it to New York. and i won,
It was a few months later that an official letter with ” sassy return address and small logo on the envelope” arrived in the Sudbury Mail; V immediately “opened it up” and saw the names of some of her Cure pen pals listed on the magazine’s ranking of the top 10 Cure fans. “They were in second place, in third place … but My The name was at the top. I got mad,” says V.
With bragging rights as the holder of the title “Biggest Fan” (“Because I Did Argue something with other fans at the time!”), V says “The biggest, most exciting part sassy The prize was an autographed print of Robert Smith – a self-portrait painted by Robert himself. On her Instagram account, Vee recently posted a faded photo of herself proudly holding that award, but sadly, she says there is “no photographic evidence” of the actual dollhouse in this pre-iPhone, pre-social Media has existed since ages. sassy Didn’t even play the dollhouse pictures—and never returned V. Even now, she still has no idea where the dollhouse is or what happened to it. “You’ll just have to take my word for it,” she laughs.
V admits to being “a little disappointed” that sassy The contest’s “mystery prize” was simply the portrait plus “the entire Cure discography, which I already had several times over – and it was in the CD longbox, if anyone remembers.” Small town girl dreaming of winning a “trip to London” “Go to Fiction Records and spend the day there. … I thought I was going on an amazing world tour!” But Vee, who now lives in Los Angeles with her husband Slim Jim Phantom of the Stray Cats, won’t be in Sudbury for long.
only a few years later sassy competition – in that year Vee’s father, who had been “rejected by most” but a fan of his Bloody Cure while “accepting in many ways” died – Vee left high school and “walked with my bass went” to the Cure’s native country, England, where she would remain for the next five years. Upon returning to the States, she will also play bass for the aforementioned sassy The solo band of cover darling Courtney Love. and we can partially credit him sassy Vijay to inspire him to strike out on his own.
Wei says, “You have to create your own opportunities in the world and make the best of everything.”
This interview is taken from Jenny V’s appearances Totally ’80s Podcast and the SiriusXM show “Volume West.” Full audio of that subsequent conversation is available on the SiriusXM app.
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