It is well acknowledged that Suede attract a strain of fan that is particularly obsessive, devoted and well, frankly rather strange:

"Love Suede and you might as well have a rogue gene, an alien implant, some mercury-tipped shrapnel lodged in your brain."

- Victoria Seagal, Melody Maker, 1.4.97

Steve Sutherland, current editor of the NME, was perhaps the first person to recognise the god-like genius of Suede, placing them on the cover of The Melody Maker under the banner 'The Best New Band In Britain', before they had even released a single.

"They will be without question... the best, the most bright and beautiful, in fact the only band on the whole planet that actually matters."

- Steve Sutherland, Melody Maker, 5.4.92

Review of Coming Up

Suede, who according to a particularly provocative NME headline, had "trampled all over the corpse of [the aforementioned] Morrissey", thus had a tremendous reputation to uphold with the creation of the ever troublesome, second album. 'Dog Man Star' is a strange animal indeed, a savage beauty which to borrow the phrasing of Select critic Stuart Maconie is a "celebration of the commonplace, that's neither celebratory nor common. Fools will call it lush when in fact it's a masterpiece." Epic, elegiac and utterly ravishing, Suede crafted an album that is almost too unbearable in its expression of sorrow. But the real tragedy of 'Dog Man Star' is to be found not in what bass player Matt Osman described as its "psychic landscape", but rather in the fact that its greatness as an album has been overshadowed by the tawdry affair of Bernard Butler's departure from the band. No one can deny that this was a momentous event in the history of Suede, but for me it is best summed up in the closing remarks of John Harris' enthusiastic review of 'Dog Man Star' for the NME, where incidentally it scored nine out of ten: "You are a fool, Bernard Butler. You really are."

Before I progress with the matter at hand, I should probably clarify the above statement by saying that Bernard will always be a figure of conflict and contradiction for fans - at once a beautiful genius and not to put to fine a point on it, a traitor. So while you can be assured in the knowledge that it will be Suede's most ardent fans lining up to support Bernard in his solo career (having recently signed to Creation), we won't easily forget the sense of betrayal and loss that accompanied his defection and subsequent slandering of Brett in the press.

It has been a trying and turbulent three years since the release of 'Dog Man Star' and the "B. Incident" - a period in which even the most committed Suedeheads have had to confess to some unease about the future of their favourite boys. For one thing, how would Bernard's replacement, 17 year old 'A-level dodger' Richard Oakes, ever be able to live up to the legacy of his predecessor, let alone deal with the inevitable and unrelenting media scrutiny. But perhaps the biggest threat of all was to be discerned in the meteoric ascendancy of Oasis and its attendant lad culture, which was seemingly the very antithesis of all that Suede represented; "The Singing Electricians versus The Limp Wristed Glamourpusses" was Brett's very wry summation. Would Suede find a place in this new pantheon of British music, that one could argue - and you can bet I will - they instigated in the first place?

The critical and popular success of 'Coming Up' has thus been a great relief for Suede fans, but moreover it is a confirmation of what we have known all along:

"Suede have finally earned that 'Best Band On The Face Of The Planet And Quite A Few Of The Nearer Stars Too' subtitle by doing everything better than everyone else."

- John Perry, NME, 7.12.96

"It's time to kick the court jesters into a ditch, the monarchy has been restored."

- Simon Price, Melody Maker, 14.9.96

As a tribute to our shared malady, Janine and I have created Australia's first Suede fanzine, "Pornographic And Tragic". As befitting its name - derived from the song "Heroine" off 'Dog Man Star' - it is a bit of a sad affair; very amateurish, very obsessive and frankly geared at a readership that we fear exists only in minuscule numbers - Australian Suede fans, though 'fanatics' might be a more apt word. So to overcome this problem, while the bulk of the zine is Suede, Suede and more Suede, we have also tried to include many articles of interest to the wider audience - though Marilyn Manson fans might find it a tad too confronting. We have the ubiquitous Longpigs interview, Mansun and Bis reviews and truly exclusive photos, plus articles about Morrissey, The Manics, Blur, the sexiest psycho of them all, Depeche Mode's Dave Gahan, and maybe even more - uni deadlines permitting! For Janine and I, Pornographic And Tragic is not so much a finished product as an ongoing process; while the burden of this issue has fallen almost entirely on our shoulders, we foresee an evolution into a more heterogenous work, incorporating articles and ideas about a variety of bands contributed by anybody who has the time or the passion. While Janine and I will continue to keep up the Suede content, it is entirely possible the emphasis will shift from a Brett-centric zine to something more comprehensive, spanning the whole UK music genre; this is fine with us and depends almost entirely on your response.

So if you have the urge to write or draw - regardless of age, experience and Suede tolerance factor - or even if you just want to make contact with fellow fans, please pick up a copy of our tragic porno or write to us at the addresses below, for more details.

After all, We Know "What it takes to turn you on"...

Katrina