Gail O’hara is interviewed by Carlos

Why your zine is called Chickfactor?

Pam (Berry, who I did chickfactor with till issue 10) picked the name. Back in 1992, when we started it, we had seen an interview in another magazine with our pal Stephen from the band Lorelei and he was talking about when there's a girl in the band, that band had the CHICK FACTOR going for it. If she was cute, then the band had the TOTAL CHICK FACTOR. We thought it was pretty silly, but in that summer full of riot grrrl zines it seemed appropriate to have a genderific, but still quite funny, name.


How would you describe your zine for a person that never had seen it?

It's a magazine for musicians and people who are in love with fluffy pop music. Tiny type, sideways layout, old-school black and white, a little slick for a zine. I think it's got interviews with funny, smart, fabulous people; those interviews are chatty and in context.


Why are you doing a zine?

Because I love music, photography, putting it together, writing, and exposing music that I think doesn't get the proper attention. I also think that it's important to present the world with people who are brilliant and amazing and doing creative work on their own terms. I like the Andy Warhol idea of documenting my world and throwing a good party (which is I think my number one talent).


Will be available someday an online version of Chickfactor?

Yes, someday. But I'm just too busy right now to get it together. Soon, I hope.


Which are the countries where do you get more orders/fan mail from?

Mostly it's the U.S. and Canada, but I have received mail from Brazil, Finland, Israel and the former Yugoslavia as well.


Tell me your fave (pop) heroes?

Old: Nick Drake, Everything But the Girl, Dolly Mixture, Shop Assistants, Orange Juice, Style Council, Elvis Costello, Francoise Hardy, Chet Baker, Ella Fitzgerald, Astrud Gilberto, the Smiths, Bacharach, My Bloody Valentine, Would-be-Goods, Heavenly/Talulah Gosh, Go Team, Popguns, Kalima, New Order, Felt.

New: Dump, Containe, Yo La Tengo, Magnetic Fields, Momus, Belle and Sebastian, Cornelius, Edith Frost, The Legendary Jim Ruiz Group, Sally Timms, the Verlaines, Versus, Barbara Manning, Honeybunch, Musical Chairs, True Love Always, Adventures in Stereo, The Yips, David Kilgour, High Llamas, Saint Etienne.


What would you tell to the acussations by some people of doing a pretentious zine that always features your friends at the interviews?

I've said this before: If I don't like a magazine, I don't read it. So I would tell them not to read it. There are plenty of other things to read. No one is forcing them to read it. I make a magazine the way I think it should be, and I don't expect everyone to like it. I've never heard it called pretentious before but I don't really scour the internet looking for criticisms.


Fave magazines, fanzines

Cha Cha Charming, Magazine for Superdeformed World, Wind Up, Beer Frame, Stay Free, Harpers, Utne Reader, American Demographics, Icon, TimeOut (London), Rocktober, Baffler, Minus Times.

RIP: Conflict, Runt, Emily's Hip Pocket, Wiglet, Sunny Sundae Smile.


Fave pop journalists

I work at TimeOut New York, so I read TimeOut London every week and I like their writers (Peter Paphides and Laura Lee Davies). Byron Coley is very funny. Stephin Merritt, Andrew Beaujon, Gerard Cosloy, Lois Maffeo, Nicole Arthur, Paul Lukas, Christopher Porter, Jonathan Bernstein (there I go again plugging my friends). Nick Currie is such a great writer I think he should do it full time.


Tell me the contents and the cover-star of an ideal/utopian Chickfactor issue

It may sound like I'm lying but I think every issue has been ideal and utopian: I cannot express what an honor it is to have interviewed Belle and Sebastian. I suppose if cf had higher circulation, I could secure interviews with such luminaries as Lauren Bacall, Jennifer Saunders, Janeane Garofalo, Tracey Ullman, Sandra Bernhard, Isabella Rossellini, Dionne Warwick, Tracey Thorn (I have tried!), Kate Bush, Neneh Cherry, Francoise Hardy, Astrud Gilberto (I have tried), Debi Mazar, Brigitte Bardot, Laurie Anderson and scads of favorite writers, artists and photographers still alive. Some of these folks might be accessible --most would be great on the cover. Others I would pursue for an ideal issue: Moe Tucker, Alison Statton, oh I could go on and on. I wish I had money so I could do cf as a 5-color glossy art magazine.


Tell me your hobbies/activities...

I have a crazy busy day job, so when I'm not doing that or chickfactor stuff, I see lots of gigs, work on my photography, read books, listen to records, go to films, plays, readings, museums, throw dinner parties, put on gigs, maintain my record label, Enchante. I hang out a lot with my friends. I aspire to be the next Cecil Beaton or Erwin Blumenfeld (wonderful photographers). Someday!


Your fave goddess

Jennifer Saunders, Tracey Ullman, my mom, my friend Connie


What's the worst and the best of living in NY?

Best: incredible music scene, great people I've met here, you can get anywhere in 5 minutes in a cab, the best vegan restaurant ever: Angelica Kitchen, every band plays here when they come to the U.S., my apartment is nice, the city is electrified, 24 hour access to do stuff, the wind, you can do and get whatever you want whenever you want to.

Worst: Smelly, no oxygen/not enough trees, crowds, it's becoming too homogenous like a shopping mall, I hate the mayor, racial strife, homelessness, too expensive, pollution, I don't have a garden, I don't have any animals, everyone tries too hard, too many houseguests, the pace is crazy fast sometimes.


Your 10 all time fave records

This is too hard but I probably play the repertoires of all these artists the most: The Go-Betweens, The Verlaines, Dump, The Magnetic Fields, The Smiths, The Velvet Underground, Nick Drake, Astrud Gilberto, Belle and Sebastian, Elvis Costello.


Your last fave top records

Lately, I've been playing Serge Gainsbourg's Melody Nelson, Siesta's new Free Design collection, soundtrack to The Knack by John Barry, B&S' Tigermilk, Yo La Tengo's Little Honda EP, all Nick Drake records, Cornelius' Fantasma.