John Dandy

 John Bersuch needs a cigarette.

He went cold turkey two days ago, and getting over Joe Camel's hump seems to be causing some internal tremors as he sits in a loft in the crumbling West Bottoms, discussing how his Dandercroft magazine got its name.

"I used to date this girl leprechaun, and one day this alien jumped out of her chest and said, 'Dandercroft! Dandercroft! Dandercroft!" Bersuch says calmly, as if giving directions to the DMV. "That's how I came up with the name. Sadly, the leprechaun died. But the alien is still around. I can hear it running around my room every now and then."

Nicotine withdrawal is a bitch.

Of course, Bersuch is joking. At least I hope he is.

Then again, this is the sort of humor you might expect from someone who has the acuity and audacity to start his own publication on a frayed shoestring.

"[The name] just popped into my mind," Bersuch says. "Although afterwards, I found out it means dead skin buffet. And it kind of makes sense. The music people make is like dead skin that they leave behind. And this is kind of like a buffet of a lot of different music, or dead skin."

Uh ... check, please.

Then again, Dead Skin Buffet would be one hell of a name for a magazine catering to the black-eyeliner crowd. But when Bersuch first came up with the idea for Dandercroft a year ago, his vision went beyond profiling bands with names like Hambürger Bloodclöt or Daycare Necrophiliac.

"I didn't want it to be connected to any genre," Bersuch says. "I didn't want people to say 'There's a punk 'zine, or 'There's a metal 'zine.' I just wanted it to be a weird little 'zine covering all kinds of music."

Bersuch has succeeded on one count at least, making "weird" his own private science.

Among other oddities, each issue includes an installment of "Bloated in the Head," Bersuch's comic strip, in which the protagonist delivers absurd monologues such as "My gay friend Smithy thinks that I should buy a stuffed animal and feed it pencil shavings. But I stopped using pencils years ago."

Maybe it isn't the cigarettes. Maybe it's just John Bersuch.

Not that he is much different from any other J.Q. Hipster. He's your average mutton-chopped 25-year-old in black-rimmed glasses. A man with a fetish for Aqua Teen Hunger Force and a curious hatred for Kenny Rogers who is also a member in three local bands.

Bersuch served as a drummer and keyboardist with defunct acts like Trouble Junction and Big Jeter and now sits in with Forrest Whitlow and the Crash, Bacon Shoe (his "comedy rap" solo project) and Minds Under Cover, a band whose latest artistic direction Bersuch matter-of-factly describes as "cybernetic suicide meth metal with keyboards."

Right. One of those bands.

But Bersuch differs from the usual suspects when it comes to publishing acumen. He did, after all, distribute his own gross-out comic strip as a youngster.

"I've always wanted to have my own magazine," Bersuch says. "But I never had anything to write about except people melting from toxic waste."

Turns out disenchantment was all he needed.

"Actually, I think I was complaining about how hard it was for bands to get into the Pitch," Bersuch says. "Someone said something smartass like 'Well why don't you start your own magazine?' So I did."

And last August, the first issue of Dandercroft rolled off the presses.

"I was really scared," Bersuch admits. "I didn't know if it would last. I just wanted to make it past the first one."

Mission accomplished. Dandercroft hit the supply-and-demand cycle at low tide, quenching the thirst of a region once awash in quality 'zines like Flavor Pak and Micromag. And Bersuch didn't fuck around.

Dandercroft barely qualifies as a 'zine -- typically a subversive publication written by fanatics on the back of cocktail napkins and Chinese takeout menus -- because the print quality is almost too good. The first run was 1,000 copies. There were twice that many for the third issue (released April 1), which clocks in at a hefty 64 pages and includes a free local-music compilation album.

"I've thought about making it smaller," Bersuch says. "But I want it to stand out. I want it to kick ass."

Every facet of the magazine courses through the berserk Mr. Bersuch, who shares writing duties with a small stable of volunteers. Aspects of the magazine's design are relatively inspired, though the writing seesaws between entertaining and obnoxious, irreverent and irrelevant.

An interview might include the question "What comes first: the monkey or the sweet potato?" or a musician's response "We have this thing -- retards versus midgets -- who would you rather fuck? You can't go to jail for fucking a midget."

Both of which are freaking awesome.