Fresh Cow Pie #4 $2.00 FCP is free to residents of North Dakota and runs $2 for those outside Farmer P country. For additional info, contact Farmer P at the email address below. CONTACT: Farmer P Fresh Cow Pie 5112 77th Ave. SE Montpelier, ND 58472 farmerp@daktel.com Available from Parasol, or you can

On the cover of issue #4, Farmer P., the agriculturally-oriented 'zine mogul who publishes Fresh Cow Pie from his trailer home deep in the North Dakota prairie, grabs your attention by advertising "hot naked chick pictures". They turn out to be of the poultry variety rather than the human female one, but by the time you find out you don't care because you've already thumbed through a couple dozen pages of quirky, idiosyncratic, from-the-hip music reviews and interviews. And to make things even better, Farmer P. really is a farmer. He really lives in a trailer home on his farm in North Dakota. In this issue he proves it by including a short essay on the state of the American family farm (which, in view of the subject, is not nearly as funny as some of the other things he writes!).

While driving his tractor, he listens to CDs and then he writes about them in true farmer fanzine fashion. While you might expect his tastes to lean in the Garth Brooks direction (oh stereotype-strapped public you!), you'll be interested to know that his favorite band seems to be Guided By Voices and that the bands he chose to interview this issue are Kleenex Girl Wonder and Mogwai. Other bands he likes include Belle and Sebastian and Atari Teenage Riot, so needless to say Farmer P. is a bit more cosmopolitan than your average sunflower cultivator.

As well as the aforementioned interviews and essay, Fresh Cow Pie #4 includes more than 130 alphabetically-arranged music reviews, covering bands from All Chrome to Wolfie. Farmer P.'s reviewing style is direct and uninhibited. He minces no words if a CD sucks and doesn't hesitate to pile on the praise if he likes to fix tractors while listening to it. And he swears a lot (perhaps to emphasize that he is, indeed, a man of the earth)! Issue #4 also has a short piece entitled "A Coupla Hicks Growin' Up in Rural Nordakoda," in which Farmer P. recalls youthful days of chewing tobacco and slaughtering frogs with .22 caliber rifles, and a tour diary written by members of the band Imipolex G.

While it is a bit crass at times (sorry Farmer P.!), I enjoyed Fresh Cow Pie because it succeeds at communicating a sense of who Farmer P. really is. Good 'zines do this. If I was to meet Farmer P. in the produce section of the supermarket, I feel like I'd already know him. If I'm ever up in middle-of-nowhere North Dakota, maybe I'll look him up.

Reviewed by Noah Wane