Hello, subscribers!

I’m thinking about next year and what type of content we focus on on top of the quarterly print zine. I would like us to create something where we can update you with what’s going on the zine behind the scenes while also recommending music we’re listening to, videos we’re watching, and books we’re reading. I’m wondering if you’d be interested in that, or if you want to keep this relationship at memes and zines with nothing in-betweens. (Go off, Dr. Seuss.)

I want to do this because I would enjoy doing it, and I feel there’s a “missing middle” in our offerings between ad hoc memes and quarterly zines. I am proud of where the zine has come in 2025, and I’m very grateful for your support in making it possible. Come 2026, I want to put more of myself into Train Songz — even at the expense of taking on less “client work” at my day job — and see what happens. More possible now that I work for myself vs. have one steady job. Pros and cons. More Train Songz could be a pro.

I have two ideas on how this can manifest:

1. You’ve already seen us mess around with Smokestack, our once-weekly blog, which we could use to send a YouTube video a week or something like that. Bringing that back and staying consistent with it is one idea.

2. The other is slowing down the cadence a bit and sending a monthly letter in the mail. This would cost us more, so it would cost you a bit more on the subscription end.

Again, both of these would have casual writing and updates from the zine-team as well as curated music, YouTube, and reading recommendations. Thank you for voting!!!

–The Conductor

P.S. We’re chugging away on issue #8, and we’re targeting mailing it about a month from today.

P.P.S. If you’ll be at the Newark shows, come to our pre-party on Thursday.