October 16-22, 2003

cover story

Found in translation: Kramer calls the little Japanese machine "the Easy-Bake Oven of silk-screen." Photo By: Michael T. Regan

Go Gocco Go

Melissa Kramer of The Snow Fairies reveals a trade secret to better fliering.

by Juliet Fletcher

In the war of self-promotion, a band's fliers are its bullets, its land mines and its Humvees. They're cast, scattershot, at the crowds exiting other rock shows, in the hope that one will lodge in a pocket, to be dug out later. They lie in wait, in bars and cafés, till a potential fan spills a soy latte, scans around for a napkin and, as the paper mops up, looks at its message for the first time. And they're sent into the field, wads of them given to friends and unobliging relatives, and drafted to another town to call up music's outlying reinforcements.

The design of the flier, then, is crucial. It must notch somewhere between war paint and camouflage -- lots of eye-catching detail, without appearing to try too hard. And, in large numbers, efficient fliers are not cheap. So wouldn't it greatly help every fledgling, world-changing band if they were able to design and print their own?

Melissa Kramer, of local stars The Snow Fairies, knows the secret. Gocco is a little Japanese machine, which operates on almost the same principle as silk-screen, she explains. Her Gocco is a small baby-blue hinged box, which she's used since high school. It runs on batteries, and its needs are few: custom-produced screens ready-coated in light-sensitive emulsion (one for each design); oil-based Gocco paints (available in 300 colors, of a toothpaste consistency); and flashbulbs.

A-ha! The science: Your original design should ideally be a stark image printed out or photocopied; when it is placed next to the screen and exposed to flash, the carbon ink reacts to the light, burning away the emulsion. Once the emulsion is gone, of course, ink that's applied to the screen will pass through in places. Thus, one screen can then print many hundreds of copies of the same image. [Gocco] is kind of like the Easy-Bake Oven of silk-screen.

Getting technical: You place your original next to the screen, and slot it into the machine, ready for exposure. Screw two fresh bulbs into the upper lid, and expose. Once it's done, the bulbs can be thrown away, while the original should peel off the screen easily. Now, apply your color to the screen. Kramer demonstrates using midnight blue, covering it completely, then slotting it in to print. You can use more than one color -- but, like silk-screen, they do bleed together. For crisper results, she recommends making a screen for each color segment, and printing the lightest color first.

Printing is done by selecting a postcard-sized piece of card, aligning it with the screen, then pressing down hard. In terms of productivity, Kramer estimates she can run off 100 copies in an hour -- and the screen, when not in use, can be kept fresh in the fridge. The process, she's learned, is precise enough to reproduce designs containing images, illustrations and text -- though photos don't work perfectly, because they contain a lot of gray tones. The advent of home computers and font databases has meant ease of design, though Kramer says the instructions, translated badly from Japanese, contain no mention of printers -- they say you should color in your original with a carbon pen. Such coal-miner's toiling is no work for an indie rocker. Please feel free to cheat your way to victory.

Gocco products are available at selected stores and at www.gocco.com. More information on The Snow Fairies is at www.snowfairies.heartonmysleeve.net.