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The day Zig & Zig faxed me

12 November 2024

Zig & Zag are furry puppets with ping-pong ball eyes, shown here hosting a TV show I was sad to see that Future Music magazine is to close, with its final issue being number 414. I contributed a couple of articles to the magazine around 1993, and it's amazing to see that a title I wrote for then has lasted this long.

One of the articles was an interview with Reel 2 Real, who had a hit with 'I Like to Move It', which more recently found fame in the Madagascar films. Reel 2 Real had recorded a track with Zig & Zag, puppet presenters of The Big Breakfast TV show. Future Music's style guide at the time encouraged humour, so I thought it would be fun to do a box-out on this collaboration. It also helped with wordcount, given it had been quite hard to get the technical detail I needed in the main interview.

I phoned the Channel 4 press office. "Would you like to make up some words from Zig & Zag that I can use in the article?"

"Oh no!" said the lady on the phone. "We couldn't do that."

I was disappointed.

"They would want to do that themselves," she said, brightly.

It amused me to think of the Channel 4 PR people deferring to the crazy puppets in this way, but they got me comments which arrived by fax in the Future Music office. After some confusion there ("er, anyone know why Zig & Zag are faxing us?"), it was posted to me, and this week I rediscovered the fax.

Here's what they wrote:

ZAG: Eric came to our posh Docklands apartment. It was our first meeting and unbeknownst to us our first recording session. Eric decided there was no time like the present and got us to hire a DAT machine and record our single 'Them Girls, Them Girls' there and then. He was quite demanding but always had a smile on his face.
ZIG: I checked through Uncle Eric's wallet when Zag was singing. He is very rich. He is a member of four video clubs.
ZAG: We love Real to Reel and hopefully we can work with them again. Respec in every aspec!
ZIG: Boolaka! Boolaka!
ZAG: Oh dear! It's Booyaka, oh never mind!
ZIG: Boolaka! Boolaka!

I suspect their writers Ciaran Morrison and Mick O'Hara might have helped with the joined-up writing, but the misspellings of names are Zig & Zag's.

So, farewell Future Music. Its sample packs and tutorials were helpful when I was recording my album Artificial, and I loved studying the studio photos to see what gear the interviewed artists were working with. I remember noticing that Jean-Michel Jarre's studio included a Novation Mininova, because I have that synth too. 414 issues is an incredible run for a specialist magazine, but it's becoming harder for magazines to survive. If there's one you love, support it today!

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