Fanzines

labrat

hot on the heels of love
afore the days of the internet fanzines were "our CNN" (well BBC2).
The most memorable one i read was called Flowmotion which introduced me to the world of powerelectronics and had a rather fabulous article on Ron Geesin , although it is long lost I suspect the themes in that 'zine have coloured my listening since like nothing else.
Any other faves (I suspect a few folks on here may have even produced one?)
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Ah yes.... picking up zines was fundamental for me. It kicked off with an anarchopunk one called Mucilage which the punks round my way put out. I remember seeing it in a local bookshop and thinking it looked hugely subversive.

Then stuff like Vague loads and loads of others. I used to get stupid amounts of mail.

The 90s were especially good with loads of post-situationist stuff like Fatuous Times, Hoax!, Autotoxicity, Anti-Clockwise, Head etc.

I got some old Flowmotions from Rough Trade about 10 years ago, they were cool. I've got shitloads of stuff filed away in old washing powder boxes that make my partner despair, but it's great source material for blogging.

People should check out http://greengalloway.blogspot.com/ for some scans of old Kill Your Pet Puppy zine and other stuff.

I only ever made a few newsletters and the odd zine (mainly "Turbulent Times"), but contributed to a fair few along the way...
 

labrat

hot on the heels of love
john eden said:
The 90s were especially good with loads of post-situationist stuff like Fatuous Times, Hoax!, Autotoxicity, Anti-Clockwise, Head etc..
autotoxicity was fabulous (really liked the letraset cover one) a good poppy mix of theory and music (with quite a bit of rubbish hippy doodling) you could tell it was a labour of love. Howard Slater wrote a bit for this, his own zine Break/flow is my fave of this ilk.
I've seen(and like) Green Galloways blog but it made me wonder why more ex zine producer's are'nt bloggin(perhaps they are and I don't know)
what i would like ANY info on is Mtthew Higgs' Photophobia.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
labrat said:
autotoxicity was fabulous (really liked the letraset cover one) a good poppy mix of theory and music (with quite a bit of rubbish hippy doodling) you could tell it was a labour of love. Howard Slater wrote a bit for this, his own zine Break/flow is my fave of this ilk.
I've seen(and like) Green Galloways blog but it made me wonder why more ex zine producer's are'nt bloggin(perhaps they are and I don't know)
what i would like ANY info on is Mtthew Higgs' Photophobia.

Yeah Howard is great.

If by hippy doodlings, you mean some of the artwork in ATX, it was done by the editor's kids. :)

I think a lot of zine people moved onto other stuff, other interests, maybe. Or went "pro".

Joel Biroco who did Kaos and Gyrus who did "Towards 2012" and Phil Hine who did "Pagan News " have blogs. There are probably tons of others. I think a few people I've talked to don't really like blogging as a medium in that people pay less attention to them, especially for longer pieces.
 

owen

Well-known member
i rather half-heartedly edit a zine with man like monster bobby.
the zine mileu is a fairly dispiriting thing at the mo i think...look through the racks at Rough Trade and it's either riot grrl or indie schmindie, with good and odd stuff quite rare- lots of energy that would go into interesting zines has obv gone into blogs- but i miss the visual side of zines, the commodity fetishism....anyway i may try and find a copy to scan for your delectation
 

Eric

Mr Moraigero
I did one awhile ago---10 years now!---on Japanese indies/noise: Boredoms, Merzbow, etc ... I only had 1 issue but it was big, 110 pages or so of 10-point text.

I got some material toegether for a second on OAD, Paradise Garage (Japanese perverse folk guy, like modern Kan Mikami), Audio Active and so on, but never got my shit together to do the layout and put the thing out. Oh well.
 

martin

----
'Vague' was great, used to pick it up in High St Kensington Market - the 'Televisionaries' issues was class

I also really liked 'Underground', a free job that used to infrequently appear around London, edited by Matt Fuller and Graham Harwood (of 'Mongrel'), and featuring more ideas in its 8 pages than most other zines crammed in, with stuff on computer viruses, supermarket rituals, Stewart Home's "Royalwatch" column, the East London Psychogeographical Association, Homocult and the foul-mouthed Mandy B

Also 'Bugs & Drugs' from Bristol was pretty amusing. There used to be a fanzine from Liverpool called 'Dregs', which basically started off as this bloke hitch-hiking around the country to catch Ned's Atomic Dustbin gigs, which took off after he gathered this core base of contributors who'd send in articles about anything they fancied (I think one of Babes in Toyland did a piece once), from suicide to sexual anecdotes. It also stood out as being one of the few, if not only, punk / indie zines that also gave space to stuff like London Posse and NWA, as well as the not very underground U2.

I also occasionally read "HAGL" (Have A Good Laugh), an Oi! zine from Burnopfield, which was done by this bloke called Trev Howarth - the band interviews were mostly dull, but he was a member of AFA and the stuff about anti-fascist street action and local politics / council expose's were normally good reads. This was slightly tempered by Howarth's gleeful obsession with winding up any liberally minded readers by calling naff things 'gay' and making sick jokes about child abuse. Best moment I remember was when he interviewed Andy Martin (Apostles / UNIT), who wound him up right back with comments like "If you can't restrict yourself to 2 pints a week, you don't deserve to live" and claiming that all punks were cowards and jealous of hard working, dedicated law students - all of whom deserved bags of money.
 

owen

Well-known member
the only issue of Vague i've ever read was the televisionaries issue- ended up quoting chunks of it in my MA dissertation. got it in the short lived gower st 'institute for autonomy'...
ta for the link labrat, that's slipped my radar somehow
 

vimothy

yurp
Joel Biroco who did Kaos and Gyrus who did "Towards 2012" and Phil Hine who did "Pagan News " have blogs. There are probably tons of others. I think a few people I've talked to don't really like blogging as a medium in that people pay less attention to them, especially for longer pieces.

Joel Biroco actually did another copy of Kaos a couple of years back. Alan Moore wrote an article on Kenneth Grant for it.

Zines fucking rule.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Ah yes.... picking up zines was fundamental for me. It kicked off with an anarchopunk one called Mucilage which the punks round my way put out. I remember seeing it in a local bookshop and thinking it looked hugely subversive.

I've just hooked up with one of the editors of Mucilage via the extraordinary kill your pet puppy site - possibly the best example of an old fanzine going online and retaining its flavour:

http://www.killyourpetpuppy.co.uk/news/

Some of the comments there get a bit "london anarchopunk squatters reunited" but it is a fascinating look at people involved in a particular subculture 20 years on.
 

slim jenkins

El Hombre Invisible
I produced one called 'Ego' back in the early-90s - great to be on that scene and get loads of mail/zines/flyers as part of what felt like a genuinely interesting movement/community of cut'n'paste fanatics.

Some of what I did back then is a little...er...embarrassing now, but hey, I got swept up in the poll tax riot post-anarcho-situationist thing (as many of us did). Mind you, some of my opinions haven't changed.

Recall the thrill of being accepted by Tower Records - heh-heh - home and abroad. Good outlets like the ICA and Compendium in Camden were very supportive. Used to love doing a sweep of indie outlets picking up 'zines, dropping mine off and getting all excited when they said they'd sold five copies!!!

I suppose mine was a little different in that I'd write articles on Ornette Coleman and interview T-Power and Dr Rockit later - whereas many were still on the post-Sniffing Glue punk train. But most were great in their own ways as individual creations lovingly Zeroxed and stapled.

Vague was pretty special, as someone has already mentioned.

Sometime after I made an issue with Tricky on the cover he phoned me up to say he'd just come across it in his draw and how much he liked the article (!!!) - imagine my shock.
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Oooh!

was that you?

Ego was bloody great. I think I wrote you a fan letter once (and ripped off this piece on reggae for my website: http://www.uncarved.org/dub/dew.html

Also - I remember some hilarious industrial music pisstakes.

I might even have a copy of Ego here somewhere...

also, I think you know DannyL on here?

what a nice end to a shit day... :)
 

slim jenkins

El Hombre Invisible
That was me - ;)

Ah, one of my fans...wonder what happened to the other? Thanks for the kind words of appreciation.

I'll PM you about money owed for using the article...and pass it on to Bill, of course.

DannyL? I've seen the name here but not made any connection with those days...strange notion...the years BPC and APC...and who is who...

(Hope today's a better one for you)
 

john eden

male pale and stale
Actually it might just have been a gushing review in Turbulent Times...

Bill emailed me recently as well... it must be time for the great Ego reunion and retrospective on BBC4 now, right?
 
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