For more information, pictures, how to contact the zine editors, and zine updates, visit https://tonyfletcher.substack.com/p/relaunching-your-fanzine Most fanzines are not designed to be permanent: their editors grow up, get "proper" jobs, start families, or just grow bored and want to move on. But occasionally, years down the line, fanzine editors come back around and decide to have another go at it. For this episode, we welcome back from Episode 17 Alison B, whose Confessions of an Ex-Zine...

In 1973, a Californian by the name of Archie Patterson became so enthused by all the interesting underground European experimental/electronic music he was hearing that he started up a fanzine dedicated to it, called Eurock. It lasted 40 issues, through 1990. In 1979, a Brit by the name of David Elliott felt much the same way and, in part inspired by Eurock and also by post-punk DIY culture, started his own zine Neumusik. While it only lasted 6 issues, until 1982, during that time it grew to...

For Episode 29, Tony's guests are Roual Galloway of Spinners, and Derek Steel of Razur Cuts, two of the more prominent among the many Litzines currently flourishing in the UK (and beyond). Litzines – independent zines of literature from outside the mainstream – are surely among the oldest of all forms of fanzines. Depending on your historical perspective, you could even argue that they predate the concept of the fanzine itself, which as noted back on Episode 21, was a word first knowingly...

The first issue of Mick Mercer’s fanzine Panache came out in January 1977, with Iggy Pop on the cover, perfectly poised for the punk/new wave/DIY revolution that was exploding across the UK. Mick kept the zine in print for a further 50+ issues, all the way to 1995, which makes it one of the longest-running, and arguably the most consistently prolific of all the original UK punk-inspired zines. In the decades since, Mick has carried on demonstrating his passion for indie music, comics, and...

Throughout the 1980s, Tim Anstaett ran The Offense, an influential, prolific, jam-packed fanzine out of Columbus, Ohio, where he still lives. In the 1990s, Jay Hinman began the underground zine Superdope fanzine out of Seattle, and after a hiatus, picked back up on zine publishing in the 2010s with Dynamite Hemorrhage, which set its stall with a 68-page debut issue. For the last few years, Jay has also been running the Fanzine Hemorrhage web site and newsletter, offering 200 reflective...

For show notes, and to see images from Zerox Machine and other books discussed in this episode, please visit https://tonyfletcher.substack.com/p/zerox-machine-the-big-book-of-british And, while there, please subscribe to receive regular updates on this and other Tony Fletcher podcasts and writings. https://tonyfletcher.substack.com/subscribe Matthew Worley is Professor of Modern History at the University of Reading, where he is gainfully employed studying punk and post-punk culture. (Yes,...

With Andy Lyons (WSC), Mike Harrison (City Gent), Kevin Whitcher (The Gooner.) For links to and pictures of these fanzines, to post comments, and to read more related writings and podcasts, visit https://tonyfletcher.substack.com/p/the-fanzine-podcast-ep-25-40-years For over 40 years now, football fanzines have run parallel to music fanzines in the UK, growing out of the same alternative pop culture as did the punk and new wave zines of the 1970s, as evidenced perhaps by the fact that the...

Please visit (and subscribe to) tonyfletcher.substack.com for more writings on zines and beyond. In this episode, Tony offers a short update on the Fanzine Podcast's future episodes and some of the activities around the zine scene before using the opportunity of being in the UK for a while to revisit the debut episode of what was then called The Jamming! Fanzine Podcast, "From Classroom To Clubs." The episode was summarised at the time as follows: For this debut episode of The Jamming!...

To win a copy of the compendium, Sniffin’ Glue and Other Rock’n’Roll Habits, published by Omnibus Press, as mentioned on this episode, please visit https://tonyfletcher.substack.com/p/midweek-update-32-sniffin-glue-and - and don't forget to subscribe to the Substack account if you haven't already. Competition ends March 19. Back in 1976, given that there was no other publication dedicated to covering the Ramones or the new bands popping up around London, Mark Perry founded Sniffin’ Glue, the...

Liz Mason and Billy McCall are two of the more prominent U.S. “publishers” of what are affectionately called “perzines,” fanzines as expression of self. Liz publishes or co-publishes Caboose, Cul-de-Sac, Awesome Things and The Most Unwanted Zine and works as manager at Quimby’s bookstore in Chicago, which actively sells ‘zines. Billy puts out Proof I Exist, Behind the Zines, The Difference Between, has published at least three different pocket-sized memoirs, distributes fanzines online, and...

The Fanzine Podcast finally gets across the Atlantic, and talks to two of the mainstays of the New York 'zine scene. Ira Robbins started Trouser Press in 1974 as "hopefully the first consumer-oriented, ( inter }national rock fanzine" and went on to produce 96 issues that got up to a 60,000 circulation before calling it a day after exactly 10 years; Trouser Press continued life as a record buyer's guide, a website, and now as a publishing imprint too. Jack Rabid started The Big Takeover in...

What was the first ever fanzine? When was it published? In what country? What did it write about? Where can I find it? When was the word fanzine coined? By who? Where does it come from? What is a Gestetner? Or a Roneo? Where can I get one? Actually, why should I care? To help answer these questions, I am joined on Episode 20 of my show The Fanzine Podcast by: Hamish Ironside, fanzine editor, book publisher, and co-author of We Peaked At Paper: An Oral History of British Zines; and by Rob...

For an episode playlist, to see covers and pages of these zines, and for much more about the fanzine culture in general, visit Midweek Update #12: Fanzines are Alive & Kicking Edition. In 1980, in Glasgow, Robert Hodgens started Ten Commandments alongside writer Kirsty McNeil and photographer Robert Scott; after four issues, known now as Bobby Bluebell, Hodgens moved to London with his band The Bluebells and became, briefly a pop star. In 1983, between Edinburgh and Aberdeen, Alastair...

"No other youth culture or subculture centred on fashion or music, or both, has ever had as many fanzines dedicated to it as the mod revival." So wrote Eddie Piller at the start of his 2918 book Mod Zines (with Steve Rowland) and he should know: as editor and publisher of Extraordinary Sensations, Piller saw his 'zine sell a phenomenal 15,000 copies at its peak in the mid-80s, as many as legendary punk zine Sniffin' Glue had managed a decade earlier. Over the course of an hour-long...

Ten years after she ceased publishing her 2000s rock’n’roll fanzine Bubblegum Slut due to the lifestyle it induced (i.e. drug addiction), Alison B. found herself producing a new zine about her old zine, the lifestyle it induced and the year she spent in limbo before getting clean. That zine is entitled Confessions of an Ex-Zine Editor and it is astonishingly original and entertaining. Partly a “trainwreck memoir” in zine format, it has the benefit of additionally being side-splittingly funny,...

(Sign up at tonyfletcher.substack.com to receive this podcast interview in unedited form.) James Brown and Mark Hodkinson both hail from the Pennine District in Northern England. Both ran fanzines in the 1980s (Attack on Bzag and Untermensch). Both stayed in publishing. Both now have successful memoirs out about their lives in the world of words. Beyond that, their paths have been different. James left Leeds for London, and after 10 successful issues of his fanzine, joined the NME. He then...

In the mid-1980s, before she became known for fronting the band Lush, Miki Berenyi put out five issues of Alphabet Soup fanzine (“It may be crap but it’s only 5p”) alongside her then-bestie and future band-mate, Emma Anderson. Meantime, before she started Sarah Records, Clare Wadd put out multiple issues of Kvatch fanzine. This podcast, hosted by former Jamming! editor Tony Fletcher, marks the first time ANY of the three have ever had a conversation with each other. Over the course of an...

Mike Diboll founded, produced and published the leading anarcho-punk fanzine TOXIC GRAFITY, producing six issues between 1978-82 "with various spin-offs." Never your typical band-interview-record-review zine, Toxic Grafity set about "to capture and express the ethos, attitude, aesthetics and politics of anarcho-punk using found images, collages, logos, slogans, ‘rant’, prose, prose-poetry, free verse, and essays." Issue 5 carried with it a flexidisc by Crass, featuring the especially recorded...

Tony D. – Tony Drayton to his parents - was founder, publisher and editor of the archetypal, seminal, influential punk fanzine, Ripped & Torn, which ran from 1976-79. Tony F. – who prefers to go by his full name, Tony Fletcher – was founder, publisher and editor of Jamming, which ran from 1977-86. Remarkably, and despite both being so prominent in the London fanzine scene, the pair had never spoken before setting up this podcast interview. That will explain why this episode runs over an...

Back in 1980, Alan Rider started a fanzine in Coventry called Adventures in Reality. Over in Southend-on-Sea, Graham Burnett started his own fanzine called New Crimes. Forty years later, independently, without knowing each other, Alan and Graham both felt compelled to document their home city's thriving scene zine - Alan, with Tales from the Ghost Town: The Coventry Punk Fanzine Revolution 1979-1985 - and Graham, with Southend-on-Zine: FIfty Years of Voices and Stories from Southend's...

THE JAMMING! FANZINE PODCAST is back after a year in exile, now as a Podcast for and about all Fanzines, though still hosted by former Jamming! editor/publisher Tony Fletcher. For this first episode of a new series/season, Tony interviews the authors of the excellent new hardbook book, WE PEAKED AT PAPER: AN ORAL HISTORY OF BRITISH ZINES, namely Gavin Hogg and Hamish Ironside. Before, after and when they could, even during the pandemic, they traveled the length and breadth of the British...

We close out the first Series/Season of the Jamming! Fanzine Podcast with an interview conducted by James Endeacott, for Soho Radio's Morning Glory show, with Jamming! founder Tony Fletcher. The conversation traces the full story of the fanzine that grew up, from schoolboy beginnings to corporate break up. Between them, they discuss The Clash, The Jam, the DIY Records Scene, fanzines, regionalism, Crass, reggae, Smiley Culture, the Rezillos, the Undertones, Billy Bragg, the Dead Kennedys,...

In the middle of 1981, Jamming! expanded from fanzine to record label. Between that summer and the end of 1982, Jamming! Records released five singles, all of them independent chart hits: two from the band Rudi, three from Zeitgeist, and one by Apocalypse. For this episode of the Jamming! Fanzine Podcast, we have one member from each of those groups: Brian Young from Rudi, Peter “Jaffo” Jervis from Zeitgeist, and Tony Fletcher from Apocalypse (and yes, from Jamming! Records too). The...

Tony Fletcher reunites with Bruce Dessau, Ross Fortune and Paul Davies, each of whom wrote extensively for Jamming! during its commercial heyday, 1984-85, and each of whom went on to further careers in journalism. As much as this is a talk specific to Jamming! magazine, it is very much a conversation about the music and media culture of the time - about how easy it once was to access the artists, about a time when publicists were friends with journalists, a time when alcoholic lubrication was...