The underground press has always played a key role in shaping British pop culture. As lovers of the printed word, the Daily Note got Paul Moody to explore the history of the UK’s zine publication squad for today’s comeback issue.

Unfettered opinion is all round us. These days, we’re a single click away from reading unedited rants, impassioned prose and wild conjecture on every subject under the sun, all without mediated control or censure. But pre-internet, there was a completely different kind of underground, where word of mouth and the largely clandestine use of the Xerox machine were essential tools for everything from reviews of obscure indie bands to 20,000-word essays on Adidas Forest Hills trainers.

“I need to give voice to those explosions in my head” explained the author and journalist Jon Savage in his punk fanzine London’s Outrage in November 1976. “Got to do it now, now.” Has there ever been a better description of the unstoppable rush of enthusiasm that drives fanzine culture in the UK? The origins of fanzine culture – at least in the UK – can be traced to America’s post-war craze for UFOs. Inspired by the mimeographed magazines which sprung up to cater to the science fiction hype of the 1940s, music fans in America began to assemble their own periodicals to convey their enthusiasm for the new form of music invading the wireless – rock ’n’ roll.

Taking the name ‘fanzines’ – coined by sci-fi enthusiast Russ Chauvenet in October 1940 – ‘zines like Crawdaddy and Who Put The Bomp (run by Paul Williams and Greg Shaw respectively), paved the way for Britain’s underground press of the late ’60s. While music fanzines like Peter Frame’s Zigzag, launched in 1969, provided a microscope for the trippy delights of west coast rock, a radical free press also emerged to reflect the loosening of social and moral boundaries sweeping Britain (or at least, fashionable corners of London).

Magazines such as Oz (founded by Australian émigré Richard Neville), IT and Frendz embraced pop, politics and sexual liberation to create a new kind of press where design and content matched a burgeoning mood for free expression. “These magazines were the product of a time of great social upheaval,” explains Andrew Burgin, press officer for Stop The War and an archivist of the radical press. “There were riots in Paris in May ’68, the Black Power movement in the States and lots of different counter cultural movements. It was also a great period of liberalisation with the legalisation of abortion and homosexuality. People were open to new ideas. Magazines like Oz and Black Dwarf were so revolutionary because they had two sides to them. They were graphically fantastic, but they also had some really sharp political content.”

The idea of the underground press providing a voice for a disenfranchised populace was nothing new. As far back as the mid-17th century, political activists like John Lilburne were spreading a radical message via mass-produced pamphlets pillorying the ruling class.

“The history of the fanzine is tied into the idea of change,” explains Burgin. “People like John Lilburne were considered a big threat to the church and the King during the English Civil War because they were aware of the power of the written word in affecting the way people thought. The original Black Dwarf (a radical magazine first published in 1817) did a lot of similar things. It parodied the upper class and preceded the Chartists and other radical movements which came slightly later. "If you look at fanzine culture, it’s very similar. Oz and Black Dwarf were distributed at demonstrations and via independent bookstores to people who wanted to hear an alternate view. It was a new type of media coming up from street level.”

This combination of pop, politics and street-level activism found its echo in the late ’70s with punk. For a generation of music fans bored stiff by the prog rock excesses of ELP and Genesis, punk’s combination of everything from The Stooges to Situationism was perfectly timed.

The first, and greatest, punk fanzine was Mark Perry’s Sniffin’ Glue (And Other Rock’n’Roll Habits). Running for a mere twelve issues – the first a response to The Ramones’ London debut on July 4, 1976 – its thrown-together format – marker pen headlines, error-strewn, typewritten copy and photocopied pages – chimed perfectly with the new DIY ethic. “All you kids out there who read SG, don’t be satisfied with what we write,” wrote Perry in issue 5. “Go and start your own fanzines or send reviews to the established papers. Let’s really get on their nerves, flood the market with punk writing!” Perry’s most notorious instruction however was an illustration of some chord boxes with the words “This is a chord – this is another - this is a third - now form a band”, which inspired young punks to shrug off their lack of musical training and head for the garage.

Inevitably the style and spirit of this new media was quickly co-opted by the mainstream press. While writers such as Danny Baker, Perry’s co-editor on Sniffin’ Glue, joined the NME, punk’s prime movers – notably the Sex Pistols and The Clash – swiftly became music press cover stars. The groundswell of support for punk and its myriad spin-offs however, ensured that post-punk zines like Burnt Offering, Vague and Jamming! continued to support fresh talent neglected by the media.

“The great thing about the post-punk period was that it was the first time that the fans got to answer back,” explains punk historian John Robb, whose recent book Death To Trad Rock shed light on the fanzine world during the period 1982-87. “The DIY ethic told us that we could get involved in the process, and fanzines were perfect for that. Punk inspired you to be in a band, to make a film or start your own magazine. I loved that idea and I still do. Between ’82 and ’87 fanzines were part and parcel of the whole process, like blogs are today. During that period there was a whole circuit of people up and down the country who were connected by fanzine culture – bands, gig promoters, gobshites, a genuine alternative press. Fanzines like Everett True’s The Legend!, James Brown’s Attack On Bzag and Karren Ablaze’s Ablaze spring to mind. The other great one was Tom Vague’s Vague – an amazing fanzine that covered Situationism, anarchy, shamanism and the post-punk pre-Goth world in incredible detail. What they had in common was that they all communicated the punk and post-punk ideology either humorously or with a real political and anarchistic edge.”

Of all these notes from the underground, the one with the most lasting influence on popular culture was The End. Started in Liverpool in 1981 by Peter Hooton (later to enjoy chart success with The Farm), its obsession with football terraces singled it out as something other than a music magazine. Full of witty putdowns of opposing fans and a regular ‘in’s and out’s’ column, it redefined what a fanzine could be, preferring to ignore the political process and revel in its own universe.



It took the arrival of another street level movement, however, for The End’s defiantly upbeat tone to catch the prevailing mood. Responsible for the first ever article about acid house (penned by Paul Oakenfold), Boy’s Own – launched in the Summer of 1986 – took The End’s blueprint of football, pop, lager, drugs and left-wing politics and aimed it – crucially – at their peers. Edited by former gas-fitter Terry Farley (and with contributions from one Andrew Weatherall), it acted as a drugged-up cross between The End, football fanzines and Viz, its laddish lists of ‘Uppers and Downers’ (Uppers: making your hand go dead before wanking; Downers: West Ham away) chiming with a new generation of clubbers.

Initially resistant to acid house in favour of rare groove, Boy’s Own’s splendidly cynical London-centric approach saw it rapidly become the new scene’s scathingly satirical house magazine, puncturing any sign of pomposity with an acid wit. In a nod to fanzine lineage, it also cleverly updated Sniffin’ Glue’s DIY mantra with the slogan: “Here’s a sampler…here’s two decks…now go form a band!”

By 1990, however, and the rise of Madchester bands such as The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, UK fanzines were out-flanked once more. Writers such as James Brown, Bob Stanley (Caff) and Everett True had joined the ranks of the music press, making their radar for new music infinitely more accurate. “I think when indie went mainstream at the start of the ’90s, the audience adopted a more passive consumer role and a lot of people got sucked into the rave/drugs scene which seemed wilder and more fun,” explains John Robb. “The underground was knocked sideways and the music press also started covering everything in more detail. Then, once the internet started up, people looked to vent their opinions in a different way. Websites like The Quietus are a good example of a modern version of fanzine culture. It’s very well laid out and well written, but its enthusiasm and lack of interest in following any conventional music rules put it firmly in the lineage of the independent sprit of the best fanzines.”

In the age of Blogger and LiveJournal, it’s easy to see the fanzine as a museum piece, rock ’n’ roll’s equivalent of the wax cylinder, but they continue to thrive. Whereas sites like The Quietus provide a handy halfway house for music writers, fanzines are still a vital outlet for fans eager for more information on their heroes (the success of the excellent Super Super on the underage scene being a classic example). Other zines, such as the anti-folk centric Applejack, run by 22-year-old Elodie Roy, and Astronauts (run by Jon Dale) continue the grand tradition of supporting music, which is, as yet, only on the peripheral vision of the London-based media.

The future, it seems, may not necessarily be digitised. The thrill of getting an inky periodical thrust into your hands outside a gig, a club or even a tube station will be with us for a while yet. Equally, the fanzine’s power to disseminate radical ideas should not be ignored. "Fanzines will never die away completely," says Andrew Burgin. "There will always be people chipping away at society trying to present an alternative view. It’s when they tap into the spirit of the times that things get interesting. I think we’re close to another period of that, but it will be the work of a new generation. Personally, I can’t wait."

Paul Moody is a founding member of the Regular Fries and wrote regularly for NME in the early '90s, interviewing everyone from Blur to Radiohead. You can download the full issue #13/24 of Daily Note here.

BONUS:

James Knight on the modern zines worthy of your attention

The Internet is, in many ways, a perfect digital manifestation of many of the core characteristics that defined zine culture. But while blogs and websites allow immediate and inexpensive exchange of musical knowledge at unimaginable speed, they are yet to render the humble zine redundant. Scratch the digital surface and you’ll find a vibrant world of small-run print zines catering for people who like 
to hold, touch and smell a physical artifact and for whom reading about new and interesting music on a screen will never 
be wholly satisfying. After all, when was the last time you read Pitchfork while taking a crap? A massive percentage of contemporary zines continue to be concerned with punk. But they’re the tip of a massive iceberg. Go to any zine fair (londonzinesymposium.org.uk is a great place to start) and you’ll encounter zines that deal with art, comics, literature, poetry, oversized vegetables and shoelaces. I’m not making the last two up. Here are a few of the best dealing with music currently in print.

Distort
Australia might not be the first place that springs to mind when you think of hardcore and punk rock but Distort is easily one of the best zines currently chronicling the genre. It is an A4-sized, black and white, stapled affair crammed with carefully selected flyers, photographs, reviews and columns that run the gamut from classic punk and first-wave hardcore right through to what is happening right now. Issue 24 covered everyone from Rocky Erikson & The Aliens to Cold Sweat. Watch out for the next issue, which will come complete with a 7-inch by excellent Aussie power-violence types Extortion.

Feral Debris
Once the novelty of getting hold of a zine that isn’t preoccupied with punk or hardcore has worn off, allow Feral Debris to quietly inform you about band after band you have never heard of. OK, if you claim to be a huge Simply Saucer fan you’ll have to forgive me for not believing you for a second… The zine also has a regular poetry section and comes with a free CDR consisting of tracks by artists featured in that issue, so if you’re after a compilation of acts like Moss, Jandek and Wooden Shjips, look no further.

Yeti
OK, so Yeti might not technically be a zine due to its sheer size and glossy cover but take a peak inside and, sure enough, Mike McGonal’s labour of love is indeed mainly black and white – so I am including it as a zine. If you’re interested in everything from indie-rock to power electronics to strange sounds from sub-Saharan Africa, then Yeti is for you. Past issues have included conversations with folks like Will Oldham, illustrations by German surrealist Unica Zurn, a comprehensive feature on Blind Willie Johnson, and a Western Saharan travelogue by Hisham Mayet from the excellent Sublime Frequencies label. Buy from:

Woofah
Woofah concerns itself with all things bass-related. Whether it’s charting the latest offshoots of the UK garage/dubstep/whatever-you-call-it continuum via interviews with Untold or the Hessle Audio gang or re-examining UK bass music’s roots with features Tippa Irie and Shut Up And Dance, Woofah has consistently proved that informed, considered and informative journalism continues to exist outside the internet and mainstream monthly music titles. Buy from:

The Hidden Hand
Run by a Northern misanthrope, this handsome zine is stunningly presented with screened wood cuts on heavy-duty card and text on recycled stock. Throw in interviews and features on the Shitty Limits, Eyehategod, Pagan Altar and Pulling Teeth and even rarities such as 
an unpublished interview with J.P. Morrow from 1997 conducted by a young John Gilbert from Red County War Ensemble, and you have one of the most thoughtful and engrossing zines covering heavy and warped metal out there.

Fodido E Xerocado
That title translates as Fucked Up and Photocopied which is an accurate portrayal of what you’ll find between the covers of this zine: images of kids going wild at shows as well as shots of the bands who are whipping them into such a state. The guys behind the publication are based in Brazil but their coverage is truly global, with photos of shows by bands you’ve never heard of in Brazil and Portugal to spot-you-and-your-mates shots of Fucked Up at The Barfly in London.

Niche Homo
A zine that comes out of Leeds and is unafraid to mix articles on the women of Hollyoaks with pieces on great bands such as local heroes Mob Rules or a discussion with Oxbow frontman Eugene Robinson. This is one of the most fun and varied zines to come out of the UK in a good while.

Modern Hate Me
When not fronting The Sceptres or putting on some of the best DIY shows in London with her Big Takeover nights, Bryony Beynon somehow finds time to put out a coruscating and bilious A5-size zine called Modern Hate Vibe. On top of bits on bands you should like such as Ironclad and Cold Ones, you also get columns on why you should listen to Poison Idea and what you could be learning from the Wu-Tang manual.