Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
‘T“Fanzine” is “fanzine” is “fanzine” in London, Jon Marsh, London-based music artist, Jon Marsh. Radio stations that exist outside of the media, without the demands of publication and search engine optimization, music lovers are treated as tangible, self-published products for the producer’s enjoyment, but as an opportunity to connect with older people.
In the 1970s, punk bands like Sniffin’ Glue, Alternative Ulster and Ripped & Torn allowed fans to share stories and passions quickly and cheaply. Sixty years on, music fans are enjoying a renaissance as a way to fight algorithm fatigue and a hyper-capitalist music industry. “Digital interest has gone down a lot,” says hip-hop artist ExP, a producer of hip-hop music. West Yorkshire Hip-Hop this. “You’ll probably spend more time watching the zone than anything else you’ll see in action. It’s fun and realistic.” In the words of Stephen McRobbie, from indie-pop icon and fanzine regular Pastels: “It’s a long way compared to other TV shows, but the quality is always better.”
Music lovers today show both personal and collective tastes, such as Lunchtime for Young Adults‘s annual album retrospectives, or Gutter‘s cacophony of words and metaphors. They look like punk paper (Another Subculture) and Smash Hits-inspired puzzles (The Hard Cook Kid); Documenting hyper-local events in Glasgow (WinchBelfast ()Poseur), south east London (SelOut) and Teesside (Point Blank). “I like to think of TQ as the history of music in the Northeast,” he says The value of TQEditor Andy Tarquin Wood. These views are shared by Nova, who also edits the Glasgow zine Youth War and their friend Courtney. They said: “It’s like a timeless snapshot of the times it’s in. Even though some of the bands are gone, the history is still there, which makes it special.”
Punk is still very visible in today’s games, including old fanzines Gadgie and One Way Ticket to Cubesvillealso Creative activitiesfounded last year by 18-year-old Bristol punk Poppy Lola. But almost every genre has a fanzine drawing, from ska (Do it Dogmode (Rich Life) and 2 tons (Before, During & After), to iron (Shouts from the Abyss) and people (Anarchic Folk). From Newcastle Afropulse is a monthly song celebrating the diversity of Black British music, featuring alt Black icons such as Polystyrene Along with deep dive, Afroswing is the heritage of British girl groups. Jon Marsh started Wired Up eight years ago to express his love of glam rock. ExP created West Yorkshire Hip-Hop to help create “necessary infrastructure” locally and connect with the DIY style of the genre. “Hip-hop has always been about making something out of nothing: rushing to beatboxing, painting with leftover paint, dancing in the street,” he says. “Zines are a great way to connect a DIY community like ours.”
Lo-fi sounds are the natural music of zine makers: McRobbie credits the popularity of Pastels among zine makers for their “handcrafted, edgy, exotic feel”. He promotes a fanzine This is where You are“which combines the editor’s musical taste with his publishing and other interests”. And among the latest trends in indie-pop you have an interest in literature In April Sun he is amazing YES YES YES!. Jane Duffus became an indie-pop legend as a teenager in the 1990s, and started What happens last year to “express his silly side” alongside his work as a writer and journalist. She said: “No one doubts that I want to ask Amelia and Cathy from Heaven to pretend to be the aunts who are suffering from the magazine. The first issues of all her fanzines featured Stephen Duffy of Lilac Time on the cover. “They say they look forward to seeing me again in 30 years or so.”
The current revival has brought many zine makers back to the fold. David Rumsey has revived his 1990s skinzine Strengthen it in 2014 – it still covers “all blind items, except the right wing”. The writings of Hamish Ironside Desire he stayed from 1990 to 1994, and returned in 2023 after co-writing. We went up on paperan oral history of the concerts that “refreshed” his enthusiasm. Perhaps uniquely, Saudade is still printed on Gestetner, a press that was often used to produce zines before the spread of photocopiers in the 1980s. “The whole nature of zines is DIY, and having my own printer I’m self-sufficient,” Ironside says of his machine, which prints from pencils made by hand typewriters. “I also like the aesthetic. It makes my music look like it happened in the 1950s, or the 1930s.”
Phil McMullen also uses a rare method in his “labor of love” Terrascopaediawhich may be the only song published in its entirety using letterpress – “It’s not surprising, because it takes seven hours to put one page”. After working as an underground music publisher for more than four decades, McMullen founded Terrascopaedia in 2012 after teaching himself the process, which involves hand-lettering and using vintage presses. “I’m drawn to artists who have similar skills to mine,” says McMullen, among them artists Gwenifer Raymond, Greg Weeks and Sally Anne Morgan. Morgan is a singer, says McMullen, “who plays the Appalachian folk plane very impressively.”
Resisting the slide of AI, many young designers are adopting the cut-and-paste style of old fanzines. Pindrop shares thoughts on London’s underground scene through scrappy scraps of paper. I couldn’t features a mixtape on Lou Reed and the Candy Darling shrine. The young friends of Evan Moakes and Will White are strong, thoughtful Why Do We Care? (WDWC) was inspired by a shared love of Manic Street Preachers, and embraces the band’s early DIY aesthetic. Inspired by Moakes’ father Gordon Moakes – a member of None and the former Bloc Party singer who also revolutionized the 90s music zine Conform or Die – the pair created WDWC as “as much a source of intellectual discussion and ideas as passion and randomness”. The bands (especially the 90s) that he joins share their “desire to understand and evaluate people through knowledge and art”, says White, “Manic Street Preachers and McCarthy’s lyricism describe class divisions, and they inspired me to study critical thinking. Huggy Bear and Bis feel connected and speak to what I’m going through.”
Members of Scottish indie-pop band Bis have also seen this trend and are still going strong. “Our passion for fanzines comes from our origins as self-producers,” says singer and guitarist Sci-fi Steven, who organized the Paper Bullets in the mid-90s music scene. “Our time was the last time of the Internet, and I think there is a love for the (younger) generations.” Steven Manda’s teammate Rin reveals that she is an outsider, both past and present, because of the request. “Today’s youth are not only attracted to us because of our political voices, they are shouting,” he says, “but also to accept being different freely from those around them.”
Zines have always been a foreign market, such as Welsh bilinguals Shame on the Familymade up of “wrongs, critics, workers”, according to Cardiff singer and editor Efa Supertramp. When political politics used to challenge US oppositionmusic also plays an important role in making the connection between culture and politics visible. The latest edition of the sound and music zine Structure features timely documentation of the intersection of noise and resistance, including a moving piece on Palestinian solidarity radio by sound artist Mort Drew. And after the war in Ukraine, TQ released a Ukrainian special with electronic singer Kateryna Zavoloka, who “was very open about the effects of the Russian invasion on her music and her family”, says editor Wood. Teen Warfare helped their band perform outside of a Disturbed concert, with local bands covering David Draiman’s music. IDF voice support. “Making it a performance gig encouraged more people to participate,” says a Nova editor, who sees art as a way to make politics less intimidating. “In fact, zines are about sharing information and building people, even if they’re just music fans.”
Expression and community growth is a shared goal for today’s music creators, whether they want to help promote their local music, or connect with fellow fans through international networks. Zine makers also connect with each other at gigs, online and in zine libraries and fairs. “Zine making is like speaking a forgotten language,” says WDWC’s White. “Whenever someone who understands hears you speak, you connect with each other immediately.” Wood sees everyone involved in the zine TQ – writers, readers, musicians – as “part of a looping partnership”. Thirty years after making zane himself, Mr. Bis still feels that it is part of folk art. “Last year I found a fanzine on the back of my guitar – Why Do We Care? with Bis on the cover,” says Sci-fi Steven. “After reading and feeling the energy flying through the pages, I sat down and wrote a song that I thought the writers would like to hear.
