Jamming #11, 1980

Punk is where you find it!

I'm just on with reading Jamming Ed., Tony Fletcher's new book, Boy About Town, and very enjoyable it is too with some ace insights into the world of fanzines. Not least, there's a particularly excellent section on Tony's introduction to Joly McFie, that wonderful guru of UK fanzinedom  - I thoroughly recommend you cop hold of it. Anyroad, here's issue 11 of Jamming - easily one of the best fanzines published anywhere, ever! It quite simply has the lot - great interviews and articles and an abundance of interesting bits & bats bulge and spill from its fabulously colourful pages. Interviews - Zeitgeist, The Beat, The Dead Kennedys, and The Shout; articles - Swiss Wave (Felix Fischer Ed. of Swiss fanzine, Jamming [confusingly] mentioning 101, Sick of the One Day Kick, Nasal Boys, Sperma, Dogbodys, Yello, Troppo, Hertz, No Fun [fanzine], Kraft Durch Freude, Mutterfreuden, Kleenex, Liliput, TNT, Glueams, Mother's Ruin, Liars, Gauzone, Technicolor, Zero Heroes, Bastards, and Tickets); It's 4 Years Later and What Have We Got? (Tony ponders the lack of decent venues and the notion that 'rock 'n' roll is dead'; Birmingham's Burning (Dave Jennings has a squint at Brum notingThe De-Go-Tees, Vision Collision, Duran Duran, Dance, The Nightingales); The Jam Effect appraises the Sound Effects and the attendant live tour; excellent fanzine Round-Up [A-M] + an appreciation of Better Badges; LPs - Adam & The Ants, Sector 27, Spec Records, The Fall, The Damned; 7"s - Wah Heat, Art Objects, Soft Touch , Louder Animal Group, Cabaret Voltaire, The Naughtiest Girl Was A Monitor, Furniture, Non/Smegma, The Gist, Dogma Cats, This Heat, Dayshift, Essential Logic, Methodishca Tunes, Ian Dury, Josef K, Orange Juice, Girls At Our Best, Delta 5, Jona Lewie; Jamming Charts; Gigs and Ligs - Another Pretty Face/TV 21, Buzzcocks/The Things; Letters; and brief bits of news on Louder Animal Group and Paul Weller. Superb stuff!

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Jamming #11

Panache #14, 1981

Hello Snotrags 

Here's issue 14 of Mick Mercer's ace fanzine. Folk may be interested to learn that by and large all the photography featured in Panache was snapped by Mick himself - if you're interested in scoring a bit of it or having a gander at Mick's online magazines take a peek here. This issue features: interviews with UK Decay, Security Risk, The Uglies, and the Leopards; articles on Temporary Title, and Maitresse [1975 film]; a brief live review of Brian Brain; snippits of Ski Patrol, The Innocents, and The Petticoats. Really there's much more to this fanzine than my write up might suggests.

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Panache #14

Let's Be Adult About This #1, 1979

anyone taking the name seriously ought to be shot

Here's a very stylish fanzine. Let's Be Adult About This was edited by Vicki Bonnet and features a great deal of input from future Foetus man, Jimmi Thirlwell. There's an excellent assortment of interviews here with The Monochrome Set, Swell Maps, Scritti Politti, The Atoms and The Door & The Window (Nag and Bendle of course - but Mark Perry gets to chip in). The interviews are accompanied by a taster of each band's lyrics. Also featured are Deutsch Amerikanischen Freundschaft, The Passage, The Original Mirrors, Dr. Mix & The Remix, Viva, Books, Methodischa Tune, The Scars, Destroy All Monsters, The Tea Set, Cuddly Toys, Music Club, Classix Nouveaux, The The, Balloons, and Manicured Noise in brief articles in which Vicki and Jimmi each have their tuppence. There are reviews of singles by Pink Section, God's Gift, Flowers, Cabaret Voltaire, Phones Sportsman Band, Swell Maps, Josef K, Stepping Talk, English Subtitles, Holger Czukay, Come One, The Sound, Art Bears, Special Affects, Spitfire Boys; a Red Crayola Colouring Competition + a playlist apiece from Vicki and Jimmi. Yet again, another superb fanzine brought to you by…you guessed it - Better Badges!

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Let's Be Adult About This #1

Sometimes It's Worth Living? #1, 1980 (UPDATED)

A tidy little number is this Sometimes it's worth living? As far as I know it's a one-off. Bristol-based editor, Bridget Peters notes that most of the editorial were situated in Manchester, and that's where Siwl? was printed. Despite being one of the sparser examples; it clocks in at a mere 12 pages, the slightly arch approach to interviewing niftily lifts Siwl? out of the sycophant sink. Mostly comprised of: A Different Way of Thought & Vision - Alternative Reasoning with Steve Ignorant of Crass; Adam Ant Puts His Guts on a Plate for You to Consume or Throw Up; The Art Objects interviewed in Quite Arty Cutey; and essaying Magazine in Culture Vultures. Crass, The Needles, Echo & The Bunnymen, Girls At Our Best, Magazine, The Teardrop Explodes, and the mooted The Square Hyena EP (The Manchester Mekon, Spurtz, The Waste, The Bathroom Renovations) being the concessionary reviews. So yes, however brief, it sure is worth living. 

Here's some lovely commentary just in from contributor, Mary:

Thanks for posting this, what a blast. This is the fanzine I made with my sister – she was in Bristol and I was in Manchester. You’re right, it was a one-off, although that was not the original intention. We started work on issue 2 but we didn’t get around to finishing it.

We sold this at gigs – the most memorable being a Teardrop Explodes gig at the Factory at the Russell Club in Manchester, when a middle-aged man showed an interest in what I was doing and I told him to fuck off (for no particular reason that I can remember now) and he just laughed. I walked away and was immediately surrounded by people asking, admiringly, if I knew him. I didn’t, so they told me it was Tony Wilson and that he owned the club. I’d never heard of him but I was grudgingly impressed that he hadn’t thrown me out or said “do you know who I am?” Years later, I saw 24 Hour Party People (set a few years later, in the Hacienda days) which has a scene where Tony Wilson walks past a queue of people waiting to get into the club and is told to **** off by a girl in the queue for no particular reason. I guess it must have happened to him a lot.

Anyway, good times. We enjoyed making this fanzine and it’s really great to see it here and read your comments. Thanks for scanning this in.

Excellent!. Many thanks for dropping by and commenting, Mary.

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Sometimes it's worth living? #1

Back Issue #3, 1980

Not So Brave

This here edition of Back Issue is almost wholly comprised of interviews: Flux of Pink Indians, Swell Maps, Athletico Spizz 80, TV Personalities, and The Damned. I think you'll agree, those superb encounters were well worth the 25p asking price for this fine fanzine. Anyway, apart from those sweet offerings there's a very brief article on Girls At Our Best and a couple of pages given over to Better Badges - and why not?

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Back Issue #3