Fanzines

[Ian Townsend]

I love the fact that in this day and age when everything can be uploaded, stuck on a blog, linked to Facebook etc etc, some groups / labels / fans are still making the effort to produce physical stuff to promote themselves.

Check this fanzine plus Cd from Sound Shack (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sound-Shack-13-for-2013-Issue-1-of-Limited-Edition-CD-and-Fanzine-/271135168519?pt=UK_CDsDVDs_CDs_CDs_GL&hash=item3f20ea5807).

And yes, I ordered one.

[treeboy]

Great minds think alike. Filled my boots with this lot today. Not the expensive comic book I hasten to add.
http://www.avispivak.com/shop.htm

[feenix]

There's talk of Ed Piskor's Hip Hop Family Tree (http://boingboing.net/tag/hip-hop-family-tree) being available in print form soon.

[Ian Townsend]

So there I was last night thinking it'd be nice to have some examples of early 90s Rave magazines / fanzines like Blaze, Generator, Eternity etc. Suffice to say my maximum bid of £5 on each one was thoroughly whomped. Private buyers are piling in on these.

Small, but 'thoroughly looking forward to reading them' salvation this morning to see I won 4 copies of the early 1993/1994 clubbing mag / fanzine called The Nerve for 99p each.

With circulation of magazines dropping daily there's a definite aroma of investment about major / minor and micro printed publications at the moment.

[eruditio]

Suffice to say my maximum bid of £5 on each one was thoroughly whomped. Private buyers are piling in on these.

With circulation of magazines dropping daily there's a definite aroma of investment about major / minor and micro printed publications at the moment.
Interest in all sort of publications has been lively for some considerable time as these two articles from 2009 suggest.

Simon Reynolds - How the Fanzine Refused To Die (http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/feb/02/fanzine-simon-reynolds-blog)

Fanzines - The Scene That Smells of Zine Spirit (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/fanzines--the-scene-that-smells-of-zine-spirit-1792675.html)

[Ian Townsend]

Totally agree with a lot of what is written in those articles. There's definitely a whole generation craving physical product MP3s on Iphones doesn't supply.

The silly prices now for House / Rave / 90s clubbing magazines and flyers is definitely the 20 years on thing. Old ravers remembering the parties they went to and wanting the ephemera associated with it and now earning enough money to be able to collect it. Some of the 80s 88/89 flyers for events like the first Helter Skelters, Midsummer Nights Dream and Dreamscapes etc are beginning to fetch serious money.

Kinda related....I got into a chat with one of the original Twisted Wheel DJs at a Northern Soul in Norwich last night and he was laughing about the amount of money original Twisted Wheel membership cards were selling for on Ebay. He said he used to get a new membership card every time he went because he was always losing them and regretted not sticking them all in a box! :D

[treeboy]

I take it you guys have checked out Flashback #2. Great article about the importance preserving music magazines, fanzines etc, not just in terms of collectors, but institutionally too. Some of the big universities in the US are building great collections, as a historical resource. It's the very things that you are talking about, the fanzines, flyers etc that seemed throwaway at the time, that prove the most elusive.
https://www.lib.umn.edu/faq/5861
Is there anything like this in UK?

[eruditio]

I take it you guys have checked out Flashback #2. Great article about the importance preserving music magazines, fanzines etc, not just in terms of collectors, but institutionally too. Some of the big universities in the US are building great collections, as a historical resource. It's the very things that you are talking about, the fanzines, flyers etc that seemed throwaway at the time, that prove the most elusive.
https://www.lib.umn.edu/faq/5861
Is there anything like this in UK?
The most curious thing about that University of Minnesota / Missouri archive is that it cuts off at 1985. Music-wise the fanzine scene was in full bloom in 1985! I have an old copy of the NME from around 1985 with a huge article about the fanzine scene entitled Fanzine Fever. If you're searching for Underground stuff it seems very strange to not find all you can and sort it into categories afterwards. Perhaps they have and they're still sorting the later publications?