It’s time for a new episode of The Fanzine Podcast, and we start 2025 off with one of the pioneers from the explosion of punk zines in 1977: V. Vale, editor and publisher of San Francisco’s legendary Search & Destroy along with its successor, RE/Search Publications.

Now in his late 70s, Vale – who grew up in foster homes in the Midwest and found refuge in public libraries – has been active in the U.S. counterculture pretty much all his life. He attended U.C. Berkeley during the Free Speech Movement of 1964-65, was active on the city’s hippy scene, worked at the equally legendary City Lights book/magazine shop, and was on hand when San Francisco’s first punk bands – Crime, Nuns, The Avengers, Sleepers, Negative Trend among others – emerged in 1977, at which point he decided to document the culture. Basing Search & Destroy on the format of Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine (founded in 1969), Vale’s preferred newspaper print and unadulterated Q&A format combined with the energy of those interviews and the explosive visuals of its layout to make Search & Destroy a must-read zine far beyond the city’s borders. This was just as well given that Vale reckons it took two years to get 200 people on board the SF punk scene but that he printed 5000 copies of that debut issue, helped by donations from Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

...To read on, to see examples of Search & Destroy and RE/Search, please visit tonyfletcher.substack.com

To order from RE/Search Pubs, visit researchpubs.com

Thanks to Noel Fletcher for the theme music, and Greg Morton at Omnibus Press for the logo template.

https://fanzinehemorrhage.com/2023/12/01/search-and-destroy-3/is available via https://omnibuspress.com/products/the-best-of-jamming-published-on-23rd-september-2021

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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 Editor, dedicated to exorcising the addictive demons created through her original zine Bubblegum Slut, has resulted in a Guest Ex-Editor 'zine, for which she cajoled and convinced 14 other ex-editors to resurrect their zines, if only for 2-3 pages. Two of those ex-editors, Jøsh Saitz of Negative Capability, and Clint Evans of Peppermint Iguana, are now at work on new print issue after years away, and they join Alison, and host Tony Fletcher, in discussing why they would want to go through it all over again. Listen on to learn what an Adult Activity Book looks like, why Jøsh named his son Damon, why Clint was going off to Turkey the day after our interview, and whether Alison puts fake fur on her back covers (hint: she does).

Other zines mentioned: Black Velvet, Abaxis, Artcore, Lunchtime For Wild Youth, Meal Deal Zine, Festival A, Golf Sale, Pretty But Schizo, Adventures In Reality, Pint Sized Punk, Myth & Lore, Mondo Grebo,.

Please visit https://tonyfletcher.substack.com/p/relaunching-your-fanzine for way more content.

Thanks to Noel Fletcher for the theme music, and Greg Morton at Omnibus Press for the logo template.

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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 over 70 pages and set David off exploring Europe to interview many of the important artists in person.

What kind of artists are we talking about? Some of them you may know, like Can, Tangerine Dream, Kraftwerk, Nektar, Neu!, Heldon, Chrome, or Urban Sax.. Others you may never have heard of, like Guru Guru, Asmus Tietchens, Atem, Art Zoyd III, Gunter Schickert, or Shub Niggurath. All of them were at the forefront of musical creativity towards the end of the 20th Century, and Eurock and Neumusik were at the forefront of the fanzines writing about them, interviewing them, and cataloguing their culture. Patterson grew a distribution service and began publishing books; he still posts twice-weekly about the music on his Facebook. Elliot started a “band,” a cassette label, and recently wrote an extensive book on the British pop music of 1984.

For more information about their zines, their culture, and where to get copies of their books, please head on over to https://tonyfletcher.substack.com/p/adventures-in-neumusik-and-eurock

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