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 Saltz 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,.

For more information, pictures, how to contact the zine editors, and zine updates, visit tonyfletcher.substack.com. (Dedicated page goes up within an hour or two of this episode's publication.)

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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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For Episode 29, Tony's guests are Roual Galloway of Spinners, and Derek Steel of Razur Cuts, two of the more prominent among the many Litzines currently flourishing in the UK (and beyond).

Litzines – independent zines of literature from outside the mainstream – are surely among the oldest of all forms of fanzines. Depending on your historical perspective, you could even argue that they predate the concept of the fanzine itself, which as noted back on Episode 21, was a word first knowingly used in 1940.

Certainly, self-published zines of prose and poetry writing were an important part of the Beat culture on both US coasts through the 1950s and 1960s, have an anchor in the current vibrant world of perzines, and have been especially strong in the UK ever since the emergence of a new generation of poets in the early 1980s. These were people encouraged by the examples of cross-over artists like John Cooper Clarke and Linton Kwesi Johnson, and aided by the support of rock artists like The Jam’s Paul Weller, and they took to the pubs and small theaters of the UK to reclaim the form “for the people.” In the UK, the medium, in prose and short story form too, has also always had a close connection to the football terraces and others aspects of pop culture, and recent issues of Razur Cuts and Spinners, each weighing in at about 80 pages, readily demonstrate as much...

For more info, including photos, more words, and more links, please visit https://tonyfletcher.substack.com/p/the-flourishing-world-of-litzines

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