Back in 1980, Alan Rider started a fanzine in Coventry called Adventures in Reality. Over in Southend-on-Sea, Graham Burnett started his own fanzine called New Crimes. Forty years later, independently, without knowing each other, Alan and Graham both felt compelled to document their home city's thriving scene zine - Alan, with Tales from the Ghost Town: The Coventry Punk Fanzine Revolution 1979-1985 - and Graham, with Southend-on-Zine: FIfty Years of Voices and Stories from Southend's Underground and Alternative Press. Tony Fletcher, who started his Jamming! fanzine back in 1977, brought them together for the first time on this Zoom call to talk about their adventures in self-publishing, the thriving scenes they were part of. the ups and downs of running a 'zine back in the supposed heyday, why they took on the giant task of putting these compendiums together, and how the lessons they learned back then have remained applicable to this day. Artists referenced include The Specials, Crass, Dr. Feelgood, Attrition, Speedball, God's Toys, Eyeless In Gaza, Stress, the Sinyx and many more. Fanzines referenced include Hard As Nails, Alternative Sounds, Cobalt Hate, Anti-Social, Sniffin' Glue, Kill Your Pet Puppy, Toxic Graffiti and more.
Tales from the Ghost Town and Alan's compendium of his own zine Adventures In Reality: The Complete Collection are both available from https://adventuresinreality.bigcartel.com/
Southend-on-Zine is available from https://spiralseed.co.uk/product/southend-on-zine/, as is the Vegan Book of Permaculture and more. A short video about Southend-on-Zine is on YouTube here.
Tony Fletcher can be found at https://tonyfletcher.net/
Tony's latest music, writing and social media can be accessed from https://linktr.ee/TonyFletcher
One Step Beyond podcast is at https://shows.acast.com/onestepbeyond
The Best of Jamming!: Selections and Stories from the Fanzine That Grew Up 1977-86is published by Omnibus Press
OmnibusPress.com
'The Jamming! Fanzine Podcast Theme'is by Noel Fletcher.
Logo by Greg Morton.
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