I've been a fanzine producer, a fanzine writer and a fanzine collector for almost 30 years and although, since the days of the internet e-zines (such as my own Swine and previously, Partizan from 2000 - 2005) have allowed us to reproduce zine ideals in cyberspace, there's no denying that whilst the cost and distribution implications of fanzine production have been greatly reduced, the very feel of good old ink on paper can never be replaced. I miss the old 'zines and whilst there are plenty of DIY mags, zines and pamphlets out there, too many perhaps, something within the culture has been lost.
Fanzines are, to me at least, the last vestige of true intellectual and cultural freedom; free from the demands of advertisers, of editors, of corporate control or political interference. The best fanzines are always best when they are opposed to traditional media, before their authors are enticed into the mainstream and castrated of any dissenting opinions they may once have harboured. Of course some people start fanzines simply as way in, as a method of showcasing themselves for the big boys, which is how James Brown went from Attack On Bzag to NME to Loaded to Jack/I Feel Good to showbiz legend in 20 years. The fanzines I remember most fondly are those that made no compromises with their readership or the wider world of 'business'.
It was Liverpool zine The End that first alerted me to the existence of an alternative voice within music, within sport, within politics. The End was unlike almost every other fanzine of the era in that it wasn't really based around music. The punk legacy of DIY zines devoted to individual groups or genres pretty much continued the existing tradition of music as the primary function of a 'fan' zine; that being a mag for fans of a particular group or sound. The End covered the emerging scally culture of Merseyside in the 80s with wit, with passion, with intelligence but with a sardonic detachment too; celebrating and ridiculing Liverpool's musical, sporting, political and cultural progress in equal measure. And although often overlooked by even those who pontificate about fanzine culture (the Radio 4 series Zine Scene broadcast in 2008 ignored it altogether) nevertheless it laid the template for later zines such as When Saturday Comes and Boys Own in the 80s.
When Saturday Ccomes perhaps mistook The End's obsessive coverage of football fans and especially their fashions with a passion for the game itself. Not that The End's Peter Hooton and Mick Potter, both die hard Liverpool fans, weren't interested in football but simply weren't interested in writing about it. For them it was the culture that accompanied the match, the actual fans, not the players or the managers or even the teams that were far more interesting. Boys Own took their ethos and applied to a London football and clubbing scene that was about to explode in a hallucinogenic ocean of acidic repeatitive beats.
Now celebrating its 25th anniversary with a compilation on Djhistory publishing, Boys Own became the blueprint for many copycat 'clubzines' in the late 80s and early 90s such as Leeds Herb Garden, Manchester's Freaky Dancing Nottingham's Duck Call, Birmingham's Sunnyside Up and countless other imitators. At its best Boys Own — like The End — was snide, cliquey, aloof, cynical, acerbic and totally of itself, paying no dues to those who somehow need to appropriate and control any independent idea that becomes popular.
In the 90s fanzine culture's style and content was absorbed and largely neutralised by the media with the likes of The Face copying its fonts and formats, Jockey Slut gaining ground and establishing itself as perhaps the most successful zine of the era and by the noughties creating a culture where glorified advertorials such as Vice can proclaim themselves as fanzines by adopting the irreverence and gang mentality of the best zines re-packaged to appeal to 'urban lifestyle brands' the world over.
Most fanzines haven't aged well. I look back with some embarassment at my own efforts for the likes of Boys Own, What's The Score, Herb Garden and shudder but they are remarkable documents of their time, examples of genuine underground cultural dissent and reportage that deserve to be cherished every bit as much as other forms of literature and cultural ephemera. The basic premise of fanzines remains the same today - even in cyberspace 'where no-one can hear you cyber-scream' - as it was in the counter-cultural 60s and 70s; YOU don't speak for ME!
Phil Thornton is the co-editor of Swine Magazine and author of Casuals: Football, Fighting and Fashion - The Story of a Terrace Cult.
