The Fanzine Podcast finally gets across the Atlantic, and talks to two of the mainstays of the New York 'zine scene.
Ira Robbins started Trouser Press in 1974 as "hopefully the first consumer-oriented, ( inter }national rock fanzine" and went on to produce 96 issues that got up to a 60,000 circulation before calling it a day after exactly 10 years; Trouser Press continued life as a record buyer's guide, a website, and now as a publishing imprint too.
Jack Rabid started The Big Takeover in 1980 as a one-page broadsheet devoted to New York punk band The Stimulators before gradually turning into an reputable zine that has been publishing twice a year for four decades now, circulation peaking at 30,000. The Big Takeover also has a website and a radio show.
Between them, Trouser Press and The Big Takeover have published 181 issues, and counting.
As well as discussing how and why they started out, how their zines turned into magazines, and why they have persisted in the world of small publishing all this time, Ira and Jack discuss their best and worst interviews, the bands that turned them on and some of those that did not. Acts discussed in this episode include: The Planets, Bad Brains, The Who, Pink Faeries, Even Worse, John Lydon, The La's, The Stranglers, The Buzzcocks, The Damned, The Ramones, Talking Heads, Blondie, The Mumps, Rory Gallagher, The Mad, The Stimulators, and many many more.
The Trouser Press Archives are here. The ongoing Trouser Press website is here. Trouser Press books is here.
The Big Takeover web site/magazine is here. The Big Takeover Radio is here.
The Best Of Jamming!: Selections & Stories from the Fanzine That Grew Up, 1977-86 can be found here and signed copies are available in the USA direct from https://tonyfletcherauthor.bandcamp.com/merch/
SIgn up for Tony Fletcher’s weekly newsletter, long weekend read, and for exclusive access to archived interviews, including those from his Keith Moon biography, at tonyfletcher.substack.com.
Theme music by Noel Fletcher. Logo by Greg Morton.
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