Interview 34

Dom Raban produced political/music zines Frayed Edges and later, between 1980-85 Proper Gander, whilst living in Sheffield. These days he spends his time as Managing Director at the design and communications agency Corporation Pop based in Manchester, UK.

Please tell us something about your fanzines and how they came to be.

I started my first fanzine, Frayed Edges, in Southampton in early 1979. At the time I was a young activist in the Labour Party Young Socialists (as well as being a punk). The fanzine was initially put together by a group of us at the LPYS (on the fringes of that group was John Denham - now an MP and former cabinet minister) and reflected our political as well as musical interests. As I moved away from the Labour Party towards a more anarchic political doctrine so did the fanzine - I think the Labour Party stalwarts finally took umbridge when I took to the streets of Southampton with a spray can to publicise the mag. I ended up producing five issues before moving to Sheffield to start a Zoology degree.

I didn't take my degree very seriously (dropped out at the end of the 2nd year) but in my first term I started another fanzine called Proper Gander with a group of friends. Proper Gander was similar to Frayed Edges in that it mixed music and politics (though this time without the Party connections). It was an exciting time to be in Sheffield - with Cabaret Voltaire and the Human League hitting the mainstream and new bands like Pulp, Chakk, ABC and many others emerging from the scene. Politically too there was lots going on - Sheffield was 'the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire' and the miner's strike was on our doorstep. Proper Gander documented all this - and many of the main players in the music scene were regular contributors. Between 1980 and 1985 we produced twenty issues. In 1983 or 4 we officially became a Workers Cooperative with help from Sheffield City Council's Cooperative development team - though this 'official' status was short-lived because we were too stoned to keep up with the bureaucratic paperwork. From about 83/84 we had an office in the newly opened Leadmill, which at the time was one of the 'must play' venues on the live music circuit.

The first few issues were printed by various 'radical' printing outfits around at the time - including Rochdale Alternative Press and a similar print shop in Leeds whose name I have forgotten. But - following the true DIY ethic - I learnt to operate an offset-litho press at a community print facility in Sheffield and printed the remaining issues myself.

By 2005 (or thereabouts) I stopped producing the fanzine but my experience of 6+ years with Cow Gum, typewriters and particularly print fostered a love for design and production and so in 1988 I set up a design company on Thatcher's Enterprise Allowance Scheme.

Clearly politics and music have played a key part of your passion for doing a fanzine. I read in an excerpt from Vague (No.6) that you were 'scooped' in getting the interview with Devo. I don't know if you remember this, but it is interesting to note the competitive use of language.

'June 9 Devo at Southampton Town Hall. Chris Johnson was pictured posing in a Devo hat as he scooped the Southampton fanzine Frayed Edges for this interview with Devo's Jerry Casale.'

Was this reflective of a competitive spirit between producers of music fanzines to get the band interviews during this period?

We weren't so much competitive as territorial. I don't remember the Devo incident but I do remember Vague. At the time Southampton was a one fanzine town and we were it. Vague hailed from Salisbury - a cathedral town whose biggest claim to fame was as the home of Edward Heath - world's apart from the multicultural port of Southampton. When we travelled to other towns and cities to see and interview bands there was a definite and delicious sense of trespass – and I think there's an element of this in the Vague comment.

You've produced zines in cities which would be considered 'provincial' by some, but foster strong regional perspectives. What is it about your zines (either through content or graphic language) where you feel this is reflected?

Frayed Edges definitely reflected a small town scene and a regional perspective. Punk took two years to travel down the M3 to our coastal outpost – but when it arrived we greeted it with the same fervour it had received in the early days on the Kings Road. By this time the London scene was on its knees and had become little more than a photo opportunity for Japanese tourists. Down in Southampton we were re-inventing the DIY ethic and finding our own self-expression (I earned the nickname 'why pay London prices' from one wag because I made my own clothes and screenprinted T-shirts with artwork ripped from my favourite album covers of the day).

But Sheffield and Proper Gander was entirely different. You could justifiably be lynched for calling the Sheffield of 1980 provincial or regional. We were the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire. We had dirt cheap public transport, workers coops and David Blunkett leading the revolution! We didn't take any notice of the dandy pirates and indian squaws that characterised the London scene of the early 80s. We had industrial funk and took pride in the fact that the best music of the day originated from Steel City. Cabaret Voltaire, The Human League and later Chakk, Hula and Heaven 17 as well as a host of local bands were defining a new music that influenced London - not the other way round.

Sheffield did for the early 80s UK music scene what Detroit and Chicago did for the music of the latter part of the decade. The politics of South Yorkshire also defined the era. Whilst the south of England was waving bunting for our boys in the South Atlantic we had troops on the streets fighting pitched battles with the miners. There was a genuine sense of revolutionary fervour - albeit clouded by a fug of ganja and a plentiful supply of magic mushrooms just a 4p bus ride away. Proper Gander documented most of this - both the politics and the music - and our fluid editorial team often included musicians from the bands which were shaping the city's music scene.

What other zines from the 1970s/1980s were considered to be key in establishing points of views that influence music and politics of the time? Or, at the very zines which you feel would give us some sort of historical insights into the UK scene.

Sadly I've lost the copies of the fanzines I used to collect at the time and my memory is hazy when it comes to recalling all the movers and shakers of the day but one that I'll always remember from my punk days was Kill Your Pet Puppy. I loved not only its outrageous and provocative title but also the graphic style which, with its brash colours and bold typography embodied the zeitgeist of the time. Later on when I was in Sheffield it was City Fun over in Manchester which provided the model for us to aspire to.

Interview 27 (Part 2)

Des Behari, Dom Latham and Dan Russell of Manchester Municipal Design Corporation, and of the zine Things Happen, sent us photos of what they feel to be one of the city's least successful building sites whilst also questioning the messages from the billboard slogans and images. And, of course, they sent us a photo of the zines they find inspirational!

Interview 27 (Part 1)

Des Behari, Dom Latham and Dan Russell of Manchester Municipal Design Corporation, celebrate the 'post-regeneration city' in their new zine, Things Happen.

Please tell us a little something about yourselves. And, where does the Manchester Municipal Design Corporation (MMDC) fit into this story?

We started working together on a collaborative Design MA at Manchester School of Art in 2009 — the Design LAB. There were seven of us all from different design backgrounds (architecture, product design, fine art, media art, ceramics) and all somewhat disillusioned with our pasts. Our project was "what next for Manchester" and we worked with real clients and on self initiated projects in the city. We invented the MMDC name to appear real, get name badges at events and also allow us to function outside and beyond the university, especially when doing work of dubious legality, such as a guerilla street projection/mass gathering outside an abandoned city centre cinema. Most of the active MMDC members now work at Ultimate Holding Company on graphic design and social & environmentally engaged art projects, and are involved in the creation of a Design Without Boundaries-esque university/real world conduit space in our Hotspur House home. A magazine — The Hotspur — a contemporary of the Beano and Dandy may or may not have been printed here, so the next issue of Things Happen will be both a homage to that, and a description of our activity and plans here.


Tell us how Things Happen came about, what has inspired you from a design perspective? What do you hope to achieve with the publication?

The mag occurred because of several things. We wanted to document our activity, and that of our growing circle of like-minds. I used to live in Sheffield and remembered a great zine called Go Sheffo and we got one of the guys behind it over to talk to us. We then stole his idea. He had, in turn, stolen the idea from Mercy in Liverpool. We were(and still are) working on things in response to the city's regeneration running out of steam and money, but still wanted to celebrate what we like. There are also a few swipes at the stuff we dislike! Another reason I value zines is that I play in a DIY trashy pop band, and the international underground that has existed since the 80s is of huge interest to me. The guy that recorded one of our albums in a Leeds basement is friends with Karen Ablaze and it amazes me the people she interviewed for her zine. With design, I'm very keen on DIY and undesigned stuff, so Things Happen Issue One was more my scrappy influence. Oz and the Underground Press Syndicate are amazing (and I inherited a pile of them) as are things like De Stijl, especially at recording a movement and a time & place. Studying architecture I was obsessed with the Bauhaus and Dutch Modernism — the whole package of ethos, design, education and publication. We had a manifesto for MMDC so placing it in the zine seemed natural for readers to understand our angle. Des has had similar exploits in the underground music world promoting DIY gigs in Bristol. I'd simply like the publication to document us, our opinions and our immediate network of collaborators, and act as a method of attracting more people to get in touch if they have similar ideas.


Why have you chosen to move away from the conventions of using a photocopier for producing your zine to using litho printing and a risograph? Do you feel this is indicative of a general shift amongst zine producers today to be more experimental with production techniques?

Risograph is just as cheap as photocopying and there are the joys of colour to work with! We got the litho cover posters done cheaply, too, as the university could print them in house. Although I like the scruffier aesthetic I didn't want Things Happen to look dated, hence the use of different techniques. Stuff like No Zine is great in the use of lithography and colour, as well as the design. I think many people are still photocopying away, but it's no longer the only cheap option. The place we Riso is called MARC, the Manchester Area Resource Centre. Old Man Steptoe and Comic Book Guy work there, and although they are initially rude, they do a good job once you convince them you aren't idiots. They are cheap, and I'm pretty sure stuff like Owt is printed there too.


At the moment Manchester seems to be experiencing a flurry of activity with regards to the fanzine scene. To what do you attribute this resurgence?

Hmm, The Shrieking Violet zine did a feature on why people still publish actual physical things, there were a lot of similar reasons. Mainly the beauty of something you can hold in your hands, something you can stumble across that will last. There's the abstract, pictorial Owt Creative zine that prints stuff from open calls for submissions, the more anecdotal Belle Vue and bunch of others. There's a lot of people just doing stuff, and alongside music, zines are something that are not hard to get out into the world, they have a real grassroots immediacy. There's a zine library in Salford and many self publishing fairs and events, which is great.


What other zines would you recommend us to read, and why?

Manchester's Shrieking Violet — the very prolific editor/author is a collaborator of ours and vice versa. She has published about 10 mags to every one of ours and comes at the city from a similar angle. I'd also recommend Niche Homo in Leeds. An amazing, thick overview of the DIY music scene complete with amusing/disturbing comics and stories (one of the chaps who does it lives in the same Leeds house mentioned above and has done cassette interviews by post after Karen told him that's how things used to be done). Definitely check out Go Sheffo (all online). It's such an inspiring celebration of how he and his friends saw the city. That guy now does the Sheffield Publicity Department (stolen from the opening to The Full Monty—Sheffield, City on the Move!). He almost saved Sheffield's Cooling Towers from demolition and got them on the Channel 4 Big Art programme. He also suggested Park Hill flats be reused and hey presto, Urban Splash stepped in. Our friends the Manchester Modernist Society are going to be publishing a quarterly on Modernism in the Northwest (and beyond), which we, ahem, have designed. We also just finished a Modern A-Z of Manchester and Salford for them. These are worth looking at as they are down-to-earth and accessible, led by enthusiasts, whereas the subject is often dealt with somewhat snobbishly. Our friend Laura is working on a food and art project that, I think, will be a zine too (Feast. We're not designing that one so no guilt about plugging it!

Thanks a lot!

Interview 19

Matt Sidebottom is producer of Snap - a short story and literature zine out of Manchester, UK. Here he talks about his time at University, literary magazines and the role for print. Oh, and he wants you to know that he is travelling across America between February and April 2012 and is looking for new writers and project collaborators.

Tell us a little something about yourself and why you decided to publish a zine called 'Snap'?

Hi, my name’s Matt Sidebottom and in my spare time I’m the editor and art director of SNAP, a short story and literature zine. I studied Design and Art Direction in Manchester. While I was there, I found myself surrounded by a lot of artists, photographers and designers who were very interested in books and zines. Everybody was making little one-offs for their projects. I made a few at the time, but my work focused on Pulp, the student magazine I art directed and designed. I loved doing it, and got us nominated for a Guardian Student Media Award. After I left university I didn’t really have another output like it, but I was constantly looking around for one, but never finding another opportunity like it.

But about 9 months ago me and my little brother went to London. He had a university interview, so I had a few hours to kill. I went to The Tate Modern and saw the Van Doesburg exhibition. The whole exhibition was great, but what got me was this little exhibition case focusing on publications of the time. There was a copy of Merz. Reading the information explaining the contents in the case, I realised that this legendary publication was only ever produced in extremely limited runs. It was then I decided to put together SNAP. It was only three weeks later before SNAP Zero was released.

Where do you see 'Snap' sitting in relationship to traditional literary 'little magazines'?

I’m not really sure, to be honest. I know of them, such as McSweeney’s and Popshot, but I haven’t picked them up. The zines and magazines that I read and that inspire me are totally different from what I produce. The only exception is The Ride, which is a huge influence on SNAP. Its short stories are easy to digest in one sitting, which was the aim of SNAP. Saying this, I am completely surrounded by books. I have hundreds.

The magazines I do read, such as Esquire, Dazed and Confused, and Little White Lies have all interestingly taken to running literature sections, Esquire having a regular short story and Dazed have had a literature review section in the back. I like to think this has been influenced by its readership becoming more interested in reading fiction.

'Snap' also has an online presence. How do you see print zines and digital spaces operating in self-publishing?

SNAP’s online presence is constantly evolving. At the moment, SNAP is a print zine, with no true plans for the final product to go completely online. I like actually putting together and producing final copies to hold, and I know that my audience likes this too. But this might change, if the right platform comes along. I’ve dabbled with Issuu for other projects (see We’re Growing Up, Wearing Shirts, Getting Haircuts) but I don’t think it’s the medium for SNAP.

I’m really interested in making a more immersive project, using technology to create a short story based, multimedia ‘zine’ project. We’ll see where this will get us in the future. I do feel like moving online will be the way forward. I just don’t know how to quite yet.

Is there a zine you would recommend us to read? And, please tell us why.

I’ve three, actually. There’s Tourist Magazine, an online only magazine. It’s a hybrid of a website and a magazine. The content is always interesting. The page has been beautifully designed throughout all of its incarnations, and definitely worth a look, if just to see how an online only ‘zine’ can succeed. Then there’s the work of Mandi Goodier. She’s got loads of brilliant zines, and they’ve been a huge source of inspiration for SNAP. She’s helped me out a lot over the last 9 months, and has contributed stories and illustrations to both issues. Finally,Pull Yourself Together is simply brilliant. A music zine in its truest form, I always pick it up when I see it. It’s got great writers, and with Teacake Design art directing it, it always looks great.

The current issue of SNAP has just been released.
Find it at http://snapzine.bigcartel.com/

I'm always looking for new writers, too. Anybody interested in writing for SNAP, please contact me at, hello@mattsidebottom.com

Interview 13

OWT Creative is comprised of five young designers: Ste Beed, Jon Hannan,Katrina Currie, Sarah Stapleton and Ben Kither, based in Manchester, UK.

Please tell us a little something about how OWT Creative was formed and what inspired you to start your publication.
The five of us that make up OWT creative met whilst studying Design & Art Direction at Manchester School of Art. After witnessing a lot of our friends jump ship from Manchester and head off to London we decided that we wanted to create a platform for ourselves and other young creatives up here in the northwest.

We wanted to prove that you can be creative up here in the Northwest and you don't have to vanish off to London to be successful. We're not deluded, we all know London is the biggest and best of everything really but everyone likes an underdog.

The reason we decided to create a publication is because we believe in the medium of print. People will argue that print is a dying entity and that we all have to embrace a fully digital future, but we think we’re overloaded these days by flash design blogs and portfolio websites that can be clicked through at pace. Having something tangible to hold and feel adds an extra dimension, the feel of the stock and the delightful printing errors that make each one individual. In 50 years time when today’s equivalent of the floppy disk is no longer readable you will always be able to pick up a zine.

The zine is clearly promoting 'creatives' from the Northwest of England. Why do you think this area of the country has such a rich zine tradition?
We think one reason the Northwest has a good tradition because there has been so much in its history that provokes the DIY art and music culture up here. Manchester was at the forefront of the Punk and Rave scenes (to name just two) and these scenes go hand in hand with zine culture. It seems that wherever you have such a rich music heritage the sub-culture of the fanzine readers and writers follow and The Northwest was no exception. Of course this is without even considering the sporting heritage and associated supports that exists here with several of the country’s major sporting teams, and Liverpool FC.

How does your blog supplement what the zine is doing?
At the moment the blog is there to let people know what we're up with all our little developments that we make day to day, from being featured on a website to being stocked in a new shop. We also like to feature work that resonates with us, be it music, documentaries, exhibitions or anything else for that matter.

As we progress we want to use the blog to promote the people who submit their work to us. Our first Issue had just 5 contributors, the second has 11, we want all those extra people to be able to say we helped them in some way other than putting their work in the zine. By submitting work to us, they help us grow, diversify and reach more people, we want the zine and the blog to do the same for them. As we said earlier, part of the reason to set OWT up was to promote the arts in The Northwest and the blog is just as important to us as the actual zine is in that respect. The blog also provides us with a much larger audience than can be reached with the zine alone. For instance our blog has regular readers from the USA and Canada, places where the zine would be unlikely to penetrate on it’s own.

What fanzine would you recommend that we should read and why?
We're not sure it can be considered a fanzine, maybe just a zine, but the WAFA collective zines are full of really inspirational stuff from Anthony Zinonos and Co.
www.wearefuckingawesome.org

Another Manchester based Fanzine is one69a.... good quality, current articles + entirely screen-printed with a poster in the middle - win!

We'd also recommend the work from the guys at Nous Vous, really nice stuff. Really nice work and they’re northern, which helps.

Peace OWT.