When I was at
university, I dropped a good chunk of my student loans on a laser
printer. Back then, in the early 2000's, they were cheap but still
not that cheap. They were generally still seen as an office staple as
opposed to being on the desk of a dirt poor student.
Why did I have a laser
printer hooked up to my cobbled together laptop? Because I was a
zinester. I wrote about what I loved and published them in little
magazines for friends, and others, to read. I sold them and traded
them for other, similarly interesting, little magazines. Mostly I
wrote about the Goth scene. There were a few magazines at the time,
but none of them seemed to cover what I wanted to read about. Sure,
they featured bands and artists and authors. But they didn't really
feature travel articles. So, thanks to the power of the internet, I
managed to get in touch with people who worked in the scenes in
Japan, Germany, and other far flung places. All of them gave awesome
interviews, telling of what the Goth scene was like in their corner
of the world. Along the way, I made some pretty cool contacts with
record labels and lovingly reviewed their new releases. Somewhere I
still have all the CD's and tapes they sent me. I'm also sure that,
somewhere in the attic, are all the old zines I either made, traded,
or bought.
Sadly, that zine died a
death when I moved back to the Midlands. Over the years, the zine
scene is something I've thought of on and off. I remember it fondly.
I remember packaging up and mailing out my own. I remember receiving
the ones I traded my own for. One particular zine, a music and gig
review one I believe, used to come with a different fabric heart
glued to the cover. Some were traditional cut and paste zines while
others, like my own, used desktop publishing. I'd loved to have done
the cut and paste version but the photocopying costs were
prohibitive. Hence the reason I brought a laser printer. Yet all of
them were lovingly made.
The zine scene is still
going strong. All you have to do is look on somewhere like Etsy to
see the ones being produced. A Google search throws up lists of
directories and distros. If you're in a city, you may even find a
small independent music or book store selling them.
As I said, I've been
thinking about the zine scene on and off for several years. I started
to put one together last year until I realised that my brain had
forgotten how to order the pages (it's not easy, trust me!).
Then I read a book
called “DIY: The Rise of Lo-Fi” and that spurred me on. I dug out
one of the three laser printers we now own and began to compile the
articles I'd written following my visit to Sound City Studios (four
in total, two of which are on this website). Somewhere along the way,
Dad must have seen me trying to order pages and gave me a program
that did all the hard work for me (PagePlus 5 for anyone who's
interested).
And so I set up my
little zine factory again. The Sound City one is a one off, as is
another I'm planning. I'm also thinking of going back to putting one
out a few times a year, one with a variety of different articles in
it, some of them culled from this very website.
I thank the people who
are putting up with my current bout of crankiness and the constant
whirr of the printer. I thank them for ignoring the thud of the
(brand new) long arm stapler. And I thank them for the endless cups
of tea as I once more delve into a little world I'd forgotten I loved
so much.
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