photo credit: donkeycart

I said I’d do this some time ago, but never got around to it.  Well, after the leap you can read the full text of the interviews carried out over email for the piece based around the recent independents day.  Simon Reynolds has published the roughs of his own interviews on zines in the Uk too, interesting to see the trajectories over on that side of the pond.

Anto from Loserdom…

Why a zine fair and how do you think it turned out?

There’d been talk among people involved in the Dublin D.I.Y. music scene of organising a similar event, although it came to nothing; when the space came available at the ‘food co-op I thought it’d be great to try to do it and I put the word out there for anyone who might be interested to help out. I’d been to the London Zine Symposium myself earlier in the year doing a stall of Irish zines and I’ve done stalls at the last two Dublin Anarchist Bookfairs with my own zine Loserdom. I’ve enjoyed the experience and thought it might be worthwhile to give it a try again. The difference between the ‘zine fair and the ‘anarchist bookfair being that it would be a slightly different crowd -more mixed and less purely political; also bringing music into it and comics but hopefully also inspiring people that they can get involved in creating something themselves and be active with issues in their local communities.

How long have you been doing your and what about it, has allowed it to continue, where other’s have died away?

Me and my brother Eugene have been making Loserdom for over 12 years now. I’m not sure why we’ve managed to keep it up when others have moved on from their zines. Perhaps as unlike other zine writers who play music in bands and perhaps become focused on that or people who used experience gained in writing a zine as a stepping stone for a career in journalism or the like -we’ve stuck with it. Primarily though we enjoy making the zine, it’s a creative itch that comes back and won’t seem to go away! It’s my main creative outlet, I enjoy reading zines so I want them to continue to exist so I contribute by producing Loserdom. I also like print and layouts. Myself and Eugene, we bounce ideas off each other and enjoy working on it until we’ve got the finished product. Distribute it, then start the process all over again!

Have you seen much of a shift in how zines are being distributed, like do people rely more on the internet now to distribute them or do they still use distros?

The internet is a great way to “publicise” your zine, let people know that there’s a new issue out -that kinda thing. It’s very handy for communicating with people obviously a lot faster and efficient than the old methods. Alot of zine writers use paypal to sell their zine online (though we haven’t got in on that as yet!) and that seems to work. It’s also great for looking up Infoshops and radical-type bookshops in other countries/cities that would be friendly to selling zines when travelling abroad. Stitchy Press [based in Leitrim, ex-of Dublin] operate through the internet and seem to shift a good few zines and the biggest global online zine seller is probably Microcosm Publishing. I usually use the internet to contact a zine writer that I want to trade zines with as it makes the process alot easier. So in that sense the internet is a very useful tool for zines!

What got you into zines and how important were they to the communities (DIY, punk, anarcho etc….) you were involved in?  Has their importance subsided with the rise of the internet?  With zine like contributions being made on blogs/forums etc…

I first got into zines from hanging around Freebird Records on Eden Quay and picking up the freesheets and zines that used litter the counter there. The more I read them, the more I felt it was something I could contribute to and Eugene and me came up with our plan(!) for Loserdom. At that time in Dublin, they were the main way to communicate about gigs, bands, political demos, events etc. They would literally be in all the independent record shops and arty-cafés. Gearhead Nation was the main one at that time as it was monthly, it would have news of all the gigs for the month, reviews of local band demos, zine reviews and loads of info about political boycotts like about Néstle and the McLibel trial which was ongoing at the time -it was a real eye-opener. With the internet there was less need for that immediacy of information as the same info could be spread about a gig much more efficiently through thumped.com (for example) and political info through indymedia.ie; whereas in the zines they could be out of date by the time they were printed (other than in Gearhead Nation, mind). Certainly their importance in that sense is minimised.
My own view is that the internet has had a maturing effect on zines as before they could be very ranty and date easily as I said, where as now they don’t date so much as document a time! I think people still appreciate the physicality of print whether it’s being able to read the thing on the bus or in the bath. To me, culture-wise the internet can still seem very virtual. I often find myself scanning when reading the internet, whereas when I’m reading a newspaper or book it’s more considered (maybe!). That said I don’t want to take away from blogs/forums or get into a print vs internet debate. I think blogs and forums have their place also and are great ways to spread information/writing. I’d take the example of the Baghdad blogger Salam Pax who uploaded his blog in the run up to and during the bombing of Baghdad by US troops in 2003.

With the zine library in mind and your college research do you think there was a golden age in Irishzine?  I remember the mid 1990s being particularly healthy, with a nice mix of ravey zines with punk stuff….

True enough the peak in production is most likely past us, early-mid 90′s being the time when there was probably the most zines made. That said I don’t believe in glorifying a time or period in the past, whether that be for music, political action or indeed zine production. As far as I’m concerned there’s no time like the present; here in Ireland there has been some really high quality zines produced of late such as The Rag, Devil On 45, Two Headed Dog, Night of the Locust, Baby Beef and the rebirth of an oldie Nonesuch. There is also a huge interest in graphic novels these days which often cover similar left-of-field ground to zines, so I think the future is bright!

Ed from the Devil On 45….

How many zines have you made over the years, and why have you continued, when other’s have died away?

Phew its hard for me to actually put a figure on that! I started writing/compiling zines in 2001, the first maybe 10 or so zines I put out were pretty much personal writing affairs done completely by myself under a variety of titles. However in 2005 I came up with the idea for ‘The Devil On 45’. I wanted to create a fanzine covering a wide range of music, focussing a lot on censorship in music, controversial acts/songs over the years and articles based around music culture and history.

A wide range of genres are covered, from 1930’s American prison blues to Malaysian Black Metal. The zine features in-depth articles and contributions from other writers and artists. I have published three issues of this zine so far with Issue 4 due out in the new year. In many respects coming up with a clear concept of what I wanted in a zine has helped prolong my interest and passion for independent publishing, a lot of zines die away after a couple of issues. I guess this is because of the amount of time, work and money that goes into producing and distributing a zine, a lot of people find it hard to commit to doing it for a long period of time. The rising costs in producing and distributing a zine can be prohibitive in many ways, some people counteract that in their own way with the use of advertisements, however The Devil On 45 contains not a single one, my reasoning being firstly I felt advertisements might date the zine too much and I wanted to give it a bit more of a timeless quality, secondly I wanted people who buy my zine to know that when they pick it up, each of the 48 or so pages are filled with in-depth articles, interviews and art and unlike a lot of music zines/magazines there is no filler or space taken up by advertisements.

Obviously I have to keep my costs as low as possible and each zine is sold pretty much at cost price which keeps it competitive. Issue 3 for example was 48 A4 pages, with two free cds and cost 3.50 directly from myself, I think that shows decent value for money considering a lot of mainstream music magazines are more around the five or six euro mark, and probably contain as much advertisements as actual proper content. With each issue of The Devil On 45 there has been an increase in sales and interest in the zine and this of course keeps my interest high.

Have you seen much of a shift in how zines are being distributed, like do people rely more on the internet now to distribute them or do they still use distros?

Obviously the internet has been an excellent tool in regards distributing zines. It has proved invaluable for contacting a large number of distributors and shops directly without the cost which would’ve been there 15 years ago. No longer do you have to send a copy of your zine off to a million and one distributors at a massive cost, as a few pages scanned and an outline of what topics are covered in the zine is enough for most retailers/distributors and thus you waste no time and money mailing zines out to people who probably wouldn’t be interested in them anyway. The internet has also proved invaluable in regards getting more writers and artists to contribute.

I think one of the biggest dangers that faces the fanzine world is the continually rising costs of international postage which can add one or two euro to the price when it finally reaches its destination, I know myself I almost have a panic attack each time I go to the post office with 30 or so zines to post and I see the price I have to pay. Another problem that faces the photocopied zine is that a lot of shops won’t stock with without a barcode or simple because it isn’t glossy enough and they feel it won’t sell, however persistently haranguing shop owners over time seems to work!

What got you into zines and how important were they to the communities (DIY, punk, anarcho etc….) you were involved in? Has their importance subsided with the rise of the internet? With zine like contributions being made on blogs/forums etc…

I first got into fanzines around 94/95, at the start I mostly was interested in football related fanzines however I was also gaining and interest in punk/hardcore. Some football zines covered a bit of punk such as the excellent ‘King of The Sad People’ from Wexford and this increased my interest in and understanding of the massive diy underground that existed out there. When I first started buying irish punk related zines in 95/96 it was so inspiring and intriguing for a young kid from the country. Obviously this was before the internet really took off as a means of people promoting gigs, records, bands so every zine I have from then is like a snapshot of where the ‘scene’ was at that point. Obviously the increase in online forums and networking sites has removed a certain aspect of that from the zines and a lot of people who maybe would’ve bought fanzines 10 or 15 years ago as a way of finding out what was going on now might just use the web, so perhaps they hold less of an importance to the ‘scene’ in general however I still feel they are still an intrinsic part of the diy ethic.

Zines seem particularly associated with the DIY concept, and sure, the photocopier opened up the ability to xerox and get material out their cheaply – but surely the net serves that purpose now. Why do people still do zines?

Maybe egotism, maybe a blind sighted foolhardiness, maybe habit, but for me it’s because I felt there was an interest and reader base for the topics The Devil On 45 covers. In many ways the reasons why people still produce and buy zines is mirrored by the reasons why people still produce and buy vinyl. I know for one that I buy records not just for the music (which would be easily downloadable online) but also for the artwork, the layout, how it is presented and so on. I know personally that I find it quite hard to fully concentrate while reading long articles on a computer screen, I think a lot of other people feel this way too and that is why I think and hope zine culture and impendent publishing will continue.

Do you think there was a golden age in Irish zines? I remember the mid 1990s being particularly healthy, with a nice mix of ravey zines with punk stuff….

True, there was a lot of zines in Ireland in the mid 1990s which is the period of time when I got into them. The zines were quite broad in the issues covered, easily jumping from music issues, to the political or to the personal all within the same zine. However if you look at the forgotten zine library you can see the rich heritage of zines in Ireland stretching back to the late 70’s.

A the zine fair, I noticed there wasn’t as much crusty looking zines as the past, where have they gone and has everyone moved over to making nice artful zines?

The crusty looking zines are still out there but perhaps less than in the late nineties. Perhaps due to the fact that one or two long running Irish zines have ceased to exist or are produced on a less regular basis than a few years back. I feel the change in layout or artistic style of zines in many ways can be related to the increased use of the internet. As the internet now has become the tool for the gig promotion and general ‘scene’ discourse which would have been the remit of the zine ten years ago I think most zine editors feel they need something extra to give the fanzine the edge over the internet and to draw people in. Also the use of desktop publishing programmes has spruced up the lay out of a lot of zines, gone are the days of the handwritten zines it seems. I suppose also over the years of doing zines many editors feel the need or want to experiment with different layouts and styles, and to try and keep the format fresh and appeal able to people.

Dermo from Going Postal…

I can remember Slanted N’ Enchanted was a serious operation, as far as zines went in the  90′s.  They were more of an indie skate boarder scene that was attached to them, but it was still something that we all read and picked up when we saw copies lying around the record shops.

The PATH was another great zine, where the guy wrote an ode to the M50, when it was being developed.

I think cheap photocopying and mass unemployment made a thousand flowers bloom in the zine garden of Dublin at the time.

The voices meant something to you.  It was young people, just about old enough to drink, who were articulating what they felt, and what mattered to them.  To all intents and purposes the media, whether that be music press or the press in general, was just staid and stale.  It is now and was then seen as little more than a vehicle for advertising.  I mean, look at Hot Press, here was a bunch of middle aged codgers who listened to U2 and went to Van Morrison concerts, so they were not remotely interested in the dance scene, or Irish Hip Hop, or even the local indie band scene.  So a DIY culture emerged and people started writing and distributing the zines, and all of them were free.

Myself and another fellow did 4 issues of Going Postal.  We couldn’t photocopy that many but we encouraged others to pick it up and spread it like a virus.  We just wanted to spear every sacred cow we could find and we didn’t think the corporate whore media would go after anyone.

Recently a blog came across them and had some nice to things to say about us. All of them were for some reason preserved on the interweb thanks to the work of a techie friend. Issue 4 was the most controversial because we called what we saw was a ‘fix’ at the DMC mixing championships.  That caused some shit.  Made us happy.

A zine is a tangible, personal thing, and it is special for all those reasons.  Good as blogs are, actually getting your stuff into the hands of people is special.  In Russian they has Samizidat, underground photocopies of banned books or pamphlets and zines came out of a need for expression by young voices who were excluded and not heard.

Willy from Stichy Press…

Why a zine fair and how do you think it turned out?

I think a zine fair, because the main organizer has a serious obsession with zines. One of the main points of zines is communication and to seek out and find other people with similar interests to you, so a whole day dedicated to this makes a lot of sense. I think it turned out better than expected. There was all sorts of people there and it worked well as an introduction to zines as well as a great opportunity to meet up with old friends and be surrounded  by creativity, art and politics.

I’ve been writing and distributing zines since around 1993. I’ve taken breaks from both writing and distributing over the years. I think the only reason ours has ‘survived’ is because we keep putting our own money into it and some how not having  mental breakdowns. I hate to think how much money we’ve lost over  our zine distribution careers. I think the main reason  we still do it is, is because we keep coming across stuff we really like and really believe it needs to get out there to a wider audience. Its so second nature to us now that we don’t have to put too much effort into it, we just get a bunch of zines off people, put them on our site, or travel around with them and sell them at gigs. I think others have died away because it gets to much when you realise how much time it takes and how much money you loose. I also think people sort of grow out of, or loose interest in zines.

When i first got involved with zines, there was a few distros in the UK and the states that carried zines, but mostly it was all through a pen pal system, which was great. There was no email, so everything went through the post. It was really exciting to hear the post coming through the door and to find a bunch of zines and letters waiting for you. Now there are whole sites dedicated to the distribution of zines, www.microcosmpublishing.com being the biggest. It’s great that zines are a lot more excessable now, it’s the same as before, but now the
distros are on line.

When me and Natalia were living in New Orleans between 2002 and 2003 we were still distributing stuff and setting up stalls at gigs. There was no where in the city to buy punk/rock whatever music and zines at the time and we were doing so well at gigs that we decided to set up a shop and vegan cafe in our house every Sunday. It turned into this really social thing where people would come around, drink coffee, eat food, listen to records and buy stuff. It was amazing. It eventually gave birth to the first New Orleans underground book fair. When we decided to come back to Ireland, we had all this stock left over, so we shipped it all back and started setting up at gigs again. This was going so well, that we decided to go ahead and open up a shop dedicated to radical/art books and zines. This was going pretty well, but unfortunately it was the peak of the celtic tiger and rent was insane, so we had to shut down having never paid ourselves a penny. With the birth of Seomra Spree and RAG magazine, it seems like now more than ever in Dublin with the current economic/political climate and that  the Radical community is ever growing. If  somebody was to
take the notion and find a really cheap premises, i reckon a radical book shop would thrive.

First and foremost, my interest in Punk Rock got me into zines and at the time fanzines and free sheets were the life line for the DIY/punk/anarcho scene. They are defiantly not so important in that way anymore, as internet sites with forum and bulletin boards have taken they’re place. I don’t really like reading too much off computer screens, so i rarely read zines online, but i do post on fourms.

The fact is, yes, they are DIY and they are something real. Even though things written on the internet are real, it’s not the same. Zines are so much part of so many different cultures at this point, that they provide something that the internet just cant. like bad spelling, cut and paste, color texture, different types of paper, different sizes, fee stickers, a free cd, a free tape, stitched
binding.T he fact is people still want to have something in their hand, that they can read on the bus or on the toilet. And I suppose
people mostly do them because they are fun to make.

Anyone who first got into underground music in Dublin in the 80′s or 90′s will probably tell you that they remember a lot more zines about in the mid 90′s. It seemed like everyone was doing one. And a lot of them covered a lot of different themes. Punk, techno, indie and comics were all catered for.

Art zines and personal zines are definitely the most popular at the moment. To be honest, I think all the punks are to busy having kids or are in college to have time for zine making. (ha ha)