Blitz #30 (Detroit)

Issue number 30 of Blitz! offers a nice balance of local Detroit rock coverage and coverage of classic early R&R bands like Danny & the Juniors and Paul Revere & the Raiders. This issue also includes articles on out-of-towners like Boston's Moving Parts and Cleveland's Human Switchboard. It was around this time that I met Blitz! publisher Mike McDowell somewhere around town (maybe at one of the many weekend record collector's conventions?) and talked to him about writing for the zine.

I never got my chance to contribute to Blitz! but that didn't dampen my enthusiasm for the magazine. This issue included features on two of my favorite local bands, punkers Flirt (as I remember, mainstays at the New Miami club in the Cass corridor) and Nikki Corvette & the Convertibles (who should have been big stars in the vein of Katrina & the Waves, the Go-Gos or the Bangles). The reviews section is flush with reviews of Motor City rock, including 45s from Destroy All Monsters, the Ivories and Master Cylinder, and Elvis Costello's This Year's Model takes the top LP spot in the Blitz Awards For 1978 listing.

(Click on thumbnail to see larger picture)

VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #30
• March-April 1979
• B&W, 28-pages (including covers)
• Style: music zine

ARTICLES
Phil Volk of Paul Revere & the Raiders
Flirt
Nikki Corvette & the Convertibles
The Nightcrawlers
Moving Parts
The Human Switchboard
Danny & the Juniors
--> also album reviews, reader mail, local music news, reviews of "classic songs"

Blitz #29 (Detroit)

With issue number 29 of Detroit music zine Blitz!, publisher Mike McDowell includes two excellent articles, the first being "The History Of Hamtramck Rock," covering local bands the Mutants, the Reruns and the Romantics. Hamtramck is a city-within-a-city located near the center of Detroit. Home to a large GM plant, Hamtramck was a mostly-Polish community with some of the best restaurants that you'll ever eat in. A microcosm of the high-octane Motor City rock scene, the little city had a long musical legacy of its own to brag about.

The other cover article worth noting is McDowell's piece on Radar Records, including a label discography. At the time, aside from the odd article in Creem magazine, only Ira Robbins' Trouser Press was really covering what was going on in England. McDowell's article included Elvis Costello & the Attractions, Ray Campi and his Rockabilly Rebels, the Good Rats, Nick Lowe, the Soft Boys and other artists that were still a good year or five away from becoming well-known in the United States. Other articles in this issue include a piece on cult band Kenny & the Kasuals, the Neon Philharmonic and the Belmonts as well as the usual well-written and diverse album and 45 reviews.

(Click on thumbnail to see larger picture)

VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #29
• November-December 1978
• B&W, 28-pages (including covers)
• Style: music zine

ARTICLES
"The History Of Hamtramck Rock"
Kenny & the Kasuals
The Belmonts
The Neon Philharmonic
"Dangerous" Diane Spodarek
"The Radar Records Story"
--> also album reviews, reader mail, local music news, reviews of "classic songs"

Blitz #28 (Detroit)

With issue number 28 of Blitz! publisher Mike McDowell tacked an additional 4-pages into the zine and changed the publication's tagline to "The Rock & Roll Magazine For Thinking People." McDowell's description of Blitz! wasn't mere hyperbole...this is a good music zine! This issue included a cool Residents front cover ("The Residents stock up for a wild weekend!") and a funny ad from local Detroit rockers the Mutants on the rear.

Between the covers you'd find articles on the Residents, interviews with Michael Nesmith of the Monkees and Freddie Cannon, and coverage of local bands the Plugs and the Ivories. Album reviews included such diverse fare as Devo, Johnny Cash, Dave Edmunds, Kenny and the Kasuals and Deep Purple; singles reviews included groovy tunes by local rockers like Nikki Corvette, the Last, the Reruns and Flirt (one of my personal faves) as well as French punks Metal Urbain, the Red Krayola and Motorhead. John Clayton covers the Boomtown Rats, Graham Parker and the Sex Pistols in his excellent "Mersey Beat" column.

(Click on thumbnail to see larger picture)

VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #28
• September-October 1978
• B&W, 28-pages (including covers)
• Style: music zine

ARTICLES
The Residents
Freddy Cannon
Michael Nesmith of the Monkees
The Ivories
The Plugs
Neil Norman
--> also album reviews, reader mail, local music news, reviews of "classic songs"

Blitz #27 (Detroit)

Back in the late-70s, the "zine revolution" had yet to explode. Sure, there was an abundance of mimeographed science fiction "fanzines" that made the rounds at conventions and by mail, but the concept of the all-purpose photocopied zine had yet to really take off in the creative imagination.

Punk began the popularization of zine publishing, as a number of small-press publications began to pop up on the coasts. Greg Shaw's Mojo Navigator was probably one of the first while Punk in NYC and Search & Destroy in LA tacked down the coastal music scenes. In Detroit, the zine of choice was Blitz! Published by Mike McDowell with a heavy debt owed to Shaw's Bomp!, the pages of Blitz! were filled with a wonderland of local punx, classic pop-rock coverage and the odd outcast. The writing was good, the local coverage was all-inclusive and the lay-out was clean, kind of in the style of Ira Robbins' Trouser Press.

Issue #27 of Blitz! wasn't the first that I had picked up, but it was the first that I found in a big box o' stuff that I hauled up to WNY from Tennessee. Looking through this issue, I was delighted to find long-lost articles on Detroit rockers like the Reruns, Cinecyde and the Zooks. A cover story on soul legends Sam & Dave made for great reading and a series on the Monkees included an interview with David Jones in this issue. More in the spirit of the aforementioned Bomp! or Trouser Press than, say, Mike Stax's Ugly Things, Blitz! is an obscure but quality small press pub.

(Click on thumbnail to see larger picture)

VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #27
• July 1978
• B&W, 28-pages (including covers)
• Style: music zine

ARTICLES
Sam & Dave
David Jones of the Monkees
The Reruns
The Zooks
Cinecyde
Brad Long
--> also album reviews, reader mail, local music news, reviews of classic songs

House O' Pain #10 (Nashville)

It took a while for them to get it out on the street, but with issue #10, Nashville's House O' Pain continued to grow both in size and influence with the growing local underground rock scene. House O' Pain's Donnie and April Kendall were working with Mary Mancini at Lucy's Records to promote some great all-ages shows, the zine was landing very cool artist interviews (like Green Day two years before their breakthrough, or legendary punkers Jawbreaker), and the HO'P record label was expanding with released by Teen Idols, The Fixtures and Load. This issue came with a 7-inch vinyl compilation that included Teen Idols, Lethargic, Floor and Cannibal Holiday.

(Click on thumbnail to see larger picture)

VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #10
• August 1993
• B&W, 68-pages (including covers)
• Style: punkzine

ARTICLES
Green Day
Jawbreaker
Mudhoney
Brainiac
Hammerhead
My Name
Insect Syren
Lethargic
--> also album reviews, live show reviews, local music news

House O' Pain #9 (Nashville)

With issue number nine, Nashville's House O' Pain began to grow in size as well as importance. The Metro would soon evolve into Bone Music Magazine and just didn't cover the breadth of alternative and underground music that was covered by the HO'P crew. This issue covers more of the ongoing saga of The Pantheon and the purchase of the club's lease by Nashville rock's favorite scoundrel, Gus Palas. Lots of good interviews in this issue, covering a wide spectrum of musical diversity.

(Click on thumbnail to see larger picture)

VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #9
• January 1993
• B&W, 64-pages (including covers)
• Style: punkzine

ARTICLES
The Jesus Lizard
The Melvins
L7
Cows
Spitboy
Buzzoven
Citizen Fish
Man Or Astroman?
Babes In Toyland
They Might Be Giants
--> also album reviews, live show reviews, local music news

House O' Pain #8 (Nashville)

This issue included lots of coverage of the ongoing saga of The Pantheon club in Nashville where the House O' Pain troika promoted their all-ages shows. In one of the most pathetic episodes in the history of the local rock music scene, club owner Pan Doss had booked the infamous G.G. Allin to play The Pantheon in November 1991 only to run headfirst into opposition by city leaders. An "anonymous" phone call to the police brought a legion of codes inspectors to the club, temporarily closing it down and costing Doss thousands of dollars to make right. To this day, I still feel that it was one of the city's notorious church groups that made the call. This issue of HO'P also covered the final chapter of the feud between myself and Gus Palas, publisher of The Metro and my launching of the local music zine R Squared.

(Click on thumbnail to see larger picture)

VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #8
• August 1992
• B&W, 44-pages (including covers)
• Style: punkzine

ARTICLES
Helmet
Cop Shoot Cop
The Accused
Porn Orchard
The Wedding Present
Skinny Puppy
Bedlam Hour
--> also album reviews, live show reviews, local music news

House O' Pain #7 (Nashville)

House O' Pain was a punk-oriented zine published during the early-90s by Donnie and April Kendall and Troy Pigue. Donnie was a pretty well-known musician on the local Nashville punk scene, a member of the legendary Rednecks In Pain and Fun Girls From Mt. Pilot. Donnie and April also promoted some really cool all-ages shows, dubbed "Migraine Matinees," first at the Pantheon Club and later working with Mary Mancini at Lucy's Records.

My relationship with House O' Pain started off rocky but got better as time passed by, and I became friends with Donnie and April (still dunno about Troy, tho'). Like most small local rags at the time, HO'P came out with an editorial against The Metro, Nashville's local (commercial) music magazine. Their anti-Metro bitchlist consisted of the usual complaints -- not enough coverage of "alternative" music (i.e. punk), too much advertising, blah, blah, blah. So it goes...I disagreed with their perspective (which also amounted to a criticism of my work with The Metro) and we went back and forth for a few months. We later buried the hatchet, however, and I did my best to support House O' Pain's efforts, including the indie record label that they launched and their all-ages show.

Like most punk-oriented zines of the time, the lay-out for HO'P was heavily indebted to '80s-era "punkture" graphics, i.e. lots of white print on black pages, strips of text laid on top of photos, pages that appeared torn, etc. Unlike most of the punk zines I remember seeing at the time, however, HO'P had a better quality of writing and criticism, and Donnie, April and Troy went out of their way to grab interviews with some important musicians. Shortly after this issue, number seven, came out in February 1992, local FM station WRLT ("Radio Lightning") purchased The Metro and converted it to a much slicker, even more commercial music mag. It was left up to House O' Pain to write about the edgier artists that I had been covering for The Metro and they did it well, influencing a generation of young Nashvillians.

(Click on thumbnail to see larger picture)

VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #7
• February 1992
• B&W, 44-pages (including covers)
• Style: punkzine

ARTICLES
Henry Rollins
Firehose
The Fixtures
U.K. Subs
Trusty
The Shindigs
--> also album reviews, live show reviews, local music news

Welcome to the TMQ Zine Archive!

Welcome to the Trademark Of Quality Zine Archive! I'm your humble archivist, the one-and-only "Reverend of Rock & Roll," the Rev. Keith A. Gordon. You may know me from such blogs as our Trademark Of Quality audioblog, The Other Side Of Nashville project blog, or even our music business blog, Ryan Adams Sucks. Altogether, our various publications enjoy a cult audience of half-dozen or so regular readers!

There seems to be a lot of interest in zines these days. In this modern era of blogs, podcasts, webzines and other "user-created" media, the print zine is a quaint relic of yesteryear. But a lot of people, myself included, remain fond of those small print underground publications, especially those zines from the wild and wacky '80s. As a former zine publisher (Anthem, Radical Pizza) who earned his share of positive reviews from Factsheet Five, I had the opportunity to swap zines with other publishers all over the world. I've still got a lot of them, too, and I'm willing to share some of the magic of these publications with other enthusiasts.

Each post on this blog will include a scan of the zine's cover and a brief listing of the issue's contents. By doing individual posts for each issue, we can create an extensive virtual archive of these colorful and influential publications. Keep in mind that the opinions expressed here are strictly my own, and my memory ain't what it used to be. Statements of fact are true only as far as I remember them to be. Use the handy email link to your right to contact me if I've made a mistake in my recollections, or if I'm just plain damn wrong about something I've said.

If you used to publish a zine and would like to see your publication included here, feel free to send us a copy (address at right) and we'll include it here in the Trademark Of Quality Zine Archive!