Punk Planet #7 (Hoboken NJ / Chicago)

I found a few more issues of the venerable Punk Planet in an untapped box, so I thought we'd take a trip back in time and check 'em out! Issue #7, from 1995, shows the zine in transition, moving its base of operations from Hoboken, New Jersey to the wilder, larger environs of Chicago. Although the final move would put Punk Planet square in the middle of the country, I always thought of it as an East Coast punkzine as opposed to the West Coast punk standard-bearers Maximum Rock 'n' Roll and Flipside. Also, because PP editor Dan Sinker seemed to be more interested in sharing good information and great music, there was less in-fighting and game-playing in Punk Planet compared to most punkzines (although I wouldn't be surprised to hear of behind-the-scenes shenanigans...).

Issue #7 shows another jump in page count, some 20% more than issue #5 that I wrote about earlier, although at this point it's still printed on cheap, crappy newsprint. Still, 96-pages of punk rock fun is nothing to sneeze at, and this issue features the usual columns from Sinker, Kim Bae, Julia Cole, and Larry Livermore, among others, as well as a column from my old pal and former Jersey Beat editor Jim Testa. The scene report this time around is from Baltimore, and interviews include Man Or Astro Man and Kerosene 454.

There's an interesting interview with graphic artist Rudy Vanderlans, publisher of San Francisco's Emigre magazine that discusses graphic design, and well-written pieces on the National Endowment for the Arts (and why we need it) and TV piracy. The zine's always-informative "The D.I.Y. Files" section is on health care, a timeless topic, and of course there are a slew of record and zine reviews and some fiction writing. The ads for punk 45s and LPs on long-forgotten labels are a hell of a lot of fun to thumb through, bringing back a lot of memories...wish I still had some of that vinyl, it would be worth a fortune on eBay....

(Click on the cover thumbnail to see larger picture)

VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #7
• May/June 1995
• B&W, 96-pages w/covers, newsprint
• Style: punkzine

ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS
Man Or Astro Man interview
Kerosene 454 interview
Rudy Vanderlans interview
National Endowment for the Arts article
Television Piracy article
--> also reader mail, music & zine reviews, etc