Badges – Better Badges: Image as virus
Better Badges was started in 1976 by Joly MacFie and revolutionised affordable punk badges and band promotion and was later extended in 1979 to include fanzine production. Joly was a former 60’s DJ and a roadie for UK underground pre-punk heroes the Pink Fairies and one of their members, Sandy Sanderson, was an early employee at the offices on the Portobello Road.
While badges had been around since the dawn of time, it’s beyond argument that Joly and his badge company and punk were made for each other. Badges were a cheap promotional tool for bands and identifying fan accessories at a time when ‘it was easy it was cheap go and do it’ was the order of the day.
For a lomg time Joly had the market to himself, but his success meant more competition. By the end of 1977 he was advertising in the NME (weekly music paper) classifieds ‘For Sale’ section then more famously in 1978 began his Top 10 box ads while keeping a fuller list in the ‘For Sale’ section.
Joly MacFie In 1976 I founded Better Badges, a publisher/marketer of promotional button badges based in London, UK. I had a background in the British underground, and I was very much inspired by “people power” campaigns—the principle, embodied in the protest movement, of bottom-up change—which I wanted to apply to music. It happened to coincide with the first stirrings of punk rock, and badges became a mainstay of that movement, especially in the early days when little else in the way of product was available.
My founding principle was “Image as Virus, Elitism for All,” suggesting that fans could wear and support whatever they liked, without either (a) being at the mercy of promotional largesse, or (b) being gouged by merchandisers. The idea was that fans, rather than industry gatekeepers, could dictate trends.
Some designs I created; some were supplied by bands; some by fans. I had a stall at the London Roundhouse concert venue, and mail order took off. I ran a Top Ten of the most popular badges in the weekly music newspaper, NME.
I attempted, after a fashion, to pay royalties, to designers, bands, or both, but it was patchy and impossible to administer. The reality was that if, say, Patti Smith needed help with her hotel bill, or The Clash needed to get their van to Europe, I coughed up. Others, like the Sex Pistols, took payment in kind. The acts that did demand accounting were somehow never those that had wide support, so it was never an issue.
However, things came to a head with Joy Division—not over money, but over the Factory Records policy of treating all output as fine art. In the early days, they had supplied designs; later I did them. They were in a dilemma whether to give the badges FAC numbers like the rest of their catalog. Eventually, after a sit-down, it was concluded that the badges were, like fanzines, outside activity. It was not, as Stiff Records, another close associate, termed it “dumping on the people” but a form of feedback and back-channel promotion. So I threw out royalties and established a fresh system. Any new design accepted would get awarded 200 free badges to the band and samples provided to the designer. This worked very well.
Right – The original Joy Division set.
I was successful enough to purchase a printing plant. As badges became more common and commoditized, I turned to printing fanzines as a way to maintain street cred as an underground medium. I settled on a similar deal for fanzines. I would cover setup, plates, and camera work, and finance the print run. There were flat rates for publisher, wholesale, retail. Rapidly, we were producing a steady stream, three or four titles and 10,000 copies per week.
The economics were always peculiar, in that one could print 24 badges on one sheet and sell them at 20p each, or print one fanzine on 12 sheets double-sided, which still sold for the same 20p. The badges subsidized the zines with ads and a distribution avenue, and the zines did practically break even.
Mick Mercer (Panache Fanzine editor) Then we met Joly, a well-meaning hippy bloke at Betta Badges, and the fanzine revolution really took off in the late 70’s. Remember the stalls at big gigs like the Lyceum and Electric Ballroom, where you could buy fanzines and badges? You didn’t really get much money off Joly. That wasn’t the point. He printed them and kept the money from sales, but you could buy copies (to sell personally) from him at virtually nothing compared to what your old printer charged. So you could leave the selling to them, and still make a few quid if you wanted. Punk77 interview, September 2004
Of course, and this addresses the fandom as labor theme, the fanzine publishers were never paid beyond what they made from hawking a few copies. I used to good-humoredly mock them when they would arrive breathless from Rough Trade (the music store a block away) clutching a couple of promo 45s. “Oh look, they gave me review copies!” The fact was the rapidly growing UK independent record business had established itself almost entirely via peer promotion, seeded by cassette swapping, fanzines, and badges.
There is a wider truth that it was new technologies, widely available dual-cassette decks, cheap “instant” printing, and Xerox (especially for resizing graphics) that enabled all that pioneering p2p, the sum of which led to a hijacking of the cultural agenda beyond my wildest dreams.
At the end of the decade, just like notes being passed round at the back of class eventually becoming adopted as curricula, the underground became overground, and thus beyond such activity.
The most egregious example of this was Adam and The Ants, in 1980 the top-selling badge act and fanzine subject. Overnight, they suddenly went from cult heroes to genuine chart toppers. The result was that the punks dropped them like a stone. Badge sales stopped dead. Kids everywhere were painting out the Antz logos on their jackets and replacing them with Theater of Hate or Killing Joke.
So the other truth, which I learned early, was that it is not fame that drives fan support but leverage—coolness over hotness.
I gave it up in 1982, having made around 40 million badges, maybe 100,000 zines. I could see the future was online, but that took another 12 years to arrive … Transformative Works & Cultures
Check out Joly on The Jamming Fanzine Podcast #3 with Tony Fletcher (Jamming fanzine editor)
In an article in the online Guardian in December 2016 entitled Moving The Needle (see also video above) to run with Image as Virus, the world’s first exhibition of punk badges, Joly explained some of his favourite badges shown below. The staggering thing is like Sniffin’ Glue, early punk fashion or early punk releases on independent labels is that from the idea to the initial rough and ready execution to the rapid surge forward (design, buying own printers etc) happened in an initially uncluttered market which Joly completely dominated in a benign way. The other staggering points are that a piece of tin could generate so much cash (from 20p each to buy) and an initial closeness between manufacturer/seller and band illustrated by the badge stories below where Joly gives a share of the cash made to the bands.
The Ramones, July 1976: ‘The first punk badge. Designed on Eric Idle’s kitchen table. I had already sold a few badges at hippy fests like Trenthishoe and Stonehenge – ‘Pass it this way’, ‘Hendrix Lives’, etc. Went to see ex-Pink Fairy Martin Stone play with the 101ers in Fulham. In the dressing room, Joe Strummer told the band that he was leaving to join the Clash. I said to him, if it’s good enough for you. At the Roundhouse, John Curd had me set up next to the incense and Rizla stall. By September I had displaced them entirely
Blondie, January 1977: ‘My printer, Letterstream, had the first public color xerox in London. This pic was in some mag and I was able to buy multiple copies to make a master. The badge was very popular. When the band came to London, they were amazed to find they had so many visible fans! They invited me to hang out at their hotel. Next time Blondie came, they brought their own merch. The manager started to give me grief at the show, but I successfully argued, pointing to my wall of many badges, that they weren’t merch – they were a medium’
The Clash, August 1976: ‘My personal calligraphy, kind of a bizarro take on Haight-Ashbury. Deliberately ugly. Bernie Rhodes hated it with a vengeance, and eventually licensed us the Sebastian Conran “Police” design on the condition I dropped the old one. I also coughed up petrol money to get the band’s gear to Europe’
Sex Pistols, March 1977: ‘After initially lifting the “anarchy” design I gained a good working relationship with Glitterbest (Malcolm McLaren’s management company) – ie I paid them off with badges. The second ‘official’ badge was ‘I’m a Lazy Sod’, submitted by a fan to my DIY service. Then Jamie [Reid] brought in the God Save the Queen art and Virgin later ordered a ton. The problem was, the ladies at Universal Button of Bethnal Green, royalists to the core, refused to touch it. We had to make a great deal ourselves. The rest were sent up to Kidderminster, where workers had less
Patti Smith, July 1977: ‘The best-selling subject in the early days was Patti Smith. In fact, it was her Roundhouse show, 17 May 1976, that was the real kick-starter. I missed that, but when she returned to play Hammersmith Odeon in October, I was set up and well stocked. Later I met with Patti and her manager Jane Friedman, and the badge sales helped out with their bill at the Portobello Hotel. This 45mm version is the second version made to sell at the second Mont de Marsan Festival
The Fanzine Podcast – Ep. 3: Image as Virus with Joly of Better Badges
Better Badges is now ‘A Better Badge’ and still in business – Facebook Page
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