Bondage
Bondage was a punk fanzine created by Shane MacGowan in December 1976, and the first and only issue consists of six mainly hand-written pages photocopied one-sided onto six sheets of foolscap paper and stapled in the upper left corner.
Although MacGowan was born in England, he spent most of his childhood in the Tipperary countryside in a world without amenities but rich in adventure and music. Reluctantly forced to come back from this more idyllic back-to-nature existence to living in London, it’s no surprise the young Shane hated it.
London is no fun for a kid. To be quite honest, nowadays it’s no fun for an adult. It was bloody awful. There was f–k all to do in London. I hated England and every time I went to stay in England some disaster happened. My parents were unhappy there and no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t help it rubbing off on me, and I got disturbed. I started having recurring nightmares and all the rest of it. John Kelly, Only the End of the Beginning, Irish Times, 26.8.2000
McGowan surreally won a scholarship to the Westminster Public School before being expelled for possession of drugs at the age of 17. Add in a bout of serious illness, mental health problems, and the young Shane, like the young John Lydon (who suffered similarly), was cocked and loaded ready for when punk rock hit.
MacGowan – then known as Shane O’Hooligan – was already a face in the emerging London punk scene when he created this DIY masterpiece. Two months earlier he had been photographed at a Clash gig after being cut in the side of his head with a broken bottle, and his picture appeared in the press next to alarmist headlines claiming that his ear had been bitten off. He can also be seen wearing a Union Jack jacket while jumping up and down, playing the drums and generally making a nuisance of himself at the Roxy Club in Don Letts’ “Punk Rock Movie”.
The Sex Pistols picture on the front cover of Bondage was taken from one of their gig flyers (see right) and the zine was produced with the help of Jon Savage, who encountered MacGowan at a Damned gig while selling copies of his own fanzine London’s Outrage (the name and front cover of which were also inspired by the same flyer). The following extract from Savage’s diary was later re-printed in his excellent book “England’s Dreaming”….
8/12/76 – Up to see The Damned at the Hope and Anchor, clutching a few copies of London’s Outrage, hot off the xerox….The group are great: high energy rubbish, with a lot of humour….Upstairs I manage to sell a few copies. There are two other fanzine writers with their products: Adrian with 48 Thrills and Shane with the original of Bondage, laid out on tatty bits of A4 paper. It looks fun and as I have access to free photocopying, I agree to xerox it: the next few lunchbreaks are spent dodging solicitors and injury from the rusty razor blades that festoon Shane’s masterwork.
Click here for the full Bondage issue courtesy of the Still Unusual BlogSpot
Bondage begins with a brief rant about the Sex Pistols’ televised encounter with Bill Grundy on 1st December 1976 and the hysterical reaction to it, entitled “IT’S 1976 OK (mimicking the opening line of “1969” by The Stooges) AND YOU STILL CAN’T SAY FUCK ON TV”. MacGowan also raves about The Jam (who he used to go and see with fellow fanzine writer Arcane Vendetta of ‘These Things’) and Eater and finishes off with news about Chelsea getting rid of their singer and changing their name to Generation X.
Shane never did another fanzine – he signs off this issue “Sorry it’s all hand-written but I haven’t got a typewriter. Anyway, anyone who uses a typewriter is a GIRL. I don’t like fanzines anyway, they’re boring and unconstructive…”
He would later form The Nipple Erectors in the middle of 1977 (mentioned in Sniffin’ Glue #9 April/May as the Erect Nipples and requiring a drummer and later known as The Nips) and achieved international success in the 1980s with The Pogues (initially known as Pogue Mahone) and well-publicised alcohol problems. He died of pneumonia on 30th November 2023. He was 65 years old….
This feature is courtesy of the excellent Still Unusual BlogSpot
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