Punk Magazine

Surely no further proof regarding the US’s punk credentials is necessary when you consider ‘Punk’ Magazine. Originally to be called ‘Teenage News’ after an unreleased New York Dolls song it was Legs McNeil who suggested the title ‘Punk’.

Punk Magazine was a fanzine started by cartoonist John Holmstrom and Legs McNeil in 1976 that showcased the New York punk rock scene. The term “punk” was previously used by Creem Magazine to describe the kind of music that was developing parallel to the excessive arena rock bands that developed following the late 1960’s. Punk Magazine came out just as The Velvet Underground, MC5, and Iggy & The Stooges had broken up but just in time for The Ramones, The Dictators, and Television. Using photographs taken by staff photographers Roberta Bayley and Bob Gruen among others, the magazine’s layout was like a comic book, with panels overlaid with text bubbles. After fifteen issues, the publication came to an end in 1979.

‘Punk’ seemed to sum up the thread that connected everything we liked – drunk, obnoxious, smart but not pretentious, absurd, funny, ironic, and things that appealed to the darker side. Legs McNeil, Please Kill Me

John Holmstrom (a cartoonist) was the editor, Ged Dunn (businessman) the publisher and Legs (crazy Lester Bangs style gonzo music fan) was the resident punk. Musically the initial frame of reference was The Velvets, The Stooges, Ramones, The New York Dolls, and the Dictators.

‘Punk’ magazine ran for 15 issues from January 1976 to June 1979 and all bar the Sex Pistols puppet cover (#14) featured Holstrom’s cartoons on the cover. In terms of content the magazine always seemed to cover the usual suspects on the NY scene so there were interviews/features on Patti Smith, Television, Ramones, Blondie, Richard Hell and Iggy. It also included the Sex Pistols and Clash.

The one thing it lacked though is for a so-called ‘punk’ scene paper it didn’t have any focus, any ethos and IMHO a bit of passion. It’s professional and expensively printed, but feels like a cosy pals act all based around CBGB’s key bands. That may sound like a criticism but it isn’t.

In fact, it could be said that the magazine accurately reflects the so-called US punk scene in that there was no focus musically, ideologically or image-wise. As a magazine ‘Punk’ never led. It would rather spend three pages on a Mickey Mouse cartoon than feature new bands – You would be more likely to find an advert for Cheap Trick or an interview with Willie Loco Alexander (who?) Secondly how many other magazines came into being having been inspired by ‘Punk’. I’m not sure there were many though ironically Sniffin’ Glue was one.

It’s worth contrasting ‘Punk’ with its UK counterpart ‘Sniffin’ Glue’ because straight away the differences between UK and US punk are visible. I’m not saying one is better or worse but ‘Sniffin’ Glue’ is direct, forceful, provoking, in your face and amateurish. It’s raw and full of youth and documents a scene as it happens with its highs and lows in a compressed time period and akin to a grenade going off in a confined space.

At the height of the punk movement, ABC-TV reporter Stephen MacLean interviewed the founders of New York magazine ‘Punk’, Legs McNeil and John Holmstrom, for youth music program ‘Flashez’ – some interesting comments from McNeil & Holmstrom on UK Punk

Below are the first publications of each. Punk magazine was professional from the off and for all its issues it never changed and maintained that standard. Sniffin’ Glue was unashamedly amateur – Mark Perry was a bank clerk inspired by Punk magazine to do something similar musically in the UK and had no training other than a love of music. But whereas ‘Punk’ magazine never changed (and US punk scenes sprang up elsewhere and were catered for by magazines like Search & Destroy) Sniffin’ Glue did in terms of content and quality but to be honest that was never the key aim; just a bye product. And just as Sniffin’ Glue was poised to go big (selling over 20,000 copies) Mark P shut it down and started his own band Alternative TV.

I’ll quote at length Steven Heller who gives a much more favourable Punk vs Glue angle.

It is tempting to compare John Holmstrom and Legs McNeil’s leap into periodical publishing with the Futurist, Dadaist, and Surrealist art provocateurs who wrote dissonant poetry, composed asymmetric layouts and pasted together expressive collages, which they published in crudely produced publications. But the first issue of Punk was not the 1976 version of Dada, Punk was a fanzine turned comic book that initially mirrored the timely passions of its creators, and then leeched out into the youth culture as its clarion.

The first issue with Holmstrom’s splash panel logo, overly cross-hatched gothic Frankenstein illo of Lou Reed on the cover, and the entirely handlettered interior texts, established a unique visual character that eschewed the stereotypical anti-design, ransom-note typography of the British Punk zines. Although Holmstrom proudly referred to the first issue as “crummy-looking,” Punk did not sacrifice legibility for style, and used “a lot of straight lines in layouts” to make the lettering “look orderly,” he added. Punk’s greatest innovation was combining comic book aesthetics with journalistic language, which comes brilliantly together in the layout for McNeil’s satiric interview with the renowned comics heroine Nancy’s puggish boy-toy, Sluggo.

Punk took the post-hippy DIY conceit that ran from the totally artless Sniffin Glue (produced with Magic Marker–scrawled lettering, photocopied, and stapled together) to raw but professional-looking tabloids like Slash and The Rocker. The big lie about DIY and the zines that fall into the “Anybody can do it!”
school of art and design was that they were created by artists and designers without vision. Holmstrom’s design may have been as stiff as the brittle white newsprint on which it was printed, yet it was filled with the visual energy of CBGB’s sticker-, flyer- and graffiti-laden bathroom walls and ceiling—and the history of comics too. Steven Heller, Happy 40, Punk Number 1, February 24, 2016

It’s ironic that in the excellent book Please Kill Me, Legs says that the Sex Pistols killed punk as it became a phony media thing and because of that he quit ‘Punk’ magazine. It’s ironic because bands can’t exist in a vacuum in the Bowery.

That said ‘Punk’ was a unique magazine with its mix of comic book and music visuals and as a document of that magical New York Punk time essential. In the end ‘Punk’ magazine and Sniffin’ Glue were both (im) perfect reflections of their respective punk music scenes and both played a part in kickstarting a change.

The last word to Legs from an article in High Times from 1982.

Though it might never become apparent to most people, through all the hype, bad press, sensationalism, bad taste and loud music, a lot of good came out of the punk scene. Do-it-yourself records and magazines produced by kids with little or no money sprang up in almost every urban American center as nightclubs that once exclusively employed cover bands (bands that played everyone else’s music, mostly too farty) were connived into letting new bands who wrote their own music play onstage instead of their garbage. The idea that you could do something on your own and without a lot of money in corporation-land was truly revolutionary, and hopefully rock ‘n’ roll would be never again worshipped as a religion but taken as a tribal rite in the next step to sane living. Please Kill Me Website

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