Ripped & Torn

Tony Drayton, was well aware of punk and regularly made the long trek from Glasgow to London each weekend and back.  It was at one of these visits at the Hope & Anchor where he caught The Damned playing. At the same gig, he bumped into Mark Perry of Sniffin’ Glue fanzine and offered to write a review for it. Perry refused, telling him to go create his own and so Ripped & Torn was born. The name apparently was sci-fi related.

Tony D Plus the name Ripped & Torn came largely from the actor Rip Torn who I had watched on a nightly basis in the film The Man Who Fell To Earth when it showed in a Glasgow cinema. Facebook Post

He sent a copy to Mark Perry, as well as Rough Trade Records and Compendium Books. This led to the latter two, ordering 200 copies each, and after Drayton had found a printing shop to meet the demand, he stocked the extra 100 copies in record shops around Glasgow. The magazines sold out after a week.

Tony D (Ripped & Torn Fanzine) I moved down to London and did Ripped and Torn in May 1977, which was the beginning of the whole New Wave and which I found much more interesting. I liked the Lurkers and the Ants. They were all the same type of band really. Better than the first wave of stuff like Eater and Slaughter & the Dogs. There was starting to be tunes. I was never a big fan of the Slits or the Banshees. They were a hangover from the previous hierarchy who never quite made it; they were lording it over everyone but weren’t really as good as these newer bands. Paul Marko, The Roxy London WC2

Partner in crime Harry Murlowski was keen to expand this but editor Mark P, who was now A&R man of his own label Step Forward with Miles Copeland, had his eyes on developing his own band Alternative TV. Jacking it all in, he bowed out with a free flexi disc of his band in the last issue.

There’s also the first appearance of Step Forward/Faulty Products adverts appearing. Looking at this now I see a big break slipping through my fingers, Miles Copeland – who financed all this office space – must’ve been looking R&T over as a successor to SG. But I was too snotty to know better. Ripped & Torn Website

In actual fact Miles wasn’t looking to do anything other than help subsidise.

Miles Copeland The reason it was successful was because Mark P was being honest. When it ended, if I would have taken it over it would have been like the suits are taking it over, and it wouldn’t have been the same thing anymore. It’s like when Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp bought Myspace and it died in weeks.  I said to Mark, “Why stop Sniffin’ Glue?” and he said, “Well because I’m going to be in a band now!” and he moved on and so did I. Paul Marko, Menace: Punks, Skins & Serendipity

Despite the media announcing “Punk is dead” in Summer ’77, the punk scene continued to thrive though expanding in multiple directions. Ripped & Torn weren’t fans of power pop though proclaiming “DEATH TO POWER POP AS THE FUTURE OF PUNK,”

There was an explosion of bands, gigs, and punks streaming into London. The sheer number of cheap gigs happening meant that Drayton was going to up to 27 a week, and sharing his experiences with his readership. Punk in part, was evolving from an expected short lived fad to something approaching a lifestyle that was 24/7.

Issue 9a was a free Christmas 1977 one sheeter given away at gigs echoing the Sniffin’ Snow edition from 1976.

Readership continually increased as did the quality of content. Ripped & Torn never changed its basics which was an eclectic mix of contributions, collage, comments, reviews, random thought provoking pieces and interviews in type, handwritten and DIY cut and paste. It also included gig pictures from Jem Gibbs and Walt Davidson to name two, and cartoons from Phil Smee all with complete editorial freedom. Ever popular was the readers chart, a fanzine staple but which again reflected the evolving state of punk.

Around the end of 1978 two changes happened. First post Sex Pistols Johnny Rotten’s PIL started up and Tony was disillusioned to Rotten’s attitude to the audience and record. Having featured the Sex Pistols no less than five times in previous issues their sixth was Johnny Rotten and a public lambasting of him and PIL on the cover of issue 16 in January 1979.

Secondly, Crass and anarcho punk appeared bringing a renewed, but more political and lifestyle based, punk ethos and beginning to be more focused around the increased squatting scene.

Similarly anarchic, was Tony D’s  approach to running the mag. Rent and utilities were free from squatting where he produced the Ripped & Torns. Money came in from a combination of running adverts in the issues, selling the review records sent in, selling & distribution via Compendium and Rough Trade and subscriptions. The latter was the most disjointed as Tony kept no records of who had paid what and so there was no list of subscribers.

The last issue (#17) in March 1979 featured a striking cover with a guy called Shrink on the cover. He’s a total unknown but his look with a half-shaved head tin foil jumpsuit and attitude had caught Tony’s eye. Shrink turns out to be an ex-member of the power pop band The Secret. The issue also featured The Banshees (saying they hated Ripped & Torn!), Generation X, a full page picture of Cuddly Toys (ex Raped) who were the magazine’s fake poll winners, a whole page on ATV’s Vibing Up The Senile Man and a review of Crass’s Feeding Of The 5000 and one of Tony D’s random serious articles  ‘too many people’. All in all pretty much representative of punk at that time.

The issues signs off with the line “LATE NEWS: all plans have been blown haywire – the next issue can’t come out till I find somewhere stable to do it.”

It had been produced from his new home which was in a large squatted complex in Covent Garden. It’s a volatile situation that see him evicted from this squat. That, coupled with losing the will to write and wanting to travel abroad, meant he changed his plans and it was the last issue to be produced by him.

He handed over to Vermilion, a biker rock chick who worked with Miles Copeland and she produced issue 18, the strangest Ripped & Torn ever.

Tony D goes to Paris and Vermilion and enables a clean break and another fanzine legend to be born in Kill Your Pet Puppy when he returns.

Vermilion as we know, was the London scene reporter from US fanzine Search & Destroy and singer in her own band Dick Envy and then Vermilion & The Aces (ex Menace). She also had an association with iconic fanzine Ripped & Torn written & edited by Tony D and had a couple of pieces in said fanzine. In fact she even came to oversee the last ever edition of it providing the strangest coda in the life of it. Tony D recounts how her involvement came about.

The Vermilion connection starts with Ripped & Torn’s affiliation with Mark Perry’s record label Step Forward. Back in 1977 Mark Perry’s label was based in central London and I used to visit their office regularly for a variety of reasons, one of which was to get adverts for the next issue of Ripped & Torn. Mark’s label Step Forward was part of a confusing array of label names to me, all operating out of one office, but through a person called Nick Jones. One or more of the labels would advertise in every issue of Ripped & Torn.

This confusion of labels and Nick Jones placing adverts continued as the parent company (basically Miles Copeland) moved to new premises around the corner from Rough Trade in W11.

Miles used to get upset that R&T would not feature Chelsea and threatened to pull all future advertising unless we did, but Nick always calmed him out of that and always placed ads regardless. However one day in their office Nick introduced me to this person called Vermilion, saying we should get on as she is a writer from Search & Destroy in San Francisco and we could write for each other’s fanzines; and by the way Miles had signed her to the label.

Vermilion was in her leather jacket but with a t-shirt underneath rather than the bare-breasted imagery; we went for a coffee in Mike’s café and I stuttered my way through this first date. As any editor will understand, I was eager for some one to write stuff to fill the pages of the next issue so when she offered concepts and I gave her thanks.

You show two quarter page images, but I think she managed to write at least one piece: though the ‘Outlaw’ one may have been her only offering. I can see my own handwriting in the other one and that was a quarter page. Punk77 Interview

From Ripped & Torn 15 November 1978*

It was Tony D’s belief that the magazine would become in essence a promotional vehicle for Mile’s labels and bands plus others leveraging R&T’s name and guaranteeing its continuity.

I thought she had the safest pair of hands to pass it onto. The reason being her connection to Miles Copeland and so Nick Jones financing the issues with the adverts. At this point she had a band signed to one of Copeland’s labels, so what could go wrong?

Once she got ownership nothing happened. I thought Nick and Miles would jump on the chance to take the name R&T then create a puff promotional magazine with Vermilion at the nominal helm and blast it nationwide promoting Police/Cramps/Chelsea or whoever.

In fact there were misunderstandings on both sides as Vermilion believed there was something more organised in place distribution-wise to take the fanzines.

At some point years later I have a conversation with Vermilion who complained that I never gave her any distribution or subscription details – and I explained that I told her at the time that apart from Rough Trade distributing them I took them round shops and gigs myself. She claimed I never told her that and left her in the lurch and in trouble with Miles.

I see her point of misunderstanding me , but at the stage of not having distribution or subs she could have turned me down at the time. But she didn’t so this weird issue came out. Punk77 Interview

And weird it is considering there was a professional design team behind it, a whole lot of R&T brand goodwill and a wonderful opportunity to sell Mile’s bands handed for free. Instead, the paper equivalent of Metal Machine Music came out.

I really expected Vermilion to be a cover for that sort of take over; just pass it onto the promotions team. At that point remember they had signed the Cramps so were good guys. Instead she created one issue with random articles from her friends plus one fantastic piece by Genesis P Orrige.

I expected a lot more out of a person selling herself in London as a Search & Destroy journalist (and more) with Miles Copeland’s backing, though the fact her competition in R&T got no responses plus that she had no interest if there had been any should have been a clue. I made a mistake there, but at least we have Gen’s article to make it worthwhile plus I created the new fanzine called Kill Your Pet Puppy rather than work out what to do with Vermilion. Punk77 Interview

It’s likely another issue was planned as mentioned in a fanzine letter from Vermilion in late 1980 but it never came to pass. If there’s an irony here then for me it’s that this issue is perhaps the perfect ending to the Ripped & Torn story and it’s a shame it can’t be in the Compendium of issues published because it finished the story perfectly and into legend.

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*Excerpted from ‘RIPPED & TORN: THE UK’S LOUDEST FANZINE’ by Tony Drayton
Published by Ecstatic Peace Library. Distributed by Omnibus Press.