Sniffin’ Glue

Mark Perry was a bank clerk and music fan who’d become aware of both the pub rock scene with Dr Feelgood and the emerging US punks scene of The Ramones. He was also a fan of Emerson, Lake & Palmer and the like and had written into the music papers before about them.

After seeing the Ramones at London’s Roundhouse on July 4th, 1976, Mark Perry, asked the Rock On stall in Soho (Ted Caroll who would form Chiswick Records) if there were any English magazines like the American magazine Punk that covered the scene. When they said “no and to go away and make his own!” that’s exactly what he did with Sniffin’ Glue (And Other Rock ‘n’ Roll Habits), a punk fanzine named after the Ramones’ track Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue. This first issue was as raw and lo-fi as the music; done on an old children’s typewriter, the ‘graphics’ courtesy of a marker pen and zeroxed at a girlfriend’s office.

Rock On bought the lot and financed the printing of more and Perry was off. By August 1976 he was hearing about bands like the Sex Pistols, Clash, Vibrators & Stranglers and making contacts.

Catching a gig by the Sex Pistols at the 100 Club, he made the break and hacked off his hair and gave up his job. By issue 3 in September he had school friend Steve Micalef on board and featured The Damned on the cover.

September was the key 100 Club Punk festival and a special Sniffin’ Glue was rushed out as #3 1/2

Above right – A suitably punkified Mark Perry – Photo by Estate Of Keith Morris/Redferns/Getty Images)

By issue 5 in November featuring Barry Masters of Eddie & The Hot Rods on the cover, Perry was in his stride and bought into punk as a movement and enthused by the anyone can do it. To keep momentum going he realised it needed a rush of new blood and he urged readers to go and start their own fanzines. And they did in their hundreds from a trickle to a flood.

True to his word he turned down a review from a certain Tony D, who was down from Glasgow to watch The Damned at the Hope and Anchor, and told him to do his own mag. That resulted in Ripped & Torn which became its own legend and eventually took over the mantle from Sniffin’ Glue. November also saw them get the photographer and more business focussed Harry Murlowski and the magazine became printed with a circulation of around 2,000 and growing.

Harry T Murlowski (Sniffin’ Glue, ATV manager, producer & IRS man of many hats) It all seems like three lifetimes ago! I was aged 19 at South London College in 1976 and there was another student there by the name of Steve Micahelf. We were just chatting at break, and he was writing all this stuff down about bands and things and I was curious. He told me about it, and I said it seemed interesting and asked, “Do you guys need a photographer?” He suggested I talk to Mark Perry.

Mark at that time was living with his parents in Deptford.  I called him and went over there and met him and went into his bedroom where he was stapling the latest edition of Sniffin’ Glue. I didn’t know anything about punk rock, but it seemed very exciting and interesting. We talked for a bit, and I helped him out and then I went with him to my first punk gig, which I believe was the Eater at the Hope & Anchor in Islington. My initial reaction was wow! They can’t sing. They can’t play. But it isn’t it exciting! The energy was what caught me. I took a bunch of pictures with an old Zenith camera; terrible pictures. My method of taking pictures was to plow my way to the front of the audience and get close up to the band. That was the start of my involvement.

Mark Perry (Sniffin’ Glue, Alternative TV) Harry was the business manager (laughs) and jack of all trades. He would drive the van, ring the printers, and pay the bills. He never had an opinion on the music, and he never dressed like a punk. He was the perfect bloke for me. Imagine if you had someone taking too much speed and worried about what he was looking like; I needed to be that, (laughs) not my business manager. I was the creative off the wall and Harry was the steady one who you could rely on. Punk77 Interview, January 2023

Mark P and Jill Furmanovsky – 1977 – Photo Credit – Harry Murlowski

December saw Perry meet Miles Copeland and his girlfriend Jill Furmanovsky who was a professional photographer. Copeland was a manager, booker, agency and had bands like Wishbone Ash and Curved Air on his books. He had overstretched on some musical business ventures and was virtually starting from scratch but saw something in Punk that appealed to him and an opportunity.

Mark Perry (Sniffin’ Glue, Alternative TV) I met Miles in December 1976 when Sniffin’ Glue was already established as the #1 punk magazine. The same night I met him, I met Jill who was going out with him. Miles said, “I really want to get in the punk thing and do you wanna do a label?” and that’s when I was offered to do Step Forward records.

If you want to do stuff you gotta get money so someone like Miles was great. So if you walked into his office with a good idea, you were more likely to get a record out in a month’s time. That’s the sort of bloke he was. He got caught up in the enthusiasm of it and because punk was growing, he was just wanting to get involved somehow. I really liked Miles and I guess he liked what I was doing and for someone like me who had been doing the magazine but had been a rock fan since the early seventies, I just jumped at the chance when offered my own label.

You hear all these other opinions about him from people like Rough Trade’s Geoff Travis and Tony Wilson, who were all middle class and arty, but I’ve always been quite pragmatic. Punk77 Interview, January 2023

With Sniffin’ Glue and other fanzines, Copeland also saw a way to disrupt the traditional music press and instant and cheap direct access to his core buying demographic. He bought into advertising in the fanzine and there was an instant correlation between Miles’ band’s releases and the lead interviews in the fanzines. Given Sniffin’ Glue’s circulation, which at its peak was estimated at 20-25,000, prominence within its pages ensured good sales. Meet the new way. Same as the old way!

Miles Copeland The involvement with Sniffin’ Glue was again not planned out. Mark P came to do an interview with Chelsea, then he booked a couple more interviews, and since Dryden Chambers was in the West End it was convenient to arrange to meet them in our offices. Next thing I knew, there was these punk bands showing up and before I knew it my office became Sniffin’ Glue. Punk77 Interview, October 2022

Jill Furmanovsky (Photographer) Sniffin’ Glue broke into one of the empty offices in Dryden Chambers and ran an electricity cable from Miles’s offices to theirs. Then they would hang out there and on occasions sleep there if they were at the 100 Club or the Roxy. So Sniffin’ Glue was now a neighbour!

Miles Copeland Then of course I realised that Sniffin’ Glue was the Rolling Stone magazine of the punk movement, and that proximity was quite useful to me. If they would do coverage of bands I was interested in, then that was a quite a symbiotic relationship. ’Glue had a very targeted audience and people really believed it – and that was very hard to come by. In modern times Mark and the ’Glue would be called an influencer. I also helped it grow. When Mark first came in, they were doing 2–3,000 copies. It got to the point where we were doing 25,000 copies. You could really make something happen with Sniffin’ Glue. You could happen in London and the whole country would know, whereas in America you could happen in New York and LA wouldn’t know you even existed (laughs).

That was when I went to Mark P and said, “Let’s take it one step further and start a record company together. You decide who’s on the label and I’ll do the rest and we’ll split 50/50,” and that’s what we did with Step Forward. Punk77 Interview, October 2022

While the world of music went through year zero with punk, it was nice to see that Christmas remained with the Sniffin’ Snow edition 🙂

January saw the Roxy Club open (there had been a membership form in issue 5) and a proliferation of bands start up in that tiny incubation space. The record label that Perry and Copeland would put together was called Step Forward and they signed up the leading newer bands that played the club in the first three months including Chelsea, Cortinas, Sham 69 and The Models that naturally would end up featured in Sniffin’ Glue.

Read Sniffin’ Glue Issue 8 in full here

It was an exciting time with events moving at dizzying speed. Circulation increased while the magazine continued documenting Punk as it unfolded.  The writing and design improved and they were lucky they had three professional photographers Harry Murlovsky, Jill Furmanovsky and Erica Echenberg for pictures. They featured all the key punk bands and new bands were forming and queuing up to be featured. Perry was passionate about the scene and influential. He even went out with the the glamorous Soo Catwoman for a short while making them THE punk couple.

But Perry (or anyone for that matter) didn’t have control of events and what he saw as a revolution of bands on independents changed as first the Sex Pistols and then The Clash signed to major labels. With that came punk going even more overground with the increase in publicity and the demand to play TV to shift units and he became disillusioned at what he saw the watering down of Punk.

Mark Perry (Sniffin’ Glue, Alternative TV) I stood up and said, “We don’t want them on Top of the Pops because it’s just diluted shit if it’s on there,” and everyone else said, “But we want punk on telly.” But I didn’t want it on telly. It’s like my point endlessly rehashed about the Clash: punk died the day the Clash signed to CBS. I still bought the Clash album, I still loved the music but what I was trying to say that economically, once you’ve put yourself in their hands, the CBS’s of the world – and you’re out in front of that audience lined up on TV, with Smokie or the Smurfs, your mystique goes out of the window. To an uneducated undiscerning voice you’re no different. Mark Perry, Sniffin’ Glue, The Essential Punk Accessory, 2000

If there’s a criticism here it’s that Perry was naive. It was precisely playing with TV with Smokie or Smurfs that made punk bands disruptors and stood out. It was why previously kids had been drawn to Bowie or the New York Dolls because of their TOTP and Old Grey Whistle Test appearances. Plus – all punk bands wanted to sell records.

Miles Copeland Bands like Generation X and the Clash all wanted to end up on a big label and get money and most looked upon the little punk labels as a stepping-stone before some bigger company would come in and write a big cheque. Not that many were thinking, “We want to do it on our own.” Though they had an anti-establishment outlook, they all wanted to be on CBS or whatever and make them rich. Punk77 Interview, October 2022

Within a year of being a bank clerk and music fan, Perry was now right in the eye of the new Punk storm with a magazine, record label, and band. He was often featured in articles in the press as a go-to commentator or Sniffin’ Glue mentioned.

Mark Perry (Sniffin’ Glue, Alternative TV) In July 1976 I started the fanzine and I was still working as a bank clerk. A year later I was right in the centre of the growing punk scene. I was editing the best fanzine, A&R for a record label and I’d started Alternative TV. For someone like me who was such a big music fan it was amazing. Plus where we was situated too was amazing. We were in the centre of Oxford Street, almost directly opposite the 100 Club and round the corner from the Marquee. Upstairs was Malcolm McLaren and Glitterbest. It was the centre of the punk scene. Punk77 Interview, January 2023

For Sniffin Glue #9 April/May 1977, Steve Mick took over editing and layout and the issue first featured Danny Baker writing saying Mark P was taking a break. To be honest you couldn’t tell the difference. It was short-lived as Sniffin’ Glue #10 (June) had a cover announcing that Steve Mick had been given the boot along with a Jill Furmanovsky photo of new boy Danny Baker with Mark Perry and Harry Murlovski mimicking the NME Clash cover and titled ‘Deptford Yobs!’

Sensing they were falling into a predictable pattern of interviews, reviews, news and opinion (what else is there though?) Issue 11 was turned over to contributors that included White Stuff fanzine editor Sandy Robertson, Jon Savage, Savage Pencil and Mick Jones plus Mark P & Danny Baker.

Sandra: Did you intend S.G. to get as big as this?
Harry: Yes, of course. And it’s going to get bigger. If we changed the format we could even rival the established music press.

Sandra: What about people who criticise you for S.G. becoming a business concern? Harry: Why shouldn’t I get money for working hard?  People talk about ‘new wave politics’, but most bands want to have themselves and their photos in the paper. Of course they bloody do! The Clash want to make money, live in a big mansion, be able to buy dope/speed/booze every day.

Sandra: Don’t you agree that New Wave gives people the opportunity to say things they couldn’t otherwise?
Harry: Yes, but I couldn’t give a shit about politics. Music has never changed anything (oh yeah?) It never will. And ‘New Wave’ is just music to me.

Maybe we’ll always need Harrys to sponsor the more creative among us, but I’d like to think he’s wrong in some of his ideas. Sandra, Hanging Around #5, Mid Sep 1977

For Perry though the magazine had run its course and they were in danger, if they hadn’t already crossed that line, of just being another music paper and part of the music machine, accepting adverts and giving backhander reviews. The last two issues were full of adverts for Step Forward, Illegal, Chiswick, a Parliament funk album and even Phonogram with their New Wave compilation.

Mark Perry (Sniffin’ Glue, Alternative TV) We were getting so many offers for ads it was one of the reasons I stopped doing it. We had all sorts like CBS and Polydor and we did take ads for a while because Harry would say, “We need to do this to bring in some money.” But once I saw the road it was going down, I guess I was thinking it wasn’t punk.

I didn’t want it to turn into the established music press/record label relationship. Labels would take journalists on a big jaunt to get them to do stuff. I got offered stuff like going to see Ian Hunter and then the party afterwards and meeting him because CBS wanted him to be interviewed in Sniffin’ Glue.  I said, “I’ll come to the gig because I’m a fan, but there’s no way I’ll interview him for Sniffin’ Glue.” It was already turning into just another rock magazine and I just didn’t want that to happen.

There was a lot of focus on Step Forward artists but how would you not? We all worked in the same office and shared everything, but it all became a bit incestuous. We were interviewing Chelsea and then releasing the single. If you were standing back you could see the end because it began to lose its energy and cutting edge. The last three issues weren’t that good and there were better fanzines out there. We did the right thing and made a massive statement by stopping – imagine we’d carried on and it had got worse until we just petered out. Punk77 Interview, January 2023

Mark P and Noel Martin in Dryden Chambers getting a Menace advert ready 🙂

Danny Baker Mark thought it was hard to justify adverts in the ’Glue and I make him right…in hindsight [it] had already gone on too long. Once it started to come out regularly, we had become part of the industry we professed to despise…The Police, Fall Out review: “Good to see a new label Illegal records” – I didn’t mention that they shared an office with us! Mark Perry, Sniffin’ Glue, The Essential Punk Accessory, 2000

And so Perry called time on Sniffin’ Glue in July 1977 at its commercial and influential peak. He signed off with an issue giving away 20,000 Flexi discs of his new band Alternative TV, singing Love Lies Limp produced by Harry and a Sham 69 cover and interview who were of course releasing their debut on Step Forward. Mark continued his role in Step Forward Records signing bands.

But what I love about this is Perry’s egalitarian view of punk. While the first wavers were sneering down their noses at bands like Sham 69, Perry et al actively championed them as the authentic sound of punk rock (or another strand of it because at that time you could listen to Sham 69 then Magazine then Generation X then The Pistols, Stranglers and Menace and it was all punk) and quite rightly so.

Jill Furmanovsky (Photographer) Sniffin’ Glue hadn’t reached the end. That was what was so extraordinary; it was just the beginning. Mark had this integrity. When the Clash signed to CBS, a major label, he said it’s over. He felt the Clash sold out and the movement became more mainstream. The real revolution happened between 1976 and 1977 then it became more commercial, and Mark decided he didn’t want anything more to with it and started his band. 

Now you can probably level all sorts of criticism at Mark Perry but you can’t knock his integrity. It was part of the DNA of Sniffin’ Glue and every other venture he’s been involved in since.

Could Miles have taken it over and put someone else in charge?

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. Punk77 Interview, October 2022

Last word to Jill Furmanovsky

For me Sniffin’ Glue is terribly important because it was driven by the style and integrity of Mark Perry which carried on all through his life. Mark wasn’t a poseur; he was a wannabee musician. It was his energy and ability to have his fingers directly on the pulse; one day he saw the Sex Pistols and next day he was a punk. One minute he was a bank teller, next he started Sniffin’ Glue at his parents’ flat and produced it on a typewriter. Then he got Harry as business manager, and later Danny Baker, and together with Steve the four of them were all just winging it at the same time as the bands were. 

From ‘Sniffin’ Glue – The Bible’ published in 1978 which collected the issues into a book.