The Gun Rubber
The Gun Rubber was started in Sheffield in January 1977 by Paul Bower (AKA Bert Vinyl) and Adi Newton (AKA Ronnie Clocks) and ran for seven issues till the end of 1977.
The first Gun Rubber was hand-written, photocopied and handed out free at Sheffield’s Craisy Daisy nightclub. Later issues had the trademark split A4 landscape cover and printed on either blue, orange or white paper. The magazine is generally packed full of content and typewritten interspersed with plenty of handwritten annotations and crude drawings to give it a proper DIY look and feel.
From the start a little different as this excerpt from issue 1 shows with this piece on Cabaret Voltaire from the Sheffield Vision website.
QUIETLY FLOWS THE DON Gunrubber 1
What’s happening in Sheffield, That’s what I am asking?
We have heard of new ideas coming from London, Manchester and even Evesham (where?). In London a band like The Gorillas or Eater play a couple of gigs at some hip club and WHAM NME give them full page coverage.
Play loud and spit on the audience in Chelsea and all you’re likely to get is a condescending mention in the ‘Star’, and yet under the surface things aren’t quite as bleak as they seem.
‘CABARET VOLTAIRE’ are a Sheffield group based around synthesiser /new wave music. However they really defy categorisation. All you can say is they involve elements of humour, electronics, film and theatre. What’s more they are a good bunch of artists. Cabaret Voltaire have only played a few times, but they have been around for nearly two years. They used ideas that the Pistols/ Punk clan made famous. Needless to say when they played Sheffield polytechnic the students or the management didn’t like what they saw. Anyway Cabaret Voltaire are still moving and I’m sure by the next time we see them they will have changed their act completely. So keep your eyes peeled for Cabaret Voltaire. Ronny Clocks
The Gun Rubber issues are packed with an abundance of northern punk attitude (as well as examples of the casual sexism and racism that was commonplace in the 1970s) and covers the emerging music scenes in Sheffield and Leeds in considerable detail (even to the point of including instructions about how to get to what used to be the Fforde Green pub in Harehills from Leeds city centre). Still Unusual
1977 Sheffield, interview with the makers of Gun Rubber Punk fanzine who look like mad professors!
As well as having a predictable digsat the mainstream music press, the authors also slag off other fanzines like Jonh Ingham’s London’s Burning fanzine or Preston’s Vive Le Revolution.
In a twist on the usual fanzine editor becoming music journalist, both editors formed bands after becoming disillusioned with punk by the end of 1977. Paul Bower formed Sheffield punk band 2.3 in mid 1977 and Adi Newton formed Clock DVA.
Read Gun Rubber issue 4 here on the excellent Still Unusual blogspot
TalkPunk
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