Mouth of the Rat was a free South Florida music newspaper, similar in concept at least to the far inferior free BAM or even The Rocket papers of my youth and twenties, except entirely punk-centric, unbeholden to major labels, and far more in line with Slash or NY Rocker. Dave Parsons not only edited and wrote most of the paper, he hand-lettered it, which yeah, it’s been done in a few places, but I’d never seen it as extensively and hand-crampingly executed as it is here until Galactic Zoo Dossier came along. (Lindsay Hutton did do it pretty well himself in Next Big Thing over many years).
I’m especially excited about the May 1980 issue, Mouth of the Rat #14, for one very, very important reason. There’s actual, in-the-moment documentation of Smegma – soon to be Sheer Smegma and then Teddy and The Frat Girls! This all-female group might be the greatest thing to have ever emerged from South Florida, and I’m definitely including navel oranges, Gloria Estefan, the Challenger space shuttle and Kreamy ‘Lectric Santa. Atonal, decadent, primitive, godlike art/punk howl from women who were clearly making it up as they want along, but who, in two brilliant songs, “I Owe It To The Girls” and “Clubnight” – created two of the all-time high-water marks of American – nay, global – culture. Because they’re so ridiculously undocumented anywhere, I’ve snapped photos (below) from Mouth of the Rat #14 so you see how Parsons was perceiving them after their very first show.
That’s really enough, but there’s more. I gathered from reading this issue that The Cichlids meant as much to Floridians at the time as, say, the Ramones did to NY several years earlier. Here’s a scan I found from an earlier Mouth of the Rat. Such was the localization of scenes at the time, where your bands were barely known by anyone outside your city, even when they’d put out 45s, but were influential and life-changing heroes within your own city limits. It was a couple of years later, but we’d talk about hardcore band The Faction the same way in San Jose, CA, and it felt like maybe no one an hour north of us in San Francisco knew who they were.
Being 1980, The Clash and Public Image Ltd. are very much on young Parsons’ mind. Aside from reports of touring around and seeing them live across the eastern US – something you had to do growing up in the southeast corner of the USA – he’s writing about every new record he’s finding or getting sent, which includes all the Posh Boy stuff coming out of LA; The Mo-Dettes; the Pop Group and Young Marble Giants, the latter of which he loves, but he knows that you won’t, punker. Eventually Parsons would move to New York City and start Ratcage records and put out the first couple of Beastie Boys releases. I had this version of their Cooky Puss 12” in high school and am glad to see it’s only selling for triple what I paid for it at the time, as opposed to the 100x I’d expected.
Anyway, Smegma! :
Fanzine Hemorrhage 
I grew up in SoFL and it generally was a wasteland. RotR captures that pretty well. Thanks for sharing!
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“I gathered from reading this issue that The Cichlids meant as much to Floridians at the time as, say, the Ramones did to NY several years earlier. Here’s a scan I found from an earlier Mouth of the Rat. Such was the localization of scenes at the time, where your bands were barely known by anyone outside your city, even when they’d put out 45s, but were influential and life-changing heroes within your own city limits.” That’s what the Cold were in New Orleans in 1981: got their singles played on the local top 40 station and get their own local TV special. I listened to a Cichids song and I would think it was the Cold. They were the first punk-related band I saw live, and even though they’re musically pretty much the typical power pop of the time I thought they were king shit when I was 14.
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