I’ve noticed a trend over the course of the past few months with small-press books or collections I’ve purchased on Amazon. The final page will say “Made in the USA, Las Vegas NV” and then provide the date it was printed. In every case, this is the date I ordered it. It happened with a paperback of Charles Willeford’s Pick-Up, which was riddled with spelling errors. It happened with a book by Patrick Cooper about Elaine May’s 1976 film Mikey and Nicky, which I have yet to read. And it happened with this fanzine reprint of Pissed + Broke #4, put out in Bournemouth, England by Jon Lange in Spring 1980.
I get what’s going on here now. This must be Amazon’s print-on-demand offering “Kindle Direct Publishing”, and there’s a lot to recommend it. This could be how the Fanzine Hemorrhage book or my novel I haven’t written eventually sees the light of day, you know what I mean? And at least there’s no spelling errors in Pissed + Broke #4 beyond what young Lange bobbled himself in the original edition. There’s a sort of a modern “wrapper” around this one in which Lange explains his thinking and offers apologies for same, both in an introduction and in an appendix with endnotes. Chris D. did this in his Writing For Slash book as well. There’s not much reason for apologies; much of the endnotes is devoted to dissecting his interview with Adam Ant of the Dirk Wears White Sox-era Adam and the Ants, mostly to pile on Adam, who’d become one of the biggest stars in the UK about a year after this.
He talks to Gene October of Chelsea, another guy I’ve always reckoned to be a blithering idiot and a quote-unquote “bad person” after reading about his behavior toward the Black Flag guys on their UK tour in this Rollins essay. (I’m not sure if this Rollins follow-up tale is actually true, but I hope it is). Lange was also a massive Crass fan, and goes deep on Stations of the Crass. It was just after this time that I started buying my first issues of the UK music papers and Crass were a major topic of conversation, particularly in Sounds. Their confrontational political stance and extreme DIY ethos was highly perplexing and/or fascinating to the powers that be, both institutionally and journalistically. I’d say shame about their music, but I’ll listen to a little Crass every now and again.
Anyway, I’m all for unearthing old fanzines and republishing them via Kindle Direct Publishing or whatever it takes to bring them to the people. Lange has got another issue of his 80s fanzine up there as well if you’re interested.
Fanzine Hemorrhage 