Defiant Pose #8

Defiant Pose #8 from 2014 was a punk fanzine, and it went to great pains to make sure you couldn’t forget it. Each page looks like something out of Sniffin’ Glue or innumerable other 1977-78 punk clarion calls: 100% cut-and-paste, cheap xeroxing and varied fonts. Like the “MacIntosh” had never been invented. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, right? Now me, I’ll tend to steer well clear of fanzines with interviews w/ bands like “Stench” and “Cervix”, neither of whom I’ve ever heard – because, of course, you can in fact judge a book by its cover – but Defiant Pose #8 transcended these transgressions quite impressively due to its core subject matter this time.

Yes, I bought this UK fanzine in 2014 because it came with a Rema-Rema 45. This was a late 70s UK band who’d only had that Wheel in the Roses EP to their name (the first record on 4AD!), a record that (to my ears) only had one notable track: the outstanding, eponymous, clanging post-punk juggernaut “Rema-Rema”. That track is so, SO special that I took a flyer on this mag + 45, and w–o-w. The included single International Scale/Short Stories was the best thing this band ever did, including all the stuff that came out after this, and you do need to hear it. That said, what I linked there is not quite the version on the 45. 

Better still, Defiant Pose #8 gets some of the Rema-Rema gang back together for multiple interviews and fond reminiscing about the salad days of yore. Turns out, to no one’s surprise, they struggled to find their place in the proverbial scene, despite having Marco Pirroni from Siouxsie & The Banshees on guitar. Pirroni would shortly thereafter achieve world stardom playing “antmusic” with Adam and the Ants. It’s very possible that this collection of interviews helped to kick-start Rema-Rema fandom into gear again, as it wasn’t too long afterward that a full documentary was made about the band that I haven’t yet seen.

Michael, the guy that put this one out, is a true punk rock archivist/lifer and it shows in the absurd amount of flyer reprints in this one and in another issue I have (#6) that focused on LA punk. He runs a record label called Inflammable Material that is fuckin’ punk to the core. There are still other issues of Defiant Pose available (here, too) if your interest is piqued.