Abstract
Because there are no significant Portuguese academic studies on this subject, one of our main objectives has been to undertake a systematic collection of existing empirical data on the punk experience in Portugal since around the end of the 1980s. Down the years, the project’s researchers have been involved in collecting assorted empirical data by several means: interviews with key elements that are, or have been, connected to the Portuguese punk ‘scenes’ in different historical periods; participant observation of key moments in Portuguese punk; and the collection and cataloguing of a number of records, posters, flyers, fanzines and so on. Thus, in this chapter, we shall present and discuss the temporalities and meanings of Portuguese punk fanzines.
This chapter is part of the project KISMIF: ‘Keep it simple, make it fast! Prolegomenons and punk scenes, a road to Portuguese contemporaneity (1977–2012)’ (PTDC/CS-SOC/118830/2010)’. Project KISMIF was funded by FEDER through the COMPETE Operational Programme from the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT). KISMIF is coordinated by Paula Guerra. It is led by the Institute of Sociology, University of Porto (IS-UP) and developed in partnership with the Griffith Centre for Cultural Research (GCCR, Australia) and Lleida University (UdL, Spain). The following institutions are also participants: Faculty of Economics, University of Porto (FEP), Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Porto (FPCEUP), Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra (FEUC), Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra (CES) and the Lisbon Municipal Libraries (BLX). The project and its results can be found at the website www.punk.pt. This text takes up, deepens and expands ideas already developed in previous articles, namely Guerra and Quintela (2014a, 2016).
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Take as an example the now classic first issue of the fanzine Sideburn, which integrated a diagram of three guitar chords and announced: ‘This is a chord. This is another. This is a third. Now form a band’ (Sideburns, 1977).
- 3.
Sniffin’ Glue, launched in July 1976 by Mark Perry, is considered the first punk fanzine in England. Perry started it very simply and cheaply: after he attended a concert with the Ramones in London, he anticipated the momentum the punk movement was gathering, and wanted to be involved in it. Noticing that there was no English magazine dealing with the emerging punk-rock, he decided to create one of his own, “just for a laugh” (Dannus, 2013: 22–23). Using an old copier, his girlfriend made 50 copies of the first issue. Perry took them to Rock On, a record shop in Soho, where the owner lent him money to produce 200 more copies. All the copies sold within the week. Mark then left his job as a bank clerk to produce the second issue (see McNeil & McCain, 2006). Triggs notes: The title, Sniffi n’ Glue: And Other Rock’n’roll Habits was inspired by the Ramones’ London gig and song ‘Now I wanna sniff some glue’—a verse that is reprinted in Issue 1 (1976). Mark P. remarks that ‘In this issue we lean heavily towards being a Ramones fan letter’ and promises in future issues to cover ‘other punks who make and do things we like’ (Triggs, 2006: 71).
- 4.
This analysis would not have been possible without the support of several people who donated to the KISMIF Archive innumerable fanzines. We are thankful to, among others, David Pontes, Fábio Couto, Fernando Marques da Costa, Francisco Correia, Francisco Dias, Haydée Borges, Luís Rattus, Nuno Oliveira, Paulo B. Lemos, Paulo Vinhas, Rita São Marcos and Ricardo Guerreiro.
- 5.
On this lack of concern about the written content of fanzines, Dannus notes: ‘Some writings can be found on the German punk fanzines, but oddly the punk fanzines from London, the birthplace of the European punk, constituted underused sources’ (2013: 10).
- 6.
Note: when we present the names of the fanzines in Portuguese, we present a translation in English in order to facilitate the reading of our text.
- 7.
For example, Dick Hebdige considered that the British punks transported to their clothes, their music, their attitudes, their fanzines and their texts what was called ‘Britain’s decline’ (see Hebdige, 1979).
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Fanzines
Cadáver Esquisito (1986a) (ed. David Pontes and Neno Costa), Issue 1, January/February.
Cadáver Esquisito (1986b) (ed. David Pontes and Neno Costa), Issue 2, April/May/June.
City Lights (2011) (ed. Joana Duarte), Issue 1, June.
Crack!zine (1995) (ed. M. Noé, V. Rodrigues and L. Moreno), Issue 3, August.
Estado de Sítio (1978) (ed. Paulo Borges), Issue 1, August.
Leitmotiv (1980) (ed. Paula Ferreira), Issue 1.
Panache (1980) (ed. Mick Mercer), Issue 13.
Ripped & Torn (1978) (ed. Tony Drayton), Issue 12, Summer.
Sideburns (1977) (ed. Sideburns), Issue 1, January.
Sniffin’ Glue (1977) (ed. Mark Perry), Issue 7, February.
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Quintela, P., Guerra, P. (2020). Punk Fanzines in Portugal (1978–2013): A Critical Overview. In: Guerra, P., Quintela, P. (eds) Punk, Fanzines and DIY Cultures in a Global World. Palgrave Studies in the History of Subcultures and Popular Music. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28876-1_3
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