An absolute triumph of punk scholarship and alternative historiography

~ Jim Donaghey ~

Reading through this richly detailed overview of punk zines from the late 1970s and the 1980s, you can feel the effort that Matt Worley has poured into this. I imagine him elbow deep in piles of fading black-and-white missives, delving into their innards to discover themes, connections and discordances. Mention is made of hundreds upon hundreds of zines – and, unlike many books about fanzines, Worley gets beyond the front cover pages to actually provide a sense of the messy complexity of a dozen years of countercultural media.

Zerox Machine takes a chronological approach, zooming out at key moments to offer wider context, especially with regard to the print industry at large, then zooming in for a closely detailed look at particular zines that illustrate an essential point. Combined with an embrace of all variety of zines, and myriad associated punk sub-genres and political preferences, the approach is very effective – meticulously detailed without losing grasp of the broader sweep of (counter-)cultural transformations.

In a refreshing distinction from other punk history books, Worley is explicit from the outset that the end point of this book actually presages a huge upswelling of punk zine production into the 1990s and beyond (chiefly driven by riot grrrl). Arguably, the hazily drawn finishing point makes sense in terms of evolving production technologies – the book charts the shift from reliance on professional offset printers to the office photocopy machine (and nods to all sorts of other idiosyncratic devices such as Gestetners), closing off before the advent of the home computer and the retrenchment of DIY production. The ending of the book feels a bit abrupt as a result, but, as Worley puts it, punk zine production is “a story that never ends” (p. 310), with each successive generation and iteration ‘sowing seeds’ for the next blossoming of DIY culture. Other punk historians should take note: the subject matter doesn’t stop just because one book does! 

The geographical focus is on Britain (or, more accurately, the UK, with the inclusion of numerous zines from the north of Ireland). MaximumRockNRoll’s emergence in 1982 in the US gets a nod here and there, and the ‘rest of the world’ is present in the scene reports, interviews and reviews covering places like New Zealand, West Germany, Belgium, and, with recurring prominence, Yugoslavia. Within the confines of the UK though, the geographical spread is impressive – lists of zines from absolutely everywhere, from tiny villages to the big urban centres – and Worley celebrates the London-sceptic localism that pervades many of these regional zines.

Worley’s close attention to detail is impressive. It’s long been a bugbear of his that Dick Hebdige misattributed the ‘here’s a chord, here’s another, now start a band’ memetic image to Sniffin’ Glue instead of Sideburns, and never bothered to correct it. In that vein, one teensy error worth correcting here is the mis-location of Just Books anarchist bookshop in Belfast, which has been repeated from Fearghus Roulston’s error-strewn book about punk in Northern Ireland. For the record, it was on Winetavern Street! Elsewhere, the veracity of Worley’s analyses is not in doubt. The huge quantity and variety of zines that Worley takes as source material is impressive, and he augments his reading by actually speaking with many of the zine producers themselves. The reflections of zinesters some 40 or 50 years later is really enriching. With all the expected shrugging off of youthful naïveté, most recollect their activities as urgent and essential and important. Worley’s research is respectful of that energy, while weaving a critical and alternative history from their pages.

Anarchism is a recurring theme, as you might expect, making itself evident in scrawled circle-As, countless interviews with Crass and Poison Girls, as well as more thoroughgoing engagements with anarchist political philosophy. But Worley doesn’t shy away from the messiness of punk politics, which is well-evidenced in zine production. He notes those with links to the National Front and British Movement, avowedly ‘non-political’ zinesters, along with the avant-garde and outré artsy efforts. The book also takes in the emerging football zine culture and those associated with indie rock (back when ‘indie’ meant independent). Worley has never been one to attach a false coherence to punk politics, but he’s clear that punk zines are politically important, and that ultimately, “a fanzine’s politics remained best expressed through praxis” (p. 217). Praxis, by the way, means the interplay between theory and practice, where one informs the other without devolving into two separate activities. Zines, perhaps far more than song lyrics or poster graphics, have the capacity to express that ‘praxical’ politics. Do It Yourself initiative, creativity and networking all animate the life of punk zines. The fact of their publication is political in-and-of-itself, and this interweaves with the ‘theory’ splashed haphazardly across their pages.

There is a lot to learn from reading this thoroughly researched tome. Worley’s immersion in the punk zine culture of this period stands as an excellent example of doing history from below – this should become the go-to book for anyone who wants to know.

Matthew Worley (2024), Zerox Machine. Punk, post-punk and fanzines in Britain 1976-88, London: Reaktion Books, 360pp.