Touch and Go: The Complete Hardcore Punk Zine '79-'83
by Tesco Vee, Dave Stimson
List Price:
Our Price: $18.89
You Save: $11.06 (37%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Dave Stimson, Tesco VeeBrand: Bazillion Points
Editor: Steve Miller
Foreword: Henry Rollins
Foreword: Ian MacKaye
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2010-06-30
ISBN: 0979616387
Number of pages: 576
Publisher: Bazillion Points
Book Reviews of Touch and Go: The Complete Hardcore Punk Zine '79-'83
Book Review: "Where Hardcore Doesn't Mean Pornography" (usually)
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an enjoyable tribute to what used to be the underground, before even alternative or college rock was coined, three decades ago. It's a hefty read, but conveniently assembled and longer lasting than aging newsprint. It's handsomely produced and sturdy, if heavy, to hold.
Tesco Vee of the Meatmen teamed up with Dave Stimson in Ann Arbor to produce this slapdash, ornery, and entertaining fanzine. Cutting and pasting their typed reviews, concert flyers, salacious photos, found art, and random scrawls, they photocopied twenty-two issues. They surveyed the gloom of post-punk, they ridiculed the neon of the new wave. They insulted (TSOL, GG Allin, sometimes Fear) or celebrated (local groups The Fix, Necros, and, surprise, The Meatmen) those claiming to be hardcore.
Wit wriggles into many reviews. Two entries cited in their entirety show a pithy style perfected. Stimson sums up "I Don't Like Mondays" by the Boomtown Rats. "The little California miss could've done us all a favor had she taken her shooting spree to the Ensign studio when this grandiose piece of schmaltz was recorded." His soundbite on the LP "Pauline Murray and the Invisible Girls": "(forgot the label) I bought it. I sold it. What more do you need to know?"
Scatology scatters over nearly every page. A frustrated, lonely, adolescent mentality lingers. Its slogan: "Where hardcore doesn't mean pornography." Fecal fixation, erectile fascination, naughty peeps, and homophobic taunts fills margins. Two cartoon balloons appear over a tiny photo of two conversing celebrities. John Lennon is made to ask: "So, what's it like being black?" Muhammed Ali finds himself responding: "Better than being dead."
This sophomoric reaction to convention conveys T&G's reaction to the usual media coverage of the angry, lonely fans of musicians hyped, caricatured, or dismissed. The fanzine champions albums such as Gypsy Blood from Doll by Doll, 154 by Wire, Seventeen Seconds by The Cure, and Hypnotised by The Undertones. It documents how the nascent alternative category widened. Later issues discuss Big Country, Cocteau Twins, Motorhead, and a metal band, Venom.
Presciently, the critics pan such leaden tunes as "Punk's Not Dead" by The Exploited. Tesco praises 999. They despise a Midwestern mentality whose biggest contribution to the new music is "What I Like About You" by The Romantics. Oddly, Cleveland and Minneapolis bands seem overlooked; perhaps the decline of the Ohio scene and the delay in the rise of the Twin Cities one may account for this omission. Or it may be plucky rivalry between Ann Arbor and the rest of the country.
They analyze the promise and the flaws within October by U2: "Soothing harmonies. I'm sure they feel as noble as they look on the cover...but there is something about their clinical and smug approach that really bothers." They warn against the otherwise forgotten group Chronic Generation. "Crutches couldn't help this band, their s[--]t's that lame."
The edition opens with testimonials by scenesters, writers such as Byron Coley, and punks themselves. Keith Morris of Circle Jerks, Ian MacKaye of Minor Threat, and Henry Rollins of Black Flag praise the fanaticism that fills these pages, edited by Steve Miller, whom I presume is not the Gangster of Love. Let the final word be a stray phrase from here, as hardcore in the early 1980s became as conformist and commodified as previous cultural and musical rebellions. "We are the hippies of tomorrow."
Summary of Touch and Go: The Complete Hardcore Punk Zine '79-'83
Touch and Go fanzine was the brainchild of Tesco Vee and Dave Stimson and was launched in Lansing, Michigan, in 1979. Major fanatics of the new punk happenings in the late 70s, TV and DS set out to chronicle, lambaste, ridicule, and heap praise on all they arbitrarily loved or hated in the music communities in the US and abroad.In laughably minuscule press runs by today s standards, T & G was made by guys within the Midwest scene strictly for the edification of scenesters and pals in other cities like DC, Philly, Boston, LA, SF, Chicago, et al. Inspired by magazines such as Slash and Search and Destroy and writers like Claude Bessy and Chris Desjardines, TV and DS pumped out seventeen naughty, irreverent issues together, and TV did another five solo.
Magazines like Forced Exposure and Your Flesh, among others, soon fired up Xerox machines themselves, and the rest is history. So is the legendary independent record label launched from this zine, and so are the bands covered inside: Black Flag, Minor Threat, the Misfits, Negative Approach, the Fix, the Avengers, the Necros, Discharge, Iron Cross, Youth Brigade, Faith, Die Kreuzen, Crucifix, Poison Idea and all the other punks worth their weight in glorious black and white.
History & Criticism Books
- Books > Subjects > Arts & Photography > Music
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in History & Criticism Books
KISS and Make-upby Gene Simmons
Crown; Published: 2001-12; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $17.48
Price in other shops:
Elvis Presley: A Life in Music : The Complete Recording Sessionsby Ernst Jorgensen
St Martins Pr; Published: 1998-07; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $199.98
The Devil's Horn: The Story of the Saxophone, from Noisy Novelty to King of Coolby Michael Segell
Picador; Published: 2006-08-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.82
Price in other shops:
Elvis: My Best Man: Radio Days, Rock 'n' Roll Nights, and My Lifelong Friendship with Elvis Presleyby George Klein, Chuck Crisafulli
Three Rivers Press; Published: 2011-01-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.49
Price in other shops:
Bill Evans: How My Heart Singsby Mr. Peter Pettinger
Yale University Press; Published: 1998-08-11; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $75.40
Microsoundby Curtis Roads
The MIT Press; Published: 2004-08-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $24.00
Price in other shops:
Hip Hop Americaby Nelson George
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2005-04-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.50
Price in other shops:
A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane's Signature Albumby Ashley Kahn
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2003-10-28; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.69
Price in other shops:
Jazz Styles: History and Analysis (10th Edition)by Mark C. Gridley
Prentice Hall; Published: 2008-01-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $45.99
Price in other shops:
Dark Star: An Oral Biography of Jerry Garciaby Robert Greenfield
It Books; Published: 2009-02-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.48
Price in other shops:
Similar Books and other products
Only Death Is Real: An Illustrated History of Hellhammer and Early Celtic Frost 1981-1985by Tom Gabriel Fischer, Martin Eric Ain
Bazillion Points; Published: 2010-03-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $57.80
American Hardcore - The History of Punk Rock 1980 - 1986Sony; Release date: 2007-02-20; DVD
Best price: $6.98
Price in other shops:
Henry & Glenn Forever (Comix)by Tom Neely
Cantankerous; Published: 2010-05-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.50
Price in other shops:
Destroy All Movies!!! The Complete Guide to Punks on FilmFantagraphics Books; Fantagraphics Books; Published: 2010-12-06; Flexibound; Book
Best price: $39.99
Metalion: The Slayer Mag Diariesby Jon Kristiansen
Bazillion Points; Published: 2011-07-19; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $26.37
Price in other shops:
Why Be Something That You're Not: Detroit Hardcore 1979-1985by Tony Rettman, Tesco Vee (Foreword)
Revelation Records; Published: 2010-06; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.51
Price in other shops:
Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punkby Legs McNeil, Gillian McCain
Grove Press; Published: 2006-04-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.94
Price in other shops:
Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground 1981-1991by Michael Azerrad
Back Bay Books; Published: 2002-07-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.99
Price in other shops:
An American Demon: A Memoirby Jack Grisham
ECW Press; Published: 2011-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.37
Price in other shops:
American Hardcore (Second Edition): A Tribal Historyby Steven Blush
Feral House; Feral House; Published: 2010-10-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.29
Price in other shops: