MRR #278-fanzine advertising
This month I'd like to talk about the less than glamorous subject of
fanzine advertising. In the early days of punk there was little coverage
from the music press. Fans soon started publications of their own to focus
on the new media. Some of the early zines such as Sniffin' Glue, Search
and Destroy and Punk established a template for an independent punk music
press that expanded exponentially with the rise of hardcore in the early
1980's. Hardcore, despite the fact that it spread like wildfire in the
early 80's, recieved virtually no coverage even in the "alternative" music
press of the day. Indeed to this day, documentaries and cultural studies
of punk typically leap from 1979 to 1991 ("the year punk broke") with
little or no mention of the huge hardcore scene extant from 79 to today. A
major reason for this might be that rock critics, music jounalists and the
like have consistantly ignored hardcore and there is almost no published
work outside of underground fanzines that deals with this scene.

This factor has in turn opened the field to several generations of
hardcore punk publications. In the early 80's two magazines in particular
arose to document the new scene, Maximum Rock N Roll and Flipside. Also of
note were many other zines like Ink Disease, Ripper, Your Flesh, XXX,
Suburban Voice, and many more. Often these had a regional or local focus
while MRR had the "commanding heights" of truly global coverage. In those
days with Hardcore marginalized as it was the only places to hear about
new bands were free form college radio, fanzines and tape trading. Ads and
reviews in fanzines were the primary way people found out about new
releases and bands.
For many years an MRR ad and review alone were the main method for
promoting and indpendent release. In fact for many years people commonly
said they bought MRR "only for the ads". The classifieds of MRR and
Flipside were also clearinghouses for tape and record trading.

I recently had as a guest on my radio show an ex member of Civil Defense.
CD was a punk band from St. Paul in the early 80's who have gone largely
unsung despite their great catchy songs. Drummer Mike Reiter told me that
the band existed in sort of a middle ground in the local scene at the
time. Their Clash/Jam inspired punk sound didn't fit in with the local
hardcore thrash scene or the artier punk crowd. They self released a 12"
then broke up soon after. As Mike related was common at the time, they
sent out dozens of copies to fanzines for review. In those days zines
usually ran the PPD price and adress with the review. Given the sporadic
publication schedule of most zines at the time they found that it took
about 4-6 months for word to get out about their record. By then the band
had broken up and members had moved on to new projects. But as the reviews
and orders started to come in they realised there was a lot of interest in
their sound around the country. In hindsight if they had stayed together
they could have pressed more records and toured on that delayed response.
This kind of lag time is something I hear people from the 80's talk about
quite often. It was not uncommon for a band to wait to tour for 6 months
after a new release to promote that record, in order to give it time to
get reviewed in zines and filter out to distributors.

I can remember when I started doing a label and distro that the MRR ad and
review was the main avenue for generating orders. There were hundreds of
punks in the 80's who lived from issue to issue and eagerly scanned every
new copy of MRR with a stack of envelopes and money orders to pick up new
releases. I would know a new issue of MRR was out even before my
subscription copy had arrived when letters started to show up at my PO Box
with money for the new releases. I also can remember stores and distros
turning down picking up copies of my new releases saying they wanted to
"wait a while until more ads and reviews have run" so they weren't taking
a chance on a record no one knew about yet.

As with many areas of the hardcore scene in recent years, the advent of
the internet has changed, and indeed reversed, most all of these factors.
Today there are many fewer zines of substance than there were in the 80's
when the scene was arguably numerically smaller. For sure there are lots
of zines these days. But only a handful that publish regularly and command
a following and have the name recognition and publishing regularity to
provide somewhat timely and informed commentary on more than a tiny slice
of todays underground music scene.

The internet has democratized information and distribution to such an
extent that very few people still rely on fanzines for information. And
fewer still rely on zines for ordering new releases. The 4-6 month lag
time we discussed above has been utterly inverted. These days the most
sought after releases are pressed in such limited editions and distributed
through such limited channels that they are invariably sold out before
even a monthly magazine like MRR comes to print. And the sluggish
publishing schedule of most other zines means their review sections read
like ancient history with releases from as long as a year past. This
acceleration of culture has for sure led to a "dumbing down" of the
discourse in hardcore as well. With commercial websites and message boards
as the main forums for conducting information there is very little in the
way of in depth reportage, interviews or other articles that integrate
anything into a "big picture". Critics will argue that the message board
gives the reader the chance to rebut that they never had in dealing with a
fanzine editor. But in the past most zines had a letters column for
feedback from the readers.The internet practice of letting everyone get
their "two cents" in on every issue rarely leads to anything inherently
more readable than an overheard conversation at a keg party. That is to
say the tenor and standard are lowered to match the short attention spans
and lack of informed discourse common throughout mainstream youth culture
today.

For business and distribution purposes though the internet has been a real
advantage. Costly magazine ads and capricious editors can be sidestepped
and replaced by a direct connection to the records audience. An MP3 can
let the listener know exactly what the music sounds like rather than
relying on a potentially uninformed or vague reviewer. And ordering is as
simple as clicking a few buttons. As a result, the most successful
underground labels of the past few years do little or no advertising at
all.

On the other hand there are still quite a few larger publications one step
up from the DIY fanzine underground that focus on the more commercialized
versions of "hardcore, punk, alternative and metal" these are precisely
the kind of publications that ignored hardcore in it's 1980's heyday. In
this world the standard is high gloss and image over substance. One turns
to full page ad after full page ad from a predictible stable of major
independent labels trumpeting releases that seem to march across the page
with a re assuring uniformity. They eyeliner wearing, sensitve emocore
band in white belts and girl pants, the aggressive metal band splattered
in blood, the tough guy hardcore band standing hard amid an urban
wasteland. A keen observer will note that the bands featured in the
publications "content" reflect almost exactly those bands and labels
featured in the advertisements. One also will find a distinct lack of
critical reviews, challenging interviews, debate or commentary of any
sort. These trade publications have long ago tied all their reviews and
coverage to advertising. Only bands and labels that buy into advertising
in a big way get coverage. The proportion of coverage to advertising
investment is direct. Therefore the labels willing to spend the most see
their bands the most heavily promoted in the press. This is of course why
you never read about a great band like the Observers or Regulations in the
glossy music press, but see endless fluff pieces for predictibly banal and
formulaic bands on labels who "play the game". The irony is that this
process is channeled largely through PR agencies and ultimately the labels
charge the costs of this promotion back to the bands as "recoupables".
Agencies jocky with one another to get the inside track at each magazine,
booking and radio agency and labels hire and fire agencies based on tour
turn outs and soundscan numbers.

Why do I digress into this expose of the music press? Because in this era
the "ceiling" for the DIY underground has been lowered so far that many of
the values of this commercialized music scene have crept into the DIY
hardcore scene. Labels and publications that once ignored underground
hardcore now look at it as an AA league providing potentialy new talent on
the cheap. Furthermore many of the players in the music business these
days got their start in the hardcore scene of the 80's and 90's.

During the punk "boom" of the mid 90's MRR had a backlog of ads so long
that it was forced to release several double issues just to fit in all the
reserved ads. MRR was forced to do away with full, and for a brief time
half page ads in order to make room for all the labels that wanted to
advertise. While MRR is still pretty packed with ads, the months long back
log is a thing of the past. Most zines report a shortage of ads and a
struggle every issue to get enough ads to make it worthwhile to print.
Most zines o course derive the majority of their income from advertising
(as opposed to subscriptions, cover pricef etc.). Most famously Slug and
Lettuce continues to be published for free with ads as it's only source of
revenue.

In a world of shrinking sales and internet based distribution many labels
find advertising to be a difficult balance to strike. On the one hand
there's no way a DIY label can compete with the massive saturation of big
budget labels and their PR agencies to get any notice in the wider music
press. On the other hand, only MRR publishes on a frequent enough schedule
to make advertising a new release keep up with todays short attention
spans. Most other zines have a hard time keeping to a publishing deadline.
The zines are frustrated with the lack of funds coming in from advertisers
and the advertisers are frustrated with zines that don't publish until
months after they have sent in their now outdated ads. Labels that are
struggling to survive find it harder and harder to keep up a regular
advertising budget. Likewise, zines find it harder and harder to go to
press with dwindling ad revenues. Most labels see little or no feedback
from print ads these days. Therefore most zine advertising is done
primarily to support the underground press and to raise the profile of the
label. I can't remember the last time I ordered a record from a fanzine
ad, but I do notice which labels are advertising and that name recognition
is sure to enter into the conscious mind at some point for most people.
One might not order the record from seeing the ad, but you might see it in
a record store or distro and make the connection.

Even in the internet era, zines are a necessity. They are the permanant
record of the music scene one month at a time. The reviews, opinions,
articles and interviews can be crafted at a depth usually not seen on the
internet. It's probably good that weak zines get weeded out, just like a
lot of weak bands and labels need to get weeded out. But a well done zine
stands on it's own just like a classic record. Advertising in said zines
doesn't need to be tied to reviews, generating orders or anything other
than just letting people know your label or band supports that zine. That
said, it's on the zine publishers to deliver content thats worth picking
up in an era of information saturation and short attnetion spans.

Publication Date:
January 1, 1984

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