Join Tony Fletcher as he interviews fanzine editors past and present, along with authors, curators and anyone else contributing to the prevalence and preservation of the home-spun DIY press.
Tony Fletcher started Jamming! fanzine as a 13-year old schoolboy in 1977, and went on to publish 36 issues and take Jamming! monthly before folding it in 1986. He has since gone on to write many books about music, including biographies of Keith Moon, The Smiths, R.E.M., Wilson Pickett and others, plus a memoir, a novel and a Jamming! compendium: The Best of Jamming!: Selections and Stories from the Fanzine That Grew Up 1977-86 was published by Omnibus Press in 2021 and comes complete with reproduced interviews, articles, photographs and cartoons, fresh recollections from those who were part of the Jamming! story, and a foreword by Billy Bragg. More information and online purchasing options available at:
Signed copies direct from the author, ideal for readers based in the USA, are available from https://tonyfletcherauthor.bandcamp.com/merch
Sign up for free at tonyfletcher.substack.com for weekly updates on this podcast, other fanzine news, music, reading and writing recommendations, and for a free long-read weekend article by Tony.
'The Jamming! Fanzine Podcast Theme' is by Noel Fletcher. Copyright reserved.
The Jamming! Fanzine Podcast logo was designed by Greg Morton.
The Best of Jamming! book cover was designed by Martin Stiff
Tony Fletcher Socials:
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Join Tony Fletcher as he interviews fanzine editors past and present, along with authors, curators and anyone else contributing to the prevalence and preservation of the home-spun DIY press.
Tony Fletcher started Jamming! fanzine as a 13-year old schoolboy in 1977, and went on to publish 36 issues and take Jamming! monthly before folding it in 1986. He has since gone on to write many books about music, including biographies of Keith Moon, The Smiths, R.E.M., Wilson Pickett and others, plus a memoir, a novel and a Jamming! compendium: The Best of Jamming!: Selections and Stories from the Fanzine That Grew Up 1977-86 was published by Omnibus Press in 2021 and comes complete with reproduced interviews, articles, photographs and cartoons, fresh recollections from those who were part of the Jamming! story, and a foreword by Billy Bragg. More information and online purchasing options available at:
Signed copies direct from the author, ideal for readers based in the USA, are available from https://tonyfletcherauthor.bandcamp.com/merch
Sign up for free at tonyfletcher.substack.com for weekly updates on this podcast, other fanzine news, music, reading and writing recommendations, and for a free long-read weekend article by Tony.
'The Jamming! Fanzine Podcast Theme' is by Noel Fletcher. Copyright reserved.
The Jamming! Fanzine Podcast logo was designed by Greg Morton.
The Best of Jamming! book cover was designed by Martin Stiff
Tony Fletcher Socials:
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
(Sign up at tonyfletcher.substack.com to receive this podcast interview in unedited form.)
James Brown and Mark Hodkinson both hail from the Pennine District in Northern England. Both ran fanzines in the 1980s (Attack on Bzag and Untermensch). Both stayed in publishing. Both now have successful memoirs out about their lives in the world of words.
Beyond that, their paths have been different. James left Leeds for London, and after 10 successful issues of his fanzine, joined the NME. He then founded Loaded, which was selling 350,000 copies by the time he went to edit GQ after 36 issues. He's written about this - plus his addictions to alcohol and drugs and his subsequent recovery - in his memoir Animal House. Mark stayed in Rochdale, and started a small imprint called Pomona, which published books by people such as Bill Nelson, Barry Hines and Bob Stanley; in his memoir No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy, he explains how a boy who grew up in a house with one book ended up with 3500. Both memoirs are now out in paperback.
In this conversation with host Tony Fletcher, the three of them discuss:
James Brown is on Instagram and Facebook.
Mark Hodkinson is on Facebook. The Pomona Books catalogue here
Also discussed in this episode:
'The Politics of Fanzines' episode with Richard Edwards can be found here
'One Step Beyond Ep. 27' with Mike Peters of Love, Hope, Strength is here:
'Tacky Tiger,' Sparks zine on a Gestertner, is here.
The Dear Boys single 'Blink Of An I' can be viewed, streamed, or purchased on Bandcamp from https://linktr.ee/thedearboys.
The Best Of Jamming! can be found here
For weekly articles by Tony Fletcher, news of upcoming writings, books, events, podcasts, and for exclusive access to archived interviews, sign up for his newsletter at tonyfletcher.substack.com.
Theme music by Noel Fletcher. Logo by Greg Morton.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
