CRUELTY IS ON THE INCREASE
Un-like so many disillusioned veteran punks, I didn't wanna lapse into a suburban coma when punk faded and wasn't fashionable any more (late 90's). My band (Torcha Shed) was on an extended sabbatical, on the look out for yet another drummer. So I turned my song writing hand to writing a band newsletter or promo sheet in late '96. originally called Wolverhampton's Outrage! Which featured news of our demos, a band profile and some song artwork to give out FREE at gigs. But it quickly morphed into something a little bit bigger, so I included reviews and articles and a load more which turned into a fanzine. We already had a fanzine called Londons Outrage! in 1976 by Jon Savage, so I re-christened this tatty blood splattered ransom note The Suffragette. Not because I was a feminist (if only lol), but coz my band needed some kind of publicity to tell everyone what we were about
as no other fanzine was ever coming our way. The name came about from
the whole torture/suffering kinda angle in line with our band name, so that's
where the name originally come from. I did however nick the title text style
from the original feminist rag which I kinda liked. It stood out amongst all the
blackmail text which I loved since the Jamie Reid days. It was also inspired
by me being fed up with the then current zine scene being predictable, safe
and ultra PC in the UK. Although some did inspire me in layout and ideas.
The zine run for the next 4 years and I'd do one every 3 months in those days
as well as the band. Dunno how I had the energy being on the dole helped.
But it was great fun and I even enjoyed those endless hours cut 'n' pasting it
all together. It was a very creative and quite therapeutic process to be in.
I remember trying to cram as much
info on each page as possible, as I
thought other zines seemed to
waste so much space. It was printed
up, or should I say photocopied as I
couldn't afford a real printer. My print
run for each issue was approximately
200 x 40 page A5 an issue. I used A4
for the tenth anniversary issue and
the Spunk newsletter. That's all I could
afford in those days. It was great to
get a finished zine back from the
photocopy shop which was situated
handily across the road from my
local boozer (O'Donnells) which is
now a bookies grrrr. I'd have a couple
of pints while they printed it up. Then
head home and the folding and
stapling began. Once you had a new
issue in your hand you were already
making plans for the next issue. It
become quite popular in some punk
circles but in others it was slated as
retro which has been the story of my life. it always sold out, but I left one
bag of about 20 zines outside the Forum in London as I couldn't bring
em in to sell by the bouncers. Hope someone found the bag and had a
good read coz I was pissed and forgot em when i got out! It sold for
77p coz of the 77 punk explosion, corny I know but it's my lucky number
and was unique. I think it was a good price for a 40 page read, but
you'd still get people at gigs trying to knock you down or even blanking
you, but on the odd occasion they'd give you a quid. It just about covered
my costs, but I didn't care it was great fun. You could also do trades with
other zinesters or for records.
However it too became extinct like my stage career in 1999. The zine
reached issue #11 and was on a role. Around this time I got a second
hand PC off my brother so I could now look on the net at home instead
of the library. And what I seen punk wise really put ideas in my head
regarding fanzines and reaching a bigger audience. I think it was sites
like World Wide Punk or some of the other similar ones which lit the fuse.
(Check out its archive link to see what it was like in those days). I'd even
started up a short lived newsletter called Spunk! which was mainly
done on my desktop pc in newspaper columns. It was gonna run in
tandem with the Suffragette mainly for the extra reviews, as I was
getting a load in by this time which I couldn't fit in the regular zine.
But then the photo copying manager told me he was closing, this
was January 2000!
I couldn't afford printing the zine, so had already realised there was a gap
online for something like the Suffragette, Torcha Shed had folded by then too. So writing became the main focus of my punk rock activity, besides gigs. I'd always loved colour and dreamed of having a colour publication and the net was my next best chance. I remember only Control fanzine being online out the British fanzines. It was a great zine and the site looked even better. Stuart the editor gimme some good tips on how to start site building. I knew there wasn't a Suffragette looking webzine anywhere. Most were mainly American as I recall. Some were garish, some plain and some were breath taking, but none of them seemed to be coming from my angle. So I knew with enough suss it could be done. Apprehensively I jumped head first into it. Little did I know my printed zine chapter was over and my website odyssey was just about to start!
Sadistically Yours
Peter Don't Care