WHEN MATES MAKE BOOKS

Matthew Worley is an old mate who's now a professor of punk. He authored 2017's excellent No Future: Punk, Politics and British Youth Culture, 1976–1984 (previously given the when-mates-make treatment here). Currently, he's working on a magnum opus about the history of fanzines. In the meantime, he's one of the collective behind The Subcultures Network anthology Ripped, Torn and Cut: Pop, Politics and Punk Fanzines from 1976.

Ripped is a ripping read, its contents ranging from trip-down-memory-lane pieces from old skool zine-makers like Tom Vague and Richard Cabut (a/k/a positive-punk genre-definer Richard North), to contributions from scholars of DIY culture like Pete Dale and Lucy Robinson. Goth, anarcho, industrial, C86 and Riot Grrrl are among the subsets of fanzine action historicized and celebrated.

One title particularly tickled me:  "'Pam ponders Paul Morley's cat': City Fun and the politics of post-punk" . That's David Wilkinson's essay about the legendary postpunk Manczine City Fun.

More information about the Ripped, Torn and Cut  can be found here. You can buy it via Rough Trade or direct from Manchester University Press.