Home

The DIY (do it yourself) fan zine is an honoured tradition in the punk community. Bands, music fans and record stores alike produced their own magazines that detailed the going’s on of local and national punk scenes.

The DIY nature inherently connected with the punk community because of their affinity for self-reliance and alternative forms of media. The producers of these zines became a network of underground press that chronicled and influenced punk scenes across the world.

These publications would soon begin to have massive influence in the punk community. An entire genre of feminist hardcore punk, “Riot Grrrl”, emerged in the U.S from a series of zines that published punk content through a feminist context.

While many zines published inflammatory/controversial content, that was always sort of the charm. It was news for punks, by punks; a community that was largely vilified in the early 80’s. Ultimately, punk zines had an unmistakable influence on the growth of punk-rock. If a punk scene had a local zine, it would flourish.

With the advent of the internet, zines have gone out of style. Why xerox and cut out images of mainstream magazines to make collages when you can post on a blog or make a bandcamp website? The disappearance of zines has had an adverse affect on the punk community as there are no longer outlets that represent local scenes.

There’s no reason the rise in technology has to mean the death of zines, though. In fact, they can be better. With the ability to easily produce written content, graphics, video and other multi-media outlets it should be easier than ever to create an underground publication catered to the punk community.

This website is the beginning of such a project. It is a love letter to punk zines and local scenes in an integrated media format. Here you will find show reviews, history lessons and profiles of the important people and places of the London Ontario punk scene. This is just the foundation as much more can and will be added. But when you’re doing it yourself, you have to start somewhere.

Welcome to the London Ontario punk scene.