TOM VAGUE – In English (the right side of my blog series)

I have been asked for it by Tom Vague himself.

It is always difficult to translate something which is already well settled.

Well here it is. Don’t be too harsh, as it was indeed for Italian readers only and you may find it dated since its first posting, by the way, it enabled me to adjust something in the original Italian text too.

                                                                                                                      Steg

TOM VAGUE – In English

(the right side of my blog series)

Tom Vague has the same relevance of Mark P.

The latter created, wrote and published the first British punkzine: Sniffin’ Glue (you should be able to find still quite easily a book anthology of it) ([1]).

Tom Vague brings the best Ripped & Torn ([2]) graphics to a higher level and creates the fan-fanzine par excellance: Vague. Better than Vogue.

Antz-follower of steel, banshee-follower without compromises, he chiselled issues in which you can follow the artists who benefit of his chronicles as if you were there with them.

A pleasure and a necessity.

I cannot guarantee anything (after all the 40-somethings who read this blog and need it for reasons other than a slightly different version of their heydays have serious deficiencies and therefore for them doing a little more search will do good).

Still, years ago there was an anthology bearing the title The Great British Mistake (which is a reference to a song by The Adverts) which will fill the needs for the “non-completists” and which, perhaps, you may still find searching online for AK Press or looking at the sites of more conventional sellers.

Tom Vague did not stop and after the first twenty issued published booklets dealing with non-musical and less easy themes (King Mob, terrorism).

Funny, I thought about ending this post remembering that one (better “the”) of his heirs is Stewart Home: then late at night I literally dusted off some precious vaguean issues and who I find in them?

Stewart Home in the final pages of at least two of the latest issues of Vague with a one-page ad for his writings and a slogan which will be the cause for tears for more than one advertising copy.

Within the web, you will find quite easily Stewart Home’s site and searching a bit more you will get some of Tom Vague’s works too (maybe a history of Notting Hill and of the W11 areas).

But my faithful spiritual browser (a “safety pin stuck in my heart”?) brings me to an unexpected goal: if you enter www.vaguerants.org.uk even latecomers may pretend not to be late.

Sometimes there is a happy ending.

Maybe you don’t need hints about Jon Savage. Or at least I hope so.

                                                                                                                      Steg

© 2011 Steg, Milano, Italia.

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[1] I am writing about UK, if you look at the USA – even if they are formally closer to traditional magazines – you can look for Punk The Original, New York Rocker and, west coast side, Search & Destroy. Again, the first and the third periodicals had been the subject of anthologies.

[2] Created by Tony D., probably the most graphically styled of the very first punkzines.