Sub Pop (Nearly complete run)
Olympia & Seattle: Lost Music Network, 1980-1983.
Nearly complete run. Eight issues of nine total, missing only Issue #6. Issued in stapled wraps of various sizes, comb-bound, and audio cassette formats. A Very Good set. Phone number written on one page of issue 1. Slight toning and staining to issue 2, inside colored with crayon as issued. Third issue front wrap and a few pages inside colored with crayon, as issued. Crack to case of issue 5. Wraps over issue 8 slightly stained. Rare, especially with the extremely scarce first issue-- a real stopper.
Long before Sub Pop became the Seattle record label of Nirvana and grunge, it was a humble print 'zine about music published in Olympia, Washington by Evergreen student Bruce Pavitt. As is often the case with monikers in the past, it was known as the longer and slightly more cumbersome Subterranean Pop. Like the Lost Music Network and Op magazine with which it was initially associated, it focused on regional music scenes around the country. Independently-produced rock was beginning to find a loose identity at the time, mainly in opposition to mainstream, top-40 pop.
With its fifth issue Sub Pop changed formats to audio cassette, with a stylish cover designed by Charles Burns (now known for his graphic novel Black Hole). This format proved to be hit, selling 2,000 copies. Issues 7 and 9 would likewise be audio cassettes with small illustrated booklets. Issue 8 would be the final one produced in Olympia, as Pavitt disembarked for Seattle, printed just one more issue, and took up writing a column for local alt weekly The Rocket called "Sup Pop U.S.A."
Sub Pop the fanzine captures a very slippery eel as well as could be hoped: the early '80s rise of "cassette culture" and indie labels, as well as post-punk's decline, and a proliferation of subcultures that would accelerate in the next decade to virtual annihilation with the internet.
Price: $7,500