Above: Sub Pop USA; crucial underground reading matter.
If you were a band in the early '80s it could get lonely strumming to the industrial wastelands and fallow cornfields of the Midwestern United States. receiving the acknowledgement that you existed from a Northwest art punk weird-out fanzine Subterranean Pop could give you just enough encouragement to convince you to press that next 45rpm. Uhhhh.
Back by popular demand: Sub Pop USA (Bazillion Points), a trade paperback book compiling all the issues of Bruce Pavitt's 1980-1983 Sub/Pop fanzine with his late '80s Sub Pop U.S.A. column, featured in The Rocket magazine. This 400 page book includes forewords by Calvin Johnson, Ann Powers, Larry Reid, Gerard Cosloy. Over 1,000 recording artists hunted down and hyped in their original indie habitats, from DEVO to Mudhoney…plus an entire nation of inspired amateurs.
Sub Pop USA (Bazillion Points) is available now from The K Mail Order Dept.
Below is a gallery of artists from across the U.S.A. featured in the original Sub/Pop fanzine!
Found in Downtown Olympia, 1981: Cheri Knight, John Foster, Steve Fisk and Bruce Pavitt.
The Embarrassment, Wichita, KS.
Neo Boys of Portland, OR.
Executive Slacks, Philadelphia, PA.
Algebra Suicide: Lydia Tomkiw and Don Hedeker, Chicago, IL.
Pylon, Athens GA.