1985 · Los Angeles
by Kalberg, Bruce [Editor]; Michael Gira; Raymond Pettibon [Artist]
Los Angeles: No Magazine, 1985. A complete run of the L.A. tabloid covering the city's punk/post-punk scene in 14 issues. Tabloid formats of various sizes. Very Good condition overall, some issues folded horizontally, age-toning, a few tiny chips and light reading wear; issue #2 worn along fold at spine. Does not include flexi-disc with issue #6 but does include the one with the prior issue. Rare.
A brash, often very-NSFW magazine that covered music, culture, and fashion in L.A. from the rise of the city's punk scene to the mid-'80s post-punk/proto-alternative/ early noise days. Features X, Flipper, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Phranc, Fear, The Go-Gos, D.O.A., Brian Gregory of The Cramps, the Plugz, director Paul Morrissey, Kim Fowley, Gun Club, Germs, Social Distortion, TSOL, Mark Pauline of Survival Research Laboratories, Meat Puppets, Descendents, and No Waver James Chance. Contributors include Michael Gira of Swans, Chuck Dukowski of Black Flag, LAFMS member Tom Recchion, art by Raymond Pettibon (including an issue cover) and Gary Panter, and a comic entitled "Why I Think People Are Stupid" by Flipper's frontman Will Shatter. From an LA Weekly piece about the magazine that summarizes it well: "Bruce Kalberg started NO MAG in 1978 with Michael Gira, a friend from Otis College of Art and Design, who left for New York after several issues to form the early noise band the Swans. Aside from the requisite profiles of X, Fear, the Germs, Johanna Went, Phranc, Suicidal Tendencies, ad gloriam, this sub-Slash tabloid fanzine amply captured the corrosive admixture of medical atrocities, sexual pathology, gallows humor and political anarchy endemic to the times: autopsy photos; profiles of working dominatrixes; textbook entries on female circumcision and how to synthesize heroin from morphine; cartoons of “Nancy Reagan’s favorite color” (bloody Tampaxes); and house ads featuring photos of progressive gum disease, with the caption, “You liked our smile, now catch our disease” — what Kalberg once called “the old cliché of shit-and-guts imagery” by which to wage war on polite society.
"It also frequently bordered on the pornographic — Susanna Hoffs topless, Belinda Carlisle naked under tights, Germs producer Geza X with his cock in his hand, the Cramps’ Brian Gregory with a semi-erection and a python, and the irrepressible El Duce shitting on a plate are a fair representation—forcing him to manufacture it in San Francisco, where printers are apparently more tolerant." . (Inventory #: 140947376)
A brash, often very-NSFW magazine that covered music, culture, and fashion in L.A. from the rise of the city's punk scene to the mid-'80s post-punk/proto-alternative/ early noise days. Features X, Flipper, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, Phranc, Fear, The Go-Gos, D.O.A., Brian Gregory of The Cramps, the Plugz, director Paul Morrissey, Kim Fowley, Gun Club, Germs, Social Distortion, TSOL, Mark Pauline of Survival Research Laboratories, Meat Puppets, Descendents, and No Waver James Chance. Contributors include Michael Gira of Swans, Chuck Dukowski of Black Flag, LAFMS member Tom Recchion, art by Raymond Pettibon (including an issue cover) and Gary Panter, and a comic entitled "Why I Think People Are Stupid" by Flipper's frontman Will Shatter. From an LA Weekly piece about the magazine that summarizes it well: "Bruce Kalberg started NO MAG in 1978 with Michael Gira, a friend from Otis College of Art and Design, who left for New York after several issues to form the early noise band the Swans. Aside from the requisite profiles of X, Fear, the Germs, Johanna Went, Phranc, Suicidal Tendencies, ad gloriam, this sub-Slash tabloid fanzine amply captured the corrosive admixture of medical atrocities, sexual pathology, gallows humor and political anarchy endemic to the times: autopsy photos; profiles of working dominatrixes; textbook entries on female circumcision and how to synthesize heroin from morphine; cartoons of “Nancy Reagan’s favorite color” (bloody Tampaxes); and house ads featuring photos of progressive gum disease, with the caption, “You liked our smile, now catch our disease” — what Kalberg once called “the old cliché of shit-and-guts imagery” by which to wage war on polite society.
"It also frequently bordered on the pornographic — Susanna Hoffs topless, Belinda Carlisle naked under tights, Germs producer Geza X with his cock in his hand, the Cramps’ Brian Gregory with a semi-erection and a python, and the irrepressible El Duce shitting on a plate are a fair representation—forcing him to manufacture it in San Francisco, where printers are apparently more tolerant." . (Inventory #: 140947376)