CITY FUN No. 16
Early issue (January 18th, 1980) under the tenure of Naylor and Carroll of this hugely influential Manchester-centric post-punk zine.
Very good.
Price: $300.00
CITY FUN No. 16
"CITY FUN was breaking the classic fanzine formula, just as post-punk music itself sought to break beyond punk formulas. CITY FUN was never just about the music, and, under Naylor and Carroll it increasingly moved its gaze away from the local music scene, always looking at the bigger cultural landscape. Covering film, politics, and sexism, plus insightful psychogeography and anti-James Anderton diatribes, in many ways from its mid-period onwards, it had more in common with the underground press of the early 1970s [...] than it did with SNIFFIN' GLUE" — Former Hacienda DJ Dave Haslam
John Peel called CITY FUN the most important zine of the period. It is an indispensable reference for the Manchester scene and the bands and labels that grew around it: Joy Division and New Order, The Smiths and The Fall, Factory Records and the Hacienda nightclub, etc. Among the pseudonymous contributors to City Fun (but sadly apparently not this issue) was a just-barely-pre-Smiths Steven Patrick Morrissey, writing reviews under the name "Sheridan Whiteside." Founded by Andy Zero and Martin X in 1978, it increasingly moved its gaze away from the local music scene towards the larger cultural landscape after its takeover by "classic feminist children of punk" (Fletcher) Naylor and Carroll. Contributors include Andy Zero, Mick Middles, and Jeff Williams on Dislocation Dance, Distractions, John Cooper Clarke, The Fall, Abdominal Pain, and more. Issues have become quite scarce. Indeed, OCLC finds only a small handful of locations for any issues, with almost all of those in the UK.
Read more: Abigail Ward, "City Fun: The Hidden History of Manchester's Favorite Fanzine," mdarchive.co.uk; Tony Fletcher: A Light That Never Goes Out.
The Object
Manchester: City Fun Magazine, 1980. 12'' x 8.5''. Original pictorial self-wrappers. Offset in black-and-white throughout. [8] pages, plus two additional loose inserts promoting local events. Mild edgewear, faint toning.
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