Please follow me into the DeLorean and join me "Back to the Future" 25 years back....
The time machine now writes the year 1996, we are in our early 20s and the world was open to us...
And what do you need besides beer and music?
Something to read of course, and at that time there were plenty of fanzines that supplied us with new bands and stories. Every week something would arrive at home. Sometimes it was large, well-known, high-circulation fanzines like PLASTIC BOMB, sometimes it was small, DIY-copied black/white fanzines in tiny editions like OPEN END or PANZERKNACKER. But there were also larger fanzines that somehow didn't appeal to me, like TRUST and OX. And medium-sized fanzines that made me happy like RAUMSCHIFF WUCHERPREIS / SCUMFUCK and ZAP.
The large fanzines still exist today, thanks to the internet not in the high circulation they once had, but they are still around. The medium-sized and small fanzines have disappeared over time, just like our little zine back then, VERBOTENE FRÜCHTE, of which there were at least 20 issues.
At the end of the last millennium, the printing machines of Germany's leading hardcore punk fanzine, ZAP, turned for the last time. No German-language publication could step into the large footsteps of ZAP, with its political – slightly sexist – anarchistic – hardcore punk – literary style. Yes, it really hit me hard back then!
So, now let's get back into the DeLorean and set the time clock 20 years ahead, to the end of 2019, risen from the ashes of Homburg is the new ZAP.... I heard about it and still didn't quite trust the phoenix. Maybe ZAP is just a cuckoo egg or a magpie and not to be trusted.
12 months later..... ACAB is boldly printed on the new cover of ZAP (No. 155). Along with a report on Rio Reiser. Bands in court (sue yourself) and a police special. Okay, I dare to order the "Combat Sheet of International Brat Spoonism". 5,-€ of which 1.40€ goes towards postage, so not much is left for Dr. Moses at the end of the day.
2 days later, the fanzine is already in the mailbox, another 2 afternoons later the 60 pages are already read and I am somewhat disappointed.
A nice report on the upcoming 25th anniversary of death (August 26, 2021) as well as on his 3 epochs (the Political – the Poetic – the Sellout) of Rio Reiser and a short interview with Sleaford Mods and that’s it from the musical section of the issue. In the past, half of the magazine was filled with well-known and unknown hardcore and punk bands, and now just 2 meager contributions. :-(
Okay, Corona makes the concert reports, which used to be dozens in the magazine, impossible and thus also the interviews with the bands, before or after their performances, but there are still other ways to conduct interviews nowadays. Not just by phone or by letter, as it was in my time. Therefore, I am somewhat disappointed in this regard. :-(
The further reports / travel tours / statements and the like, which used to make up ⅓ – ¼ of the zine, have accordingly taken the upper hand in No. 155. There are, as usual, good and boring reports, but that’s normal. Most are okay, with "Bands in Court", "who wipes away the blood" (a chess special!!!) and the police special being really good.
Thus, the new ZAP still does not come close to the quality of the past days, unfortunately.
