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Author Talk: Keep Your Ear to the Ground

A History of Punk Fanzines in Washington, DC

As part of the Speaking in Tongues Festival, learn about fanzines that emerged from Washington, DC's punk community from the 1970s to the 21st century.

DIY culture has always been at the heart of DC's thriving punk community. As Washington, DC's punk scene emerged in the mid-1970s, so did the periodicals—"fanzines"—that celebrated it. Before the rise of the internet, fanzines were a potent way for fans to communicate and to revel in the joy of fandom. These zines were more than just publications; they were a distillation of punk's allure, connecting the city to the broader punk community. Fanzines remain a meaningful, tactile, creative medium for punk fans to connect with like-minded people outside the corporate-controlled world.

In Keep Your Ear to the Ground, the archivist and musician John R. Davis unveils the development of punk fanzines and their role in supporting DC's hardcore and punk scene from the 1970s into the twenty-first century. He sheds new light on DC's scene and highlights some of its key personalities, including many who are often left out of punk history, with high-quality images of rare zines and insights from numerous interviews with zine creators and musicians. This book vividly weaves together the origin of zines and their importance in underground communities.

For punk enthusiasts, zine creators, American studies scholars, and anyone who has ever felt like an outsider, Keep Your Ear to the Ground traces how the unique environment of Washington, DC, helped zines thrive.

In Conversation: 

John R. Davis is an archivist and the curator of Special Collections in Performing Arts at the University of Maryland's Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library. His articles and commentary appear in the Washington Post, NPR, Notes: The Journal of the Music Library Association, The Journal of Popular Culture, and Post & Post-Punk. He is a longtime participant in the Washington, D.C. punk community as a fanzine creator and as a musician in bands like Q And Not U.

Chris Richards is the Pop Music Critic for the Washington Post, as well as a zine creator and musician. 

Books will be available for purchase. This author talk is part of the Speaking in Tongues Festival. Running from October 8-11, the festival will feature four nights of community and visionary music at various local venues. 

For those in need of accommodations for this event, please reach out to the Center for Accessibility at 202-727-2142 or DCPLaccess@dc.gov.

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