From Punk Planet 80

When the Independent Press Association went under, the independent publishing community lost more than a distribution arm.

Late in December 2006, while most offices were closed for the holidays, the Independent Press Association (IPA) quietly sent an e-mail to its member publications announcing that the organization was closing its doors. Despite previous optimism expressed by the IPA's board of directors, for many of the publishers whose titles the organization distributed, it came as little surprise. For them, the IPA's sudden announcement was endemic to a total communications breakdown between the organization and its client publications that began in early 2005. Publications represented by the IPA continue to contend with the likelihood that thousands of dollars they are owed will never be seen. For some, such as Kitchen Sink (and Punk Planet itself), this comes as the IPA's final, and fatal, blow. The fallout has been profound-the independent publishing community has experienced an unprecedented bloodletting in recent months, as magazines run on a shoestring have been unable to overcome huge losses in operating income.

Lance Hahn, the force behind the band J Church and one of the most prolific musicians in punk rock, has died. Lance had been battling health issues for some time, and the kidney disease he'd been very publicly fighting took a turn for the worst.

Lance was a songwriter with virtually no peer--writing hundreds of songs in his time. He was also an incredibly warm and friendly person, who always treated even the most tangential of acquaintances like they were old friends.

He will be sorely missed.

Punk Planet Books' Joe Meno is hitting the West Coast in support of the paperback rerelease of his very first novel, Tender as Hellfire. He'll be reading in LA, Pasadena, San Francisco, Berkeley, Portland and Seattle starting October second. Check all the dates (and other Meno-related events) right here.

It's sad to have to say it, but it's a great issue, so hey: PUNK PLANET 80 is out now at the Punk Planet Merch Table. What's in it? Well...

-Punk Planet says goodbye with this, our final issue. But it's no clip show: PP80 is filed with NEW interviews and articles about folks starting new things, building from scratch, reinventing themselves and more! It's inspiring and a dedication to new beginnings.
-Interviews in Punk Planet 80 include a talk with G7 WELCOMING COMMITTEE RECORDS about their move to all-digital release, comic artist GABRIELLE BELL, participatory economist MICHAEL ALBERT, the reborn SUBHUMANS, israeli activist FEDERICO GOMEZ, pop punkers THE STEINWAYS, and publisher ANDRE SCHIFFRIN.

I'm just going to consolidate the list here. Please add your own or any you come across:

Idolator
Omnicrisis
Jonathan Messenger's Blog
Indie HQ
Gapers Block
Time Out Chicago

Dear Friends,

As much as it breaks our hearts to write these words, the final issue of Punk Planet is in the post, possibly heading toward you right now. Over the last 80 issues and 13 years, we've covered every aspect of the financially independent, emotionally autonomous, free culture we refer to as "the underground." In that time we've sounded many alarms from our editorial offices: about threats of co-optation, big-media emulation, and unseen corporate sponsorship. We've also done everything in our power to create a support network for independent media, experiment with revenue streams, and correct the distribution issues that have increasingly plagued independent magazines. But now we've come to the impossible decision to stop printing, having sounded all the alarms and reenvisioned all the systems we can. Benefit shows are no longer enough to make up for bad distribution deals, disappearing advertisers, and a decreasing audience of subscribers.

So venerable SF publisher McSweeneys (of Dave Eggers fame), has put out a call on their website and to their various lists asking for fans of the publisher, and of independent publishers in general, to buy stuff from them to help them recover from the $130,000 loss they took when their distributor, PGW, declared bankruptcy in December:

Due to the intricacies of the settlement, the real hurt didn't hit right away, but it's hitting now. Like most small publishers, our business is basically a break-even proposition in the best of times, so there's really no way to absorb a loss that big.

Hey folks--

The overwhelming popularity of the "what are you listening to right now" forum topic got me thinking:

What if we could create a content entry for EXACTLY that question? And what if it could be seen on the front page? And what if you could comment?

Well, after a brief flurry of activity, you can now do exactly that! We call it In My Headphones and it's currently still being tested. So TEST IT!

Go to "create content" in the menu and choose "in my headphones" give a song name and a band name and, if you want, some info about why you like it. And boom! There it is.

For a group that has lain dormant for close to 40 years, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) is looking spry these days. SDS—the group that came to personify student protest on college campuses throughout the 1960s—is back, resurrected in January 2006 by former members of the once-powerful organization and seniors of Connecticut’s Stonington High School. As of early 2007, SDS includes over 200 chapters from across the country, while older activists, including many ‘60s veterans such as Al Haber (SDS’s first president), Carl Davidson, and Bernadine Dohrn, have shown their support by joining SDS’s sister organization, Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS). The group is now, in the words of SDS veteran Robert Ross, “undertaking enormous projects,” including a fight for free speech at Pace University (where five members were arrested for distributing political flyers in November 2006), blocking military convoys in Olympia, Washington, and taking part in mass demonstrations against the Iraq War in Washington, DC, New York City, and other locations. “The level of activity,” Ross concludes, “is stunning.”