Despite and also because of its intriguing in-joke name, Trouser Press was one of the greatest music magazines in history.
It existed for just a decade – from 1974 to 1984 – but in the course of it, it fueled the careers of hundreds of musicians and exponentially more fans, future musicians, writers, music executives and others. But unlike almost every major music publication, it had no anthology or collection of his best work – until last Friday’s release of “Zip It Up! The Better of Trouser Press Journal 1974-1984”, a sprawling 440-page fiftieth anniversary collection of his best articles that is almost a real-time history of some of the biggest rock acts of the era – from the Who, the Rolling Stones and David Bowie, from the Sex Pistols and Conflito, from U2 and Remedy, and dozens of others.
Released in early 1974 by a group of Who fanatics/British rock obsessives – and edited into complete existence by Ira A. Robbins – the diary was initially written on typewriters and mimeographed; the first copy is worth 1/4. That first edition, which naturally featured the Who’s Pete Townshend on its cover, yielded its creators a humorous letter from Townshend himself (recapitulated in full in this book’s introduction). Trouser press – the name comes from a song of the same name by the 60s British pop comedy group Bonzo Canine Band – was working.
In the following decade, the magazine, which emerged in a year when rock was dominated by the Eagles, progressive rock and local rockers such as the Who, Stones and Led Zeppelin, told British rock fans that its creators were created onwards, but also the it introduced almost every major new act that emerged in those years – and when punk and new wave exploded into the same New York City music scene that also spawned the magazine, Trouser Press was right there with it.
But in contrast to the British weeklies NME, Melody Maker and Sounds; specific “new wave” publications such as New York Rocker, Slash and Zig Zag; and the much-hated business magazine, Rolling Stone, Trouser Press covered both worlds: The Stones and Bruce Springsteen were as likely to be on the cover as Conflict, Elvis Costello and the Pretenders, but articles about classic rockers were more likely to be on the cover. is filled with little-known historical anecdotes and details about unusual B-sides and smugglers that may send readers on a treasure hunt to find them. (Although the influential Detroit-based magazine Creem predates TP and covers much of the same ground, it had a tendency to insult both its readers and the artists it covered.)
Most of the people who wrote these articles ended up becoming great music writers or already were (Lester Bangs, Kurt Loder, Nick Kent, David Fricke, Gloria Stavers, John Leland, Bill Flanagan, Holly Gleason), but they were simply more likely of becoming exceptional musicians, entrepreneurs, DJs or executives (Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo, Scott Kempner of the Dictators, Tim Sommer, Danny Heaps, Carter Alan) – in different phrases, die-hard music geeks who just wanted to learn ways to get involved with the music they loved. However, much of the magazine’s best work came from a core team that included OGs Dave Schulps, Scott Isler, Jim Green, Jon Young, Robbins, and co-founder Karen Rose. In 10 years, the magazine produced 5,508 pages with 859 feature articles and 3,320 album reviews.
These options include timeless quotes such as “I have always been optimistic about life – I have not always been optimistic about my position in it” (Townshend); “I don’t like walking down the streets and seeing 30,000 imitations of me (John Lydon/Rotten); “I was not an outcast, I forged myself” (Ian Dury); and “It’s hard to sing a song that makes you vomit – you can’t do both at the same time” (Grace Slick).
As a music fan who grew up primarily with the Trouser Press, it’s hard to overstate what a welcome presence she was. Its writers asked intelligent, informed musical questions at a time when that wasn’t the norm, and wrote with perspective and humor, but not condescension – where some of the posts above may have made you feel embarrassed for still being a Led Zeppelin fan. , Trouser Press presented an extensive three-part 1977 interview with Jimmy Page that covered his entire career (and featured the guitarist raving enthusiastically about the then-new punk rock). The fact that one of the biggest rock stars in the world dedicated so much time to this speaks not only to the respect the magazine commanded, but also how engaged he was in the conversation.
Today, when an artist’s entire recorded output can be accessed in seconds, it’s difficult to express how difficult it was to discover new music in that pre-MTV period. The only options were news outlets and cool nightclubs, college radio stations and magazines like these, which can be as hard to find as some of the news they wrote about. TP wasn’t just a cool friend who “liked” the same music as you, he knew a lot more about that music than you did. (Disclosure: This author did not contribute to the magazine, but wrote entries for the later “Trouser Press Report Information” books.)
Although “Zip It Up” lacks the album reviews – too many, too outdated to include – and stellar images – too expensive, too difficult from a legal standpoint – that have been such an important part of the magazines, it did introduce, with editing smooth, one of the best of its almost 900 options. The opening chapters cover traditional rock – The Who, Stones, Zeppelin and The Kinks, as well as Small Faces and Syd Barrett – before moving into the magazine’s personal era: Bowie, T. Rex, Lou Reed, New York Dolls, Peter Genesis from the Gabriel era, Iggy Pop, Patti Smith, Blondie, Sex Pistols, The War, Devo, Black Flag, The Pretenders, X, Gang of 4, U2, Joan Jett, The Remedy and many more. Although there isn’t much black music covered outside of reggae, music scenes have been much more insular these days and TP focused on what their viewers wanted. There are also a handful of excellent regular magazine columns and some afterwords, along with a long history of the magazine itself (Robbins has never been a person of few words).
Although many felt that the magazine’s second had truly arrived with the introduction of the MTV juggernaut in the early ’80s and the preponderance of recent wave acts featured on it, Robbins instead felt that the channel had made him redundant – for that people would scrutinize these artists after they can see them on TV 24/7? – and turn it off. Arguably, he was also ahead of his time in this approach – music journalism has faced this existential question on a much larger scale since the introduction of the Internet.
But even though the places to write about music have increasingly dwindled, there’s more music being created and released today than ever before — and arguably more need for curators, for people who love music so much that they have to look for methods to engage with it. . Half a century later, that love still leaps from the pages of Trouser Press.
“Zip It Up” is available at Trouser Press Books and other retailers.