Yesterday's announcement that Punk Planet was closing its
doors did not come as a surprise. Still personally close to the
magazine that I helped edit for over seven years (between 1997 and 2004 I
served as the periodical's associate editor and books editor, in
addition to writing a column), I was entirely clear about PP's
situation. That does not mean, however, that the news was not
upsetting. Yes, I was intellectually prepared for it. But emotionally,
I was not. I've spent the better part of today dragging, going grocery
shopping instead of writing. Coming home from Trader Joe's an hour ago, I even
missed my exit, and had to drive several extra miles to rectify the error.
Over the course of the last 24 hours, press coverage of Punk Planet's closure has
been intense. From an SF Bay Guardian piece (GW Schulz waxing about the
days when Annalee Newitz wrote for us) to the Village Voice (a critical overview of the magazine's history, by Tom Breihan) the entire alt.press world seems to have gone into
mourning with us. It all very much reminds me of the fact that Punk
Planet was really a writer's magazine - staffed by serious, young
writers, and admired by left-of-center journalists in
the rest of the U.S. press. As a young editor, that
always meant an enormous amount to me. The
journalistic focus on the magazine was a deep and lasting complement that helped us all get by
under less than ideal economic circumstances.
But that's only half the story. Punk Planet was a cultural event as
much as it was a magazine. Unlike other similar events associated with
youth culture, it was a product of immense ingenuity and tireless, hard
work too. Thus, when its talented writers started to get offers from
other periodical and book publishers, and record labels saw Punk Planet
as an important place to break artists, the reason was obvious:
Because the work PP was commissioning was insightful, well-written and
passionate. During an era in which every 'punk' career move was
considered suspect, imagine what a wrench this threw in the so-called
works. For once, or so we felt, our subculture was being recognized for
non-musical achievements, like political writing, which there was no
point in feeling conflicted about.
Punk Planet allowed us to live 'punk' lives without the fear - or the
anxiety - of selling out. Sure, we might end up working for a New Times
periodical, or sell in excess of 60,000 copies of a novel. But in the
grand scheme of things, that's still chump change compared to the
'sinful' kinds of music-derived incomes that punks always complained
about. What giving its staff such opportunities entailed was a right to
be equally culturally influential without any of the ideological excess
associated with the so-called culture of careerism. By itself, that is
an absolutely immense achievement, particularly considering how we
defined success. The proof is in the pudding: thirteen years of
successive issues, a first class book imprint, and thousands of
ex-contributors in every wing of publishing.
I could write more about PP, but I've done it before, and I think I've said enough. If you'd like to read an earlier piece about working at PP, which details a bit more about what I personally think about the magazine, check out Punk Planet Forever in Stylus. Written after the first IPA-induced storm clouds began to gather in late 2005, it does a much better job of saying what I've already said above, if not a bit more.