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5 Underground Print Mags Taking on the Dance Press Establishment

From acid house to contemporary club music, we profiled the dance zines taking a DIY approach to the world of print.

The idea of starting your own music-focused print publication in this digital age might seem completely insane. Despite the dominance of online music media outlets, alternative print presses covering every corner of club culture are making a comeback. Their appeal lies in intimacy. Zines represent the voices of close-knit communities of people who speak from their passions, untainted by concerns like selling advertising. Here, we take a look at some dope underground mags that cover everything from nightlife reportage to music reviews, club kid fashions to nightlife photography. Some are fresh on the market, while others are out of circulation but continue to live on as legends. Rejoice and embrace them with inky fingers.

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CLUB ETIQUETTE

Photo via Club Etiquette

This e-zine, which is free to view and by extension free to print off at work, takes a more explicitly conscious and socio-political stance than the other publications we've looked at. Stemming from The Dance Pit, a New York based collective that throws club nights and hosts mixes from the likes of Moleskin, Club Etiquette seeks to examine and critique the politics of the clubbing experience. It's editor Anuradha Golder says, in the introduction to the second issue of the zine:

"I love club music. I love seeing others who love club music react to club music. I also love the club community. Therefore Club Etiquette Vol.2 chooses to look at club culture on a slightly more macro level. This zine attempts to find tangible steps to bigger social issues that can be permeated in and outside the club. Safe spaces are necessary, so that everyone can enjoy themselves."

There's a mission statement, a guide on how best to create inclusionary, safe spaces for queer, trans, and gender non-binary clubbers, solid advice on avoiding musical appropriation, terrible experience testimonials, horoscopes and a list of the essential post-club eateries that's got us salivating and hovering over the 'buy now' button on the United Airlines website. In short, Club Etiquette delivers an important message in a fun, free, non-hectoring way. Essential reading for anyone who wants to hit the club after some serious self-reflection.

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TC MAG

Here in the UK, club music producer and Trax Couture boss Rushmore has stepped into the world of print and permanence with the release of his TC Mag. Currently a black-and-white production, the publication is a nice visual throwback to the pre-Photoshop days of photocopied put-togethers. Focusing on the interplay between club culture and streetwear, it's written and put together entirely by Rushmore himself and as such is a kind of scrapbook of a design-conscious id and a perfect visual accompaniment to Trax Couture's forward thinking club music releases.

Inspired by a fascination with magazines that ranges from Slam to The Source, his foray into print is designed to act as a time capsule of sorts. "I wanted to produce something that documented everything the label was doing. A website is a good way of doing that," he says, "but having something physical will always be nicer."

LOVE INJECTION

This year saw the launch of Love Injection, a new zine put together by the guys behind New York label and party Most Excellent Unlimited. Existing in both print and digital (and wallet friendly) form, Love Injection is the kind of super underground celebration of all things, well, underground. It's got that grubby chic to it that sends the sticky, inky fingered out there into states of rapture through reading.

If we tell you that they've covered the likes of Dope Jams, Mike Servito, Marcos Cabral, Francois K, Danny Wang, Move D and DJ Spider you should have a pretty good idea of what they're about. It looks like an antidote to the advert-stuffed glossies out there — a publication for serious house heads out rather than the once-a-summer dilettantes who stumble round festival fields clutching Carling cider and shutter shades.

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VISITES POSIBILES

For a colour-saturated look at the current state of dance, we can turn our attention to DJ Haus collaborator and visual artist Sabrina Ratte. The Canadian artists brain-melting video visuals are an integral component of Le Révélateur, her kosmiche duo with Roger Tellier-Craig, and she's recently taken to print with the Shelter Press published Visites Posibiles, a collection of eye-catching imagery that brings to mind the cosmically warped music the pair release.

BOY'S OWN

No look at the alternative dance press can exist without nodding a hat towards the originator. Arguably the most influential dance zine to ever emerge from late night sessions fuelled by PVA and boundless creativity was acid house parish paper Boy's Own. Founded by UK luminaries Andrew Weatherall and Terry Farley, alongside Cymon Eckel and Steve Hall, the magazine was a scarabous blend of club reportage, football casual comment, and the kind of uniquely English piss-taking that fuels everything from Private Eye to Viz. It was written with passion and enthusiasm, for people deeply entrenched in clubland by the people who made it happen. The physical copy of the essential anthology goes for a lot of money, so save yourself from cash and get it virtually here.

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