VIA PRESS RELEASE | Variety called Trouser Press “one of the greatest music magazines in history” and described Zip It Up! (2024) as “practically a real-time history of some of the best rock music of that era.”
Zip It Up! Too is packed with more enthusiastic, in-depth coverage of a diverse collection of artists. Vintage interviews with Paul McCartney, Jeff Beck, Bill Wyman and members of The Who provide insight into classic rock history, while profiles of the Police, Talking Heads, Duran Duran, The Cars, Devo, The Pretenders, and New Order reflect the progress of music in the 1980s. There are features on Nick Drake, Ian Dury, The Modern Lovers, Lene Lovich, ABBA, The Troggs, and the German group Can—as well as a previously uncollected Ramones interview by the famed Lester Bangs.
Zip It Up! Too includes 21 “autodiscographies,” a unique Trouser Press feature in which artists spoke about each of their albums in sequence, sharing detailed behind-the-scenes memories of them. Stars who opened their musical closets to Trouser Press include Genesis, Jethro Tull, Jefferson Airplane, Cheap Trick, Sparks, Iggy, Blondie, Slade, and Ian Hunter (Mott the Hoople), all of whom provided fascinating first-person documents of real historical value.
Trouser Press began as a mimeographed fanzine in New York in 1974 and grew to a glossy national monthly by the end of its existence in 1984. Although known for its coverage of British bands, the magazine more generally focused on music that was underground, independent, or unappreciated. Fans called it “the bible of alternative rock.” Trouser Press put its name to five album review guides published in the 1980s and 1990s and continues with a dedicated website at www.trouserpress.com.
FROM ZIP IT UP! TOO | James Osterberg, more notoriously known as Iggy Pop, is an American original: an articulate juvenile delinquent. From the moment he burst on the national scene with the Stooges, there was no doubt that here was the reductio ad absurdum of rock and roll. Over the years, Osterberg has somehow not only survived but grown, dragging Iggy with him. Zombie Birdhouse marks a new direction in his music—one no less compelling than the chaotic self-destruction of old. He has also given us a book of autobiographical reminiscences, I Need More, to further our understanding of his intriguing personality. Here, Osterberg examines his recorded legacy and the situations surrounding its creation. “All recordings are painful,” he says. “It’s like waiting to score.” Brace yourself for the raging id of Ig.
You know how great the Ramones are. But, sadly, there is a world out there which remains unconvinced. Once or twice a year, I revisit my erstwhile stomping grounds in Detroit, and when I do, I always stay at the home of Rob Tyner of the MC5. A little over a year ago, I happened to notice that his eight-year-old son, Robin, was getting on this Fonzie kick, saying things like “Hey, Dad, do you think I could ever get just a bunch of guys to hang out with and do stuff?” He didn’t know the word “gang” and, of course, had no idea what they would do if and when they got together to hang out, except that it would, of course, be “cool.” Rob threatened to buy him a tom-thumb-size black leather jacket. I took more direct action: I went out and bought a copy of Ramones Leave Home, brought it back to the house, and said: “Robin, I’ve got a present for you”—whipping it out of the bag—“punk rock!” (Lester Bangs)
“My father’s a salesman,” Jonathan Richman explains. “That’s where ‘Roadrunner’ came from. He’s a traveling salesman. He sells to military installations all over New England. That’s how I got that love for 7-Up signs and Norwood and Foxboro and all these different places. I would sit in the car with him, and we would drive all over this area, up and down New England. It was like a whole other world to me.”
Jonathan is sitting in a Cambridge natural food restaurant at eleven in the morning. He is wearing a T-shirt and shorts. His muscular, unshaven appearance is surprisingly different from his publicity pic.
