Years ago, I remember going into the University of Maryland book store and religiously picking up PUNK PLANET, which in those days was the kind of newsprint zine that turned your hands a charcoal gray. I’d sit in my old Chevy Malibu station wagon in the College Park metro parking lot and read PUNK PLANET while I waited for Tina to get off work. I was crushed when they stopped carrying PP, and desperately sought out another store that carried it.

I also remember sitting in my boss’ office, chatting with editor Dave Sinker on the PUNK PLANET chat room, while nervously hoping that she wouldn’t walk in to find me on her computer. I was so surprised that he knew about RESTAURANT FUEL (the ‘zine, not the blog), and that he actually liked it! I was a huge fan of PUNK PLANET, and that meant a lot to me.

Over the years, PUNK PLANET grew to be a thick magazine full of great independent reporting, interviews and reviews. I can’t say that I read it as often as it should have, but I’m proud to say that PP reviewed every record, ‘zine and comic book I ever produced. Its death more or less signifies the inevitable demise of the ‘zine movement of which I was a part. An era really has come to an end, never to return.

One forgets in the age of the internet just how difficult it was to get information on independent music, ‘zines, books and comics. PUNK PLANET was as valuable for its advertisements as it was for its actual content. I remember going through all the ads, picking out records I thought sounded good and mailing off checks direct to the record labels in the hopes of finding something I liked. This was before online record stores, when the only way you might hear a record was sending off an order cold from an advertisment in a magazine, or being lucky enough to see a band live. PUNK PLANET was a place to get information about all kinds of indie media.

Nowadays, we have the internet. In 1996, PUNK PLANET was almost all we had. Even though I haven’t read it regularly in awhile, I’m definitely going to miss it.

The following records are currently in heavy rotation on my iPod:

1) The Clash, “London Calling”
2) The National, “Boxer”
3) Of Montreal, “Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?”
4) Bauhaus, “Mask”
5) The Thermals, “The Body, The Blood, The Machine”

The following podcasts are high priority listens:

1) Gamespot: On the Hotspot
2) This American Life
3) 1up Yours