Something lifechanging occurred to me in 1995. Tower Records used to publish a free monthly music magazine called Pulse. If you grabbed a copy and walked over to the zine section of the Tower by Broadway and Bleecker Streets — the one to the east of the main one, where they sold the books and periodicals and videos — you could put the zines you wanted to read in the middle, roll Pulse up into a tube, and walk out of the store, with no clerk or security guard giving you a second look. For years I stole them all: Maximumrocknroll primarily, but whatever else I felt like. A young Jenn Bleyer, who would go on to found Heeb and write for The New York Times wrote a brilliant one-off called Mazel-Tov Cocktail, about being punk and Jewish. Into the Pulse it went.

Skip to the end. Many if not most of these classic zines (always hated that word) haven’t migrated over to the internet, ensuring that a massive amount of punk/personal history has escaped the retrievable hivemind of GoogleCache. Until now. Now, thanks to Operation Phoenix Records, 20-plus years of important zine publishing has its own Alexandria Library.

A stalwart ally in the mission of Staying Punk tipped me off to this.

Michael Calderone
4:00
have you seen this?
only wish there were more heartattacks
a crucial chunk is missing

Spencer Ackerman
4:01
GASP
suburban voice!
fuck dude

Michael Calderone
4:01
yeah, say goodbye to the rest of yr afteroon

Spencer Ackerman
4:01
ANTIMATTER
needs to be a part of this
yeah TGIF

Michael Calderone
4:02
Rudzinski found this, to see how our old zine was reviewed in heartattack and sent over
its crazy

Spencer Ackerman
4:02
you know i always hated flipside

Michael Calderone
4:02
but I want heartattack 21 to 30

Spencer Ackerman
4:02
but i think now i can give it another chance

Michael Calderone
4:02
yeah

Spencer Ackerman
4:02
oh dude all those old HaCs were brilliant
THE RAPIST ISSUE!!!!

To explain, the "Rapist Issue" of HeartattaCk — abbreviated "HaC," with the capitol H and C signifying hardcore — was about this guy from a band called Product who was accused of being a rapist in (I believe) the HaC letters section by his (alleged[?]) victim. As you can see, the details of this episode escape me, but it was a seminal moment in the mid-90s hardcore scene coming to terms with not just sexual abuse but its widespread sexism. Which seems like an odd event to be excited about reliving, but still — this is history right here.