Brumfield - Richmond independent press: a history of the underground zine scene

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2013 by Dale M. Brumfield

All rights reserved

First published 2013

e-book edition 2013

Manufactured in the United States

ISBN 978.1.61423.997.0

Library of Congress CIP data applied for.

print edition ISBN 978.1.60949.839.9

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

It just sounds wrong. A history of the underground press in Richmond, Virginiathe home of Confederate statues, big tobacco, Massive Resistance and Representative Eric Cantor? You might as well publish a book about the history of rhythm and blues in Provo, Utah.

Now, for all I know, Provos after-hours ski lodge blues dens were that communitys shared secret. I anxiously await that book, just as I eagerly anticipated this survey of early underground publishing in Richmond that introduces the world to seminal River City publications such as the Richmond Afro-American, The Ghost, The Sunflower and the Richmond Chronicle, among many others.

But Richmond Independent Press: A History of the Underground Zine Scene is not only an overview of the dissent, social anxiety and racial divisions found in a midsized southern American city during one of the nations most turbulent periods, its also an alternative history of that city as seen from its restless (and still festering) undergroundthe students, the poets, the artists and the disenfranchised. Its a tale largely never told. And Dale Brumfield is just the right guy to tell it because he was there, as one of the prime movers and shakers in the Richmond scene.

This city has a thriving Do it yourself media landscape these days, with independent radio stations, blogs, zines and social media getting the message out. Richmond Independent Press is a reminder that this didnt just happen yesterday or in a vacuum. The book also shows us that illuminating history isnt just found in the revelations of new trivia about Great Men or pivotal events we already know about; its also found when assumptions about places and people are challenged and put under the microscope of deep research.

As Brumfield illustrates, Richmond, Virginia, has a long and intricate history of self-published and alternative media, created by individuals trying to make sense of life in a deeply flawed place that they cant help loving anyway. The story is populated with names you may know (Tom Robbins, Frank Rich and Matt Groening), but mainly you will hear from people not so well known, such as John Mitchell, Edward H. Peeples and Bruce Smithkey figures who struggled valiantly to bring to their audiences a perspective markedly different from the one peddled by the areas conservative news dailies, the Richmond News-Leader and the Richmond Times Dispatch.

So yes, we may be waiting a long time to read about that Mormon blues scene; the architectural photo book of Lost Springs, Wyoming; or the history of surfing in Taos, New Mexico. But we do have this engaging piece of history that tells of the early days of the underground press in Richmond, Virginia, and its anything but wrong. It turns out to be a great yarn that was just waiting to be retold.

Don Harrison, May 30, 2013

Don Harrison is a journalist, editor, music archivist, disc jockey and former publisher of Catharsis (198993) and Grip (199699), Virginia publications deeply inspired by ThroTTle, the Richmond tabloid cofounded by Dale Brumfield.

AUTHORS NOTE

These smut sheets are todays Molotov cocktails thrown at respectability and decency in our nationThey encourage depravity and irresponsibility, and they nurture a breakdown in the continued capacity of the government to conduct an orderly and constitutional society.

Texas congressman and former House Un-American Activities Committee chairman Joe Pool, reported in the Dallas Morning News, November 7, 1967

Many historians have eulogized the radical underground 60s smut sheets as having failed after enjoying a shelf life of only a few years. The Richmond underground press may have done a lot of thingsfallen victim to its own lofty idealism, burned out or went brokebut it did not fail. It achieved its purpose of giving a voice to radical criticism and social change, and the legacy passed on by the early underground press in the 60s was the alternative press that rose up in the 70s and 80s into the 90s before the Internet changed it all. Thats not failure. Thats innovation, despite what the Richmond Times Dispatch may have claimed at the time.

Every effort was made to locate as many independent publications as possible from the 196090 era. If one is not here, it is likely that no copies, information or staff members were available, that it fell outside the timeline or, in one case, that no one remembered creating it. I do apologize for any I may have missed. Style Weeklya critical part of Richmonds media landscapeis not here either. It would be unfair to describe thirty-one years of publishing in three thousand words. It needs its own book.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, its time to paste up or shut up.

DMB

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author wishes to thank the following people and institutions for their immeasurable and enthusiastic assistance in compiling this history.

Katya Sabaroff Taylor

Dr. Edward H. Peeples

Roy Scherer

Mac McWilliams

Phil Trumbo

Duck Baker

John Harbaugh

Rebby Sharp

Robert Mark

Chuck Wrenn

Deona Landes Houff

Terry Rea

Steve Wall

John Poulos

Blake Slonecker

Bruce Smith

Joe Schenkman

Peter Blake

Rob Sauder-Conrad

Don Harrison

Michael Kaluta

Stephen Hickman

Bill Nelson

Charles Allen Sugg

Garrett Epps

Glenn Frankel

Gene Ely

Bill Kovarik

Ron Thomas Smith

John Williamson

Greg Harrison

Ned Scott Jr.

Caryl Burtner

Michele Houle

Anne Thomas Soffee

Joe Essid

Doug Dobey

Ann Henderson

Paul Ivey

Phil Ford

Juliet Guimont

Jim Drewry

Tom Campagnoli

David Stover

Mariane Matera

Susan Brumfield

John Whiting

Susan Benshoff

Jim Turney

Brooke Saunders

Carol Sutton

Kelly Alder

John Sarvay

Mark Brown

Eddie Peters

John Kneebone

Michael Clautice

Anne Fleischman

Amy Crehore

Andy Fekete

Bill Creekmur

Bunny Creekmur

Sam Forrest

Greg Geddes

Wes Freed

Devon Kestenbaum

Bill Oliver

Karl Waldbauer

Robert Haddow

Edwin Slipek Jr.

Bill Altice

Richard Bland

Thomas Daniel

Hazel Trice Edney

Nick Schrenk

Jeanne Minnix

Sue Dayton

Lori Ellison

David Powers

and Matt Hahn as the Beaver

Thanks to Hunter Brumfield for photography. Special thanks to the Virginia Commonwealth University James Branch Cabell Library, Special Collections and Archives, Richmond, Virginia. Special thanks also to the University of Virginia Alderman Library and the Small Special Collections, Charlottesville, Virginia.