Mick Mercer Books

16/08/2024

ON THIS DAY(ish) in 1977/1978 - CHELSEA. 28 Photos from the Marquee, Vortex and an interview added to my Substack. Subscribe for free at https://mickmercer.substack.com/

15/08/2024

ON THIS DAY ... in 1983 - ALIEN S*X FIEND at the Batcave. 44 photos just uploaded to my Substack. Free to subscribe: https://mickmercer.substack.com/

14/08/2024

You make your own luck in this world. My email junk folder has just informed me I've now won a Ninja Air Fryer. Are these made by ninjas or 'previously owned by'? Asking for an invisible friend.

14/08/2024

Facebook won't display a visual link now I want it to, but yesterday I pointed out our Cat Olympic 2024 Boxing video had reached 4.4 thousand views. I just checked and it's now hit ten thousand. Obviously it must have started reaching boxing fans - God knows what they think of it - and it's probably the most uneventful (well okay, not as duff as the Olympic Rings one) video we did.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mqTa5bIIhc
Watson says "CAT Olympics 2024 finished ages ago! People need to move on with their lives ... give us some peace!"

14/08/2024

This never gets old. Best mascot EVER!!! https://www.facebook.com/IAAFworldchampionships/videos/1929518120642136

14/08/2024

ON THIS DAY ... in 1981, the lovely CHARGE are posing for photos after I interviewed them for Zigzag. 24 photos just uploaded to my Substack. Free to subscribe: https://mickmercer.substack.com/

13/08/2024

As we would expect the average videos posted from our recent Cat Olympics 2024 at https://www.youtube.com//videos get somewhere between 50 and 200 views. Normal stuff. The Boxing video is fast approaching four and a half thousand! Obviously the youtube algorithm is recommending this to actual boxing fans. :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mqTa5bIIhc

13/08/2024

ON THIS DAY ... in 1993 - TINY MONROE. 35 photos from the Bull & Gate on my Substack today. Free to subscribe. Click below.

35 photos from the Bull & Gate, 13th August 1993

12/08/2024

Genuine Moonshine label apparently!

12/08/2024

ON THIS DAY ... in 1983 - DANIELLE DAX poses inside the Batcave. 56 photos from this session uploaded today on my Substack. Free to subscribe at https://mickmercer.substack.com/

11/08/2024

Pay homage to the great cathletes who have given theIr all these past two weeks in Cat Olympics 2024, for the closing ceremony has been completed, and they can get some much needed rest.
Please watch, and celebrate.

The Cat Olympics 2024 Closing Ceremony. Say farewell to all the catestents... for now.Find us on Facebook for full events coverage. https://www.facebook.co...

11/08/2024

Paris finally caught up with the idea of Cat Olympics.

11/08/2024

The final three events of the Cat Olympics 2024 (100cm, Olymplix and Marathon) are covered in full at https://www.facebook.com/Catolympics2024/
CAT OLYMPICS 2024 - FINAL MEDALS TABLE after 22 tiring events. Mack easily left them all trailing in his glorious wake, Watson started well but ended lethargically (look at all those bronzes!), while the slow but solid Casper gradually pushed into second place. Tigger never seemed greatly interested, Nanki and Yum-Yum shared a general sense of confusion, but plucky Sherlocke came good towards the end to ensure she earned a full set of medals.
CLOSING CEREMONY video to follow.
GOLD - SILVER - BRONZE
MACK 7 4 5
CASPER 4 7 2
WATSON 4 0 7
TIGGER 2 6 3
NANKI 2 4 1
YUM-YUM 2 2 3
SHERLOCKE 1 2 1

First there was the London Cat Olympics of 2012, and every four years we host a new Cat Olympics, where the existing members of our tribe do all within their power to entertain you.. Please reward their dedication by watching the videos with each post.

11/08/2024

CYCLING PURSUITCASE and STEEPLCHASE events news reports, with photos, are up at https://www.facebook.com/Catolympics2024/

First there was the London Cat Olympics of 2012, and every four years we host a new Cat Olympics, where the existing members of our tribe do all within their power to entertain you.. Please reward their dedication by watching the videos with each post.

11/08/2024

ON THIS DAY ... in 1983 - VIRGIN PRUNES at the Electric Ballroom. 46 photos from this gig uploaded today on my Substack. Free to subscribe at https://mickmercer.substack.com/

10/08/2024

48 photos from inside the Batcave club, 10th August 1983, on my substack today - https://mickmercer.substack.com/ - free to subscribe.

09/08/2024

For the second Olympics running skateboarding was a pedestrian disappointment. We're still faced with nobody doing anything beyond what you expect, and too many runs end with someone falling off. It doesn’t provide any kind of spectacle. No acrobatics or spins involve genuinely leaving the board then reuniting with it, they just follow expansive contours. Any high point as they crest a ramp is actually only a feet above the top.

I know lots of people love skateboarding, but I'm talking from the perspective of a neutral who wants it to justify inclusion, and it's ... visually mundane, and actually really slow. Get them doing slalom races, ratchet up the speed. Do something to shake it up and make it leave the 80's. Or bin it completely.

Compare that to Breaking, which was artistic and exhilarating. Every ‘battle’ had something to make you go ooh, or smile. Yet… Breaking won’t be at the next Olympics in LA? Weird.

09/08/2024

Ed's auto-biography is coming out soon-ish. I've read it and it's brilliant!

24 photos from a posed session

07/08/2024

31 photos of MAMA WILD at the Bull & Gate, 7th August 1993

07/08/2024

PAUL GILMARTIN - R.I.P. Lovely bloke, amazing drummer.

06/08/2024

6th August 1990 - KITCHENS OF DISTINCTION doing a secret gig with The Popinjays. 26 photos at https://mickmercer.substack.com/p/on-this-day-in-1990-kitchens-of-distinction - free to subscribe.

05/08/2024

https://mickmercer.substack.com/p/on-this-day-not-really-in-1984-captain

All 35 photos taken for a 1984 Zigzag interview

04/08/2024

CAT OLYMPICS 2024 - ROWING DOUBLE SKULLS video is now up online for your viewing pleasure. Unbearable tension as the cats go head to head in this unforgiving race. Each cats get two goes, which can be a blessing or, depending which cat you're rooting form a terrible curse. They're giving their all and they simply ask in return that you give them your time.

THE CAT OLYMPICS 2024 ROWING DOUBLE SKULLScCan the cats row between the line?

04/08/2024

CAT OLYMPICS 2024 - S**T PUTT VIDEO now online, to be followed later this afternoon by the ROWING DOUBLE SKULLS video. Stay tuned!

THE CAT OLYMPICS 2024 THE 'S**T PUTT'An event brought back from the 2012 Cat Olympics, where the catestents are encouraged to touch a big bag of cat litter, ...

04/08/2024

32 photos of the band taken in Camden, back when it was wonderfully scruffy.

03/08/2024

SOMETHING FOR THE WEEKEND? Your guide (with links) to be best new dark music out now: Corpus Delicti, Chaos Bleak, Soul Ritual, Paul Roland, Marie Laveau, Jeweled Snakes, Ghosting, Kurs, The Red Moon Macabre, Urbandoned, Ausgang, Tout Debord, Dusken Harmony, Nouvelle Culture, A Transition, Kalte Hand, Last Grasp, Danser La Nuit, Violet Silhouette, No Horizon, Flowers Of Sacrifice, A Place To Bury Strangers, Devoted Sinners, Ashen Decay, Kappa
FREE to subscribe - click below:

Corpus Delicti, Chaos Bleak, Marie Laveau, Kurs, Urbandoned, Ausgang, Tout Debord, Dusken Harmony, Nouvelle Culture, A Transition, Kalte Hand, Flowers Of Sacrifice, Devoted Sinners, Ashen Decay, Kappa

02/08/2024

31 photos from the Fulham Greyhound

01/08/2024

Tony Fletcher recently interviewed me for his in-depth, ongoing Fanzine Podcast series, and it’s online now. I’ll quote his written intro from Substack, as it lets you know what you’re in for:

The first issue of Mick Mercer’s fanzine Panache came out in January 1977, with Iggy Pop on the cover, perfectly poised for the punk/new wave/DIY revolution that was exploding across the UK. Mick kept the zine in print for a further 50+ issues, all the way to 1995, which makes it one of the longest-running, and arguably the most consistently prolific of all the original UK punk-inspired zines. In the decades since, Mick has carried on demonstrating his passion for indie music, comics, and cats, via blogging, radio shows, a Substack column, and his Cat Olympics. Oh, and he’s also written a few books over the years, for which he is rightly considered one of the gurus of Goth.

On this 28th episode of The Fanzine Podcast, Mick talks about how he avoided college by being born in the wrong month, started a fanzine while working at a dole office instead, why Linda Ronstadt was included in the first issue of Panache, how he became its photographer by virtue of being least worst to audition in a field of three, why he forgives Adam Ant for never giving him an interview despite championing the Ants for years, why the Adverts were his other fave punk band and why we should all revisit them, why Joly MacFie of Better Badges was part of the “holy trinity” of punk/DIY, how goth was born out of Gloria Mundi and how he came to write the genre’s unofficial Bible, why the Marquee was such a special club, where he got the material from for all his collages, why his front covers sometimes looked like interior pages, why he kept Panache in print even when he was editing Zigzag and writing for Melody Maker, why some of the later issue numbers appear to be in the wrong order, why he ultimately stopped the print edition, why he has no plans for a compendium, why nobody ever makes money out of underground music, and why he nonetheless plans to go back to a print zine in his 70s once he has got his next five books out of the way - which is also why he concludes that he will be doing Panache until he is in his grave.

Clearly an inveterate enthusiast, Mick gives one of the clearest and most positive interviews I’ve enjoyed hosting on this show. It feels like a 50-year history lesson of the underground scene and I was loathe to cut any of it but my own worst waffling plus a tangent into Adam Ant’s later solo career. In the fanzine spirit of Mick’s own Substack column, which posted 18 times in one week recently, here are a few random jpgs from peak Panache as kindly shared with me by the man himself. I describe the zine in the interview as “a glorious mess,” intended as a compliment, and I think you can see why, on both fronts. I’ve positioned the Toyah cover in the centre/center as it feels central to the zine’s growth and is a cover I remember well from back in the day.

Obviously you’ll see these cover pics on Tony’s Substack page at
https://tonyfletcher.substack.com/p/the-fanzine-podcast-ep-28-mick-mercers and you’d be well advised to subscribe to Tony’s Substack - Tony Fletcher, Wordsmith - as it’s the best written one I’ve seen there, often luring you in to read about subjects you never knew you’d ever find interesting (Trail running! The love of a good desk, Qobuz...), while his music articles are all first class. A former fanzine boy himself (‘Jamming’), moving onto magazines, books and club DJing alongside recurring bouts of musical activity, he’s led an intriguing life, which is reflected in the variety of articles he presents on his Substack.
https://tonyfletcher.substack.com/

I feel honoured to be part of the Fanzine Podcast as I feel I’m in exalted company, considering he’s already interviewed Tim Anstaett (The Offense), Mark Perry (Sniffin' Glue), Tony D (Ripped & Torn/KYPP), James Brown (Attack On Bzag), Miki Berenyi (Alphabet Soup) and Alan Rider (Adventures In Reality) among others.

https://shows.acast.com/the-jamming-fanzine-podcast/episodes/ep-28-mick-mercers-panaches

We Talk Zines