My coworker JJ the roots-rocker (the one who inconceivably prefers the Shit Dogs to the Zoomers) has loaned me an amazing artifact, a reprint of a collection of a New Orleans punk zine called the Final Solution. This book has nine issues included from 1979 to 1980. Everything is included, all grainy photocopies of handscrawled and broken typewriter fonts, with cartoon drawings and photos so dark and blurry that they’re barely more than black smudges. I cannot find a trace of this zine on the internet yet. JJ says that he bought it at the now closed Underground sounds, and i’ve noticed that the price tag he’s left on it is dated from January 12th, 1999. Someone reprinted these rather recently. I want to track down this guy Larry the Punk, the original editor, to ask permission to reprint portions of it, but i don’t know whether i can find him. I’ve figured out that he was the force behind Vinyl Solution Records from this article, but it seems there are lots of Vinyl Solution Records.
Aside from details that i would not have expected from the usual suspects (like there being film footage of the Normals performing at a place called Jed’s,) there’s lots of names of bands that may never have recorded anything, but existed nonetheless, Sex Dog, Venus & the Flytraps, the Cannibals, Driveways, the Hostages, the Rock-a-byes, the Fugitives, New Blades, Perfect Teen, and Zipper. Some of these are obviously recombinants of the same bands after they split, but they still count. Otherwise, Cleveland’s Rocket from the Tombs, Pere Ubu, and the Dead Boys would all be considered the same band. Some of these bands i know had singles, as they are reviewed in the zine.
I’ll probably scan every page in lieu of not being able to get a copy of this for myself. There’s also a tantalizing hint of another New Orleans zine from the same period called Going My Way.