Touch and Go fanzine was the brainchild of Tesco Vee and Dave Stimson and was launched in Lansing, Michigan, in 1979. Major fanatics of the new punk happenings in the late ’70s, TV and DS set out to chronicle, lambaste, ridicule, and heap praise on all they arbitrarily loved or hated in the music communities in the US and abroad.
In laughably minuscule press runs by today’s standards, T & G was made by guys within the Midwest scene strictly for the edification of scenesters and pals in other cities like DC, Philly, Boston, LA, SF, Chicago, et al. Inspired by magazines such as Slash and Search and Destroy and writers like Claude Bessy and Chris Desjardines, TV and DS pumped out seventeen naughty, irreverent issues together, and TV did another five solo.
Magazines like Forced Exposure and Your Flesh, among others, soon fired up Xerox machines themselves, and the rest is history. So is the legendary independent record label launched from this zine, and so are the bands covered inside: Black Flag, Minor Threat, the Misfits, Negative Approach, the Fix, the Avengers, the Necros, Discharge, Iron Cross, Youth Brigade, Faith, Die Kreuzen, Crucifix, Poison Idea—and all the other punks worth their weight in glorious black and white.
Industry Reviews
I was inspired by how fearless and together Touch and Go were. They were really wild and extremely funny. "Henry Rollins"
It was really one of the first times anyone outside of Washington really paid us any mind. The fact that Touch and Go took an interest in us really blew us away. "Ian MacKaye, Minor Threat"
"Creem" may have taught me how to p*ss, but "Touch and Go" taught me how to sh*t. I owe my career to that magazine. "John Brannon, Negative Approach"
"Easily one of the best hardcore reads you ll ever sink your fangs into...enthralling.""Montreal Mirror"
"As a hardcore punk primer you couldn't do better.""Time Out Chicago"
Anyone who s ever published a true DIY fanzine owes at least a small debt to
Touch and Go. "Decibel"
If you have any interest at all in hardcore punk or being rude, you need this. "Austin American-Statesman," Summer Reading Picks
"One massive volume for all your punk-rock nostalgia and/or historical research needs""The Onion AV Club"
""Touch and Go" was an essential primer for budding punk kids looking for the next great hardcore band and punk rock wouldn't be the same without it.""Portland Mercury"
"Slapdash, ornery, and entertaining""Popmatters"
"Influential""Village Voice," Voice Picks
"Essential "Washington Post Express"
"Lots of energy gets captured in this handsome, perfectbound volume, down to the original, frenetic cut-and-paste layouts.""Detroit Metro-Times"
"Bazillion Points has done the world the great service of collecting "Touch and Go" s entire four-year, 22-issue run in a handsome paperback. The zine eventually expanded from its initial 14-page format to include other writers and interviews, and even ended up printing color covers towards the end. Through it all, Vee and Stimson never wavered from their irascible bent, and now it s been preserved in these 570-odd pages. Though rendered with DIY technique, T&G never applied the kind of dogmatic blinders of, say, Maximumrocknroll, instead never hesitating to sing the praises of any band they found boundary pushing and/or simply appealing. (U2 s Boy gets a thumbs-up.) They also had a penchant for a little bathroom humor, which seems extreme by today s PC punk standards, but somehow also incredibly cheeky. For the four years of its existence, Touch and Go was the documentation of all that mattered in music, uninfluenced by anything other than its publishers own inclinations." Stephen Slaybaugh, "The Agit Reader"
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"I was inspired by how fearless and together Touch and Go were. They were really wild and extremely funny."--"Henry Rollins"
"It was really one of the first times anyone outside of Washington really paid us any mind. The fact that Touch and Go took an interest in us really blew us away."--"Ian MacKaye, Minor Threat"
""Creem" may have taught me how to p*ss, but "Touch and Go" taught me how to sh*t. I owe my career to that magazine."--"John Brannon, Negative Approach"
"Easily one of the best hardcore reads you'll ever sink your fangs into...enthralling."--"Montreal Mirror"
"As a hardcore punk primer you couldn't do better."--"Time Out Chicago"
"Anyone who's ever published a true DIY fanzine owes at least a small debt to
Touch and Go.""--Decibel"
"If you have any interest at all in hardcore punk or being rude, you need this."--"Austin American-Statesman," Summer Reading Picks
"One massive volume for all your punk-rock nostalgia and/or historical research needs"--"The Onion AV Club"
""Touch and Go" was an essential primer for budding punk kids looking for the next great hardcore band and punk rock wouldn't be the same without it.""--Portland Mercury"
"Slapdash, ornery, and entertaining"--"Popmatters"
"Influential"--"Village Voice," Voice Picks
"Essential""--Washington Post Express"
"Lots of energy gets captured in this handsome, perfectbound volume, down to the original, frenetic cut-and-paste layouts.""--Detroit Metro-Times"
"Bazillion Points has done the world the great service of collecting "Touch and Go"'s entire four-year, 22-issue run in a handsome paperback. The zine eventually expanded from its initial 14-page format to include other writers and interviews, and even ended up printing color covers towards the end. Through it all, Vee and Stimson never wavered from their irascible bent, and now it's been preserved in these 570-odd pages. Though rendered with DIY techn
