Exactly fifty years after Trouser Press Magazine published its first issue, Trouser Press Books has announced Zip It Up! The Best of Trouser Press Magazine 1974 – 1984. The 440-page large-format paperback collects some of the best profiles, interviews and histories that appeared in the influential magazine. It will arrive on March 15th, 2024.
Zip It Up! The Best of Trouser Press Magazine 1974 – 1984 features chapters on the 1960s, Classic Rock, Glam Rock, Prog and Art Rock, Reggae, the Roots of Punk, American Punk and New Wave, UK Punk and New Wave, and Post-Punk. Annotated with “recollections and reflections” and illustrated with cartoons, covers, documents and ads from the Trouser Press archive, Zip It Up! is vintage rock journalism
It is also “an extensive document of rock’s evolution” from the 1970s to the mid-’80s, often capturing now-iconic bands in the early stages of their existence.
The book compiles articles on Small Faces, Syd Barrett, Jimmy Page, Pete Townshend, Todd Rundgren, Ray Davies, KISS, Frank Zappa, Cheap Trick, Ritchie Blackmore, T. Rex, New York Dolls, Lou Reed, Sparks, Bryan Ferry, Brian Eno, Genesis, Robert Fripp, Kate Bush, Peter Tosh, Black Uhuru, Iggy Pop, Graham Parker, Television, the Ramones, Blondie, R.E.M., Violent Femmes, Devo vs. William S. Burroughs, the Go-Go’s, Black Flag, X, Holly and the Italians, the Clash, Sex Pistols, X-Ray Spex, Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, Cure, U2, Joan Armatrading, Human League, Gang of Four, Adam Ant, Joan Jett, Malcolm McLaren, Public Image Ltd., Eddy Grant and Billy Idol.
We find in the book’s preface by editor Ira Robbins:
“Reading this selection of articles four-plus decades later, I’m struck by the depth of what we, and our contributors, were able to come up with, both in terms of creative ideas and solid reporting. Sure, a lot of this stuff now seems elementary or even uninformed; many of the artists we devoted a few words to have since been the subjects of full-scale biographies, documentaries and extensively researched magazine profiles. It’s important to keep the perspective of when these were written and the tools we had to work with. Getting artists on the record about subjects that interested us at a time when the rock press was respected (a bit), allowed us a lot of leeway; we were granted far more access than is generally on offer by major artists. In many cases, the courage of Trouser Press interviewers to ask tough or uncomfortable questions is surprising, given how unlikely even polite confrontation would be the order of business today.
In turn, the openness of artists who spoke to us then now is shocking; perhaps because the impact a quote in a music magazine 45 years ago, unamplified by social media and clickbait, would not have been too great (except, of course, for John Lennon’s one unfortunate turn of phrase), they could feel free to express themselves more freely. We often sought out artists who were not being barraged with the same questions often enough to formulate stock answers; we were winging it, and maybe some of them were as well.“
