Punk Planet Year Nine, issues 50-55.

2024 marks 30 years since the start of Punk Planet, the magazine I ran for 13 years. To commemorate that milestone, I am writing 13 posts over 13 months, each one about a single year of the magazine. A year of learning, a year of trying, a year of making something impossible possible.

Read: Year One | Year Two | Year Three | Year Four | Year Five | Year Six | Year Seven | Year Eight | Year Nine

Yesterday, Donald Trump's border "czar" Tom Homan went on CNN and bemoaned how ICE's roundup of migrants has been thwarted in Chicago because Chicagoans are "very well educated," around their rights in the face of raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

He went on to say that he'd seen pamphlets around entitled Know Your Rights. "They call it ‘Know Your Rights,'" Homan said. "I call it how to escape arrest." They might have thought about a better messenger, Chicago has a bad history with the name "Homan," when it comes to rights: Homan Square was a notorious police interrogation black site.

The point of this is to say that Chicago is the fucking best. In the face of federal raids, Chicagoans banded together to get word into the hands of their neighbors that needed it. As we contemplate the long years ahead of us, this is what it will take: person to person, piece by piece.

Chicago once again proves what is possible.

This may feel like a long way around to discussing the ninth year of Punk Planet magazine, but a familiar refrain as I've looked back across the history of the magazine is that so much of what we wrote about then is still relevant today.

And in the case of Year Nine that relevancy is this: Chicago is still the fucking best.

Punk Planet 50, featuring Jon Langford's portrait of former mayor Richard M Daley. The original painting still hangs on my wall.

When we approached the 50th issue of the magazine—a number that felt impossible even as we crept up through the 40s toward it—I knew I wanted to do something special to mark the milestone. But I didn't want to take the self-congratulatory approach of a normal anniversary issue. Instead, I wanted to celebrate the place that Punk Planet came from.

Punk Planet was never really a "Chicago zine," we were always nationally focused, not regionally-focused. And the distributed, volunteer nature of the early years of the magazine meant that I was the only person in Chicago working on it. But, as the years progressed, that became less and less true. While we continued to have contributors across the country, much of the actual production work of the magazine had come to rest in Chicago. And so focusing on the place that had seeped into the very DNA of the magazine at that point seemed like the best possible way to mark 50 issues.

In the introduction to the issue, I describe the "ethics of the Chicago underground" this way:

Rereading this 23 years after I originally wrote it, that's still Chicago to me.

The opening spread for the interview with Mark and Joanna from Homocore in front of the iconic Czar Bar sign.

Cable access kiddie punk-rock dance party Chic-a-Go-Go's rat puppet host Ratso opened interview with the show's creators.

The issue worked to illustrate what makes Chicago Chicago in the 16 interviews that filled its pages. There were workhorse bands like the Mekons, who originally hailed from Leeds but had made Chicago their defacto home base for years; Tortoise, who were redefining what post-rock could be at the time; garage rockers The Dishes and indie hip-hop artists the Molemen also made an appearance. The city's print scene was represented by high-gloss zine Venus and low-fi comic Hamster Man. The heart of the issue was in-depth interviews with people who helped define Chicago's underground, like Martin Sorrondeuy frontman for the legendary band Los Crudos; Joanna Brown and Mark Freitas who had founded Homocore Chicago back when gay punks were nearly invisible; and Bloodshot Records' Rob Miller and Nan Warshaw who talked about infusing punk and country. But the issue also had interviews that addressed many of the problems the city faced: police brutality, gentrification, political corruption (Chicago's long-time mayor Richard M Daley graced the cover in a portrait by Jon Langford). But the issue was also a lot of fun: infectious cable-access kiddie dance party Chic-a-Go-Go got a feature, as did cult hot dog chef Doug Sohn, otherwise known as Hot Doug.

When we did this interview, there was never a line at Hot Dougs. That changed over the years, but a framed copy of this interview remained on his wall 'til the end.

How the Hot Dougs interview came together is maybe indicitive of the whole issue. I was on my way back from shooting photos of journalist Salim Muwakkil for his interview in the issue when I stopped into a hot dog joint that I'd passed a few times before but never stopped at. I walked in, the Clash was playing, the walls were covered with hot dog memorabilia, and it all felt right. Doug was behind the counter, welcoming and gregarious, and after I'd eaten an inexpensive and delicious meal I introduced myself and asked him if he'd be willing to do an interview. There was a level of why not to this issue that I always loved. We were really close to deadline at that point, but one more thing that could really make Chicago, Chicago? Why not.

The interview that came out of it—short because we were close to deadline and, well, because it's hot dogs—is still one of my favorites from the magazine. Cutting quickly to the chase, it's about those same Chicago values: "I didn't want to exclude anybody. Hot dogs are the everyman's food," Doug told me. "I have no moral qualms at all making a good, well-priced lunch for people. I have no problem with that at all."

That's Chicago.

It still is.

This week, as chaos breaks out across the country and the people of this city stand firm against the fascist incursion, it's good to remember.

Issues 55, 54, and 51.

Year Nine Miscellany: This was actually a phenomenally good year of the magazine. Jeff Guntzel's harrowing story of being shot at in the occupied West Bank is just as relevant today as as it was in 2002. So is issue 54's cover story "Where Have all the Musicians Gone?" featuring a couple dozen artists speaking out against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the Revenge of Print, featuring an incredible cover by Art Chantry, is still one of my favorite issues of all time. Taking the same approach as our Art & Design issues, it was a single-subject issue dedicated to those of us still toiling away at the important work of print and featured excerpts from dozens of writers. At 182 pages, it was our longest issue ever.