Together for the first time: Volume One of the complete collection of Inside Front Zine ("Journal of Hardcore Punk"), bringing together all issues from 1993 to 1999. At over 600 pages, all 12 issues published in the 1990s are included, including the rarely-scene early issues.
Inside Front is the punk zine that gave rise to Crimethinc, dozens of copycats, thousands of felonies, and millions of linear feet of dreadlocks & dental-floss-patchwork.
From Inside Front's editors:
"Once upon a time, in another century-
When only doctors and lawyers had cell phones, and long distance calls were so expensive that punks used hacked phone dialers to trick pay phones into letting them place calls free of charge;
When zinesters secured freedom of the press by scamming photocopies on a scale today's social media users cannot imagine;
When traveler kids sneaked onto freight train cars to ride for free, watching mountains and oceans whizzing by as the earth rumbled past beneath them;
When the singer of every hardcore band spoke earnestly to introduce each song, if only to entreat audience members to cause each other serious injury;
When punk itself was not an ossified tradition, but a living challenge to corporate aesthetics, in a process of constant challenge and change;
When DIY bands traversed a network of squatted social centers from Trondheim to Santiago, and you could play a hundred shows in a row without ever performing in a venue that was legally owned or leased;
When dropouts lived on bread alone in order to dedicate themselves entirely to lives of daring adventure;
When MAXIMUM ULTRAISTS committed to risk-tolerant experimentation organized guerrilla noise shows in convenience stores and mashed pies into the faces of corporate entrepreneurs;
When young people inspired by punk music set out to reclaim the streets and destroy the World Trade Organization, and everyone understood that anarchists were among the foremost threats to capitalist globalization;
In those days, without the internet, how did people discover and pass on anarchist ideas and tactics?
By embedding these values in rebellious subcultural milieus such as the punk scene-by reading dogeared books about the Yippies, the Situationists, and the Spanish Civil War-and by having adventures.
These three elements-subculture, reading, and adventure-came together in the hardcore journal Inside Front, one of the first projects to bring together people who still collaborate on CrimethInc. projects today. We invite you to explore its pages, as if holding a candle up to the dusty walls of the past."
Crimethinc is a decentralized band of punks, hoboes, artists, vandals, counterfeiters, vegans, con artists, vagabonds, wanderers, and propagandists. CrimethInc. is a rebel alliance - a secret society pledged to the propagation of crimethink. It is a think tank producing ideas and action, a sphinx posing questions fatal to the superstitions of our age.CrimethInc. is a banner for anonymous collective action. It is not a membership organization, but a mouthpiece for longings that extend throughout the population at large. Anyone can be CrimethInc. - it could be your next-door neighbor or the person sitting beside you on the bus. You and your friends already constitute an affinity group, the organizational model best suited to guerrilla tactics, ready to go into action against all the forces that threaten your freedom.CrimethInc. is an international network of aspiring revolutionaries extending from Kansas to Kuala Lumpur. For over twenty years, we have published news, analysis, books, journals, posters, videos, podcasts, and a wide range of other resources - all copyright free, produced and distributed by volunteer labor, without reliance on external funding or market trends. We also coordinate speaking tours, debates, and various other public events. Though we rarely seek public recognition for our efforts, everything we do is informed by our participation in social movements.CrimethInc. is a desperate venture. As this society lurches ever closer to annihilation, we are staking everything on the possibility that we could kick open the escape hatch to another future. Rather than competing for social capital or selling ourselves to the highest bidder, we have thrown ourselves completely into the struggle for a better world. We invite you to do the same.
