Flipside
1977-2000
Published from Pasadena, California, Flipside was the longest-running U.S. zine geared toward punk rock music, appearing from 1977 until 2000. Countless musicians and bands graced the pages of Flipside, such as Jello Biafra, Bad Religion, The Dead Milkmen, the Descendents / All, Green Day, Killdozer, the Melvins, PopDefect, and Social Distortion, to name a few. Each issue was packed with coverage of concerts and interviews with bands, as well as reviews of albums and other punk or alternative lifestyle zines. Exemplifying punk's embrace of an inexpensive DIY approach to publishing, some issues even contained flexi discs made from a super thin sheet of flexible vinyl.
Flipside also ran articles on the topic of psychoactive drugs. The selection that we have archived appeared between February/March 1994 and February/March 1995 (just seven months before Erowid first came online). While these articles contain the occasional error or two, largely they display a surprising amount of factual, practical information about psychedelics--certainly more so than the coverage of these drugs within other publications whose focus was not specifically psychedelics (indeed, even more so than some publications produced around that time whose sole focus was on psychedelics). For instance it includes a conference review of a 1994 psychedelic conference which was the first such attended by one of Erowid's senior editors.
As these issues were published during a time when substantially fewer people were using the Internet, we have strayed from our focus on psychoactives to additionally archive an article that begins: "A commonly asked question is 'What is the Internet?'" and its sidebar "The Electronic Underworld". But you'll have to locate your own copies of this zine to read its articles on how to make explosives, its exposure of Area 51's secrets, its coverage of Survival Research Laboratories, its interviews of Jim and Debbie Goad of Answer Me! fame, or any of its exhaustive coverage of the American punk scene.
Hidden behind their glossy color covers (likely adopted in order to get them sold on record stores' magazine racks), this zine is pure punk. Nearly two decades later, that unfortunately now represents the combination of a brain-splintering-and-eye-bleedingly tiny font printed onto substantially faded newsprint.
Thanks to TJ for donating these Flipside issues to Erowid!
Flipside also ran articles on the topic of psychoactive drugs. The selection that we have archived appeared between February/March 1994 and February/March 1995 (just seven months before Erowid first came online). While these articles contain the occasional error or two, largely they display a surprising amount of factual, practical information about psychedelics--certainly more so than the coverage of these drugs within other publications whose focus was not specifically psychedelics (indeed, even more so than some publications produced around that time whose sole focus was on psychedelics). For instance it includes a conference review of a 1994 psychedelic conference which was the first such attended by one of Erowid's senior editors.
As these issues were published during a time when substantially fewer people were using the Internet, we have strayed from our focus on psychoactives to additionally archive an article that begins: "A commonly asked question is 'What is the Internet?'" and its sidebar "The Electronic Underworld". But you'll have to locate your own copies of this zine to read its articles on how to make explosives, its exposure of Area 51's secrets, its coverage of Survival Research Laboratories, its interviews of Jim and Debbie Goad of Answer Me! fame, or any of its exhaustive coverage of the American punk scene.
Hidden behind their glossy color covers (likely adopted in order to get them sold on record stores' magazine racks), this zine is pure punk. Nearly two decades later, that unfortunately now represents the combination of a brain-splintering-and-eye-bleedingly tiny font printed onto substantially faded newsprint.
Thanks to TJ for donating these Flipside issues to Erowid!
- Flipside #88 - 1994, Feb/Mar "22 Karrit Gold" and "Kicks"
- Flipside #89 - 1994, Apr/May "FYI on 'What is the Internet?'", by Ed Krol and Ellen Hoffman plus "The Electronic Underworld" by Shadowvew", "22 Karrit Gold" and "Kicks"
- Flipside #90, [missing from collection]
- Flipside #91 - 1994, Aug/Sep "Gathering of the Minds" (psychedelic conference review)
- Flipside #92 - 1994, Oct/Nov "Kids do the Darndest Drugs" by NOYB and "Molecule Madness: Sweet Dreams are Made of These" by DM
- Flipside #93, [missing from collection]
- Flipside #94 - 1994, Feb/Mar "Just Say Know!" by DM, "Chemistry and Structure-Activity Relationships of the Psychotomimetics" by Alexander T. Shulgin [reprinted from Efron, D.H., Psychotomimetic Drugs 1970], and "the Myth of the 'Crack Babies'" by Ellen Goodman [reprinted from The Boston Sunday Globe, Jan 12, 1992, p. 69]
- Flipside #91 - 1994, Aug/Sep "Gathering of the Minds" (psychedelic conference review)