Vague Vol. 1: 1979 – 1984
Issues #1-15

Vague was the Post Punk Fanzine that tuned so many people into the joy of punk and the futuristic and hybrid styled music that followed it, that became known as ‘Post-Punk’ or for a period of time ‘Positive Punk’. Vague promoted the notion that a band meant something more than the music and that meaning could be shared amongst like-minded folk, the ‘lovable spikey tops’ or the like-minded ‘tribe’ that people were looking for. Vague though was critical enough to see through the growing number of punk bands who were seduced by the world of pop stardom and teen adulation. That disillusion often turned into a searching for the counter culture, or philosophy and radical politics, to find something that could inspire us to be different and to change the world around us. Vague became the go to critical counter cultural fanzine that still found music irresistible but wasn’t just a fawning FAN zine. Vague also importantly had a sense of humour, it could laugh at itself as well as brag about how good it was and slag off those it found wanting!

A Brief History of Vague

Vague, the 20th century’s most fashionable and counter cultural fanzine featuring: Adam and the Ants, Sex Pistols, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Public Image Ltd, Southern Death Cult, Bow Wow Wow, Sex Gang Children, Crass, The Pop Group, The Clash, Talisman, Bauhaus, Theatre Of Hate, Killing Joke, The Cure, Iggy Pop, Getting The Fear, AND Situationism, CND, Anti-vivisection, Stop The City, Greenham Common, Charles Manson.

Punk is Dead: Modernity Killed Every Night (Co-Editor Richard Cabut) Book Launch Pt. 4 – Tom Vague

Walking the London Tube: Latimer Road to Ladbroke Grove

Intros and texts by Tom Vague, Pete Webb and Matthew Worley.

Jon Savage about Vague fanzine:

“Vague” began, as it happened, a few months after “England’s Dreaming” left off: in the post-punk diaspora of late 1979. Turning nineteen years old in sunny Salisbury, Tom Vague began by featuring local punk bands as well as all the major acts that passed through or nearby – the Banshees, the Cure, the Ruts, Joy Division, Red Krayola, the Gang of Four, Clash, Adam and the Ants. It wasn’t a pure punk fanzine – it was too late for that – but matched punk irreverence with the overall feeling of experimentation that still existed at the end of the 1970’s. Over the first few issues, “Vague” continued to work out the possibilities of independence – in all senses of the word – that had been pioneered in 1976 by Mark Perry (fanzines) and in 1977 by Buzzcocks and the Desperate Bicycles (seven inch records). The whole point about fanzines and DIY singles was that you didn’t have to do what everyone else did. So “Vague” mixed up reviews with Perry Harris’ cartoons and what Tom describes as ‘stream of consciousness prose’ that reflected the chaos and the intimacy of the moment.” (…)