Punk is dead.

Yesterday was a sad day for the indie press. Punk Planet has gone the way of many of its most cherished stagemates, and bit the dust. Over the years, PP took some pretty big risks in what and how it published, pissing off its readership at times, other times its advertisers, but always remaining true to its own independent efforts. Early on, many of its readers were pissed when the magazine went from a staple-bound rat's nest of barely-bound newspaper (a la Maximum Rock N Roll) to a perfect-bound, color-covered, well-designed magazine. Not long after, it further upset some of its unaligned rawker audience when it announced that, in the face of the suffering caused by the first Gulf War, it could no longer restrict itself to publishing band interviews and scene reports, and headed off – spiny jacket and all – into the world of dissident journalism. Since then, the magazine was one of the few that was unabashedly progressive, and still managed to cover underground culture better than its punken colleagues.

And even as many charge that it was the death of punk that ultimately keeled Punk Planet – and though that might be partly true-- the real, immediate cause was the demise of its distributor, Big Top, and its sponsor The Independent Press Association. I know I've blogged this topic to death, and there's no use beating a dead bureaucracy, but I just can't help it. (For more, see the old Indiepressing). We'll be feeling the repercussions from that bankrupcy for a long time to come. | Read Punk Planet's editorial farewell

Speaking of, McSweeneys put out a call last week for help, in the wake of the demise of its distributor, Publishers Group West. They went out owing the small SF-based company $130,000. Not easy for a small publisher to recapture...