typing metal fanzines | Demolish Magazine

Life Before Computers…DEMOLISH torture (Heavy Metal Kiddos)

by Kinger

So what was life-like trying to write Demolish Metal Fanzine before computers you say?

Well, the concerts and parties were cool, however there was a rather “boring” side to putting together an underground publication. Doing mundane tasks like typing letters, editing articles, transcribing interviews (from cassettes), making lists and everyday correspondence wasn’t bad if you had one of these relics:

IBM Selectric

Yes, folks -that’s a TYPEWRITER

This modern machine made it all possible but when you screwed up then it was white-out time! I am very grateful that my mom had one of these babies that I could use. Either way, it wasn’t fun not being able to “store” your work and or do any editing later. So as you can probably imagine I taught myself how to type really quickly. As a matter of fact, I taught myself basically by “hunting and pecking” around until I got a few combos that worked in my favor!

I am happy to report that I am still typing with those custom keystroke “combos” and skills I learned from 1988!

Hey I forgot, the typewriter has these cool little “font globes” that let you change the font:

Font "Globe"

So I thought I was “big-time” for the fact that I didn’t have to hand-write so many return letters and promo for DEMOLISH. I even had some custom-printed stationary and envelopes with our logo. Most of everything that I received was hand-written, which was a pain in the rear sometimes as you could not even read half of what these Heavy Metal Kiddos from all over the world wrote!

Rock On!