Sobriquet 19.2: History

The following is the piece I wrote for the "About Us" section of Sobriquet. I figured, "hey, might as well make it a post, too!"

About Sobriquet Magazine

Sobriquet has been publishing steadily, though sporadically, since 1995. I decided to start a punk rock fanzine after seeing an acquaintance photocopying pictures of Jodie Foster and preparing to interview Superchunk for the latter’s fanzine in the West Morris Central High School library.

The magazine derives its name from a record label I tried to start in high school. Essentially, I made a couple of mix tapes and called them “bootleg punk compilations” and played them for his friends. Although he never sold or even gave any such compilation away, I concocted “Sobriquet Records” and drew a rudimentary logo which bore an uncanny resemblance to the Norwegian letter “Ø.” Here's an artist's abysmal rendition of the logo:

When he finally started working on his fanzine, it seemed, the name had already been chosen. How I came up with “sobriquet” in the first place is pretty geeky. A casual logophile, I would occasionally leaf through an old yellow dictionary in his bedroom, looking at words. For some reason “sobriquet” lodged itself in the soon-to-be zinester’s mind, patiently waiting for a situation in which it might be employed. Though the name of the zine might sound weird or even juvenile, I elected to stick with the appellation, reasoning that one must acknowledge and celebrate one’s roots no matter how geeky they may be. (And secretly, I still think the word is pretty cool).

Having no prior zine publishing experience, I recruited several friends to assist me in making the first issue. One classmate wrote an article on pirate radio stations, a handful of other contributors donated gag articles and poems, but the overwhelming majority of the first issue was put together by me in the evening, after school. After a solid month of writing and working on collage art, I photocopied several copies and began selling them to classmates and teachers. The zine sold rather well and I had to return to the drugstore copy machine to print more. They sold, too. A few even shot off the shelves of a local indie record store. One jackass even copied his copy of Sobriquet Magazine #1 and tried to sell bootleg copies. Graeme Hinde, one of the zine’s first contributors, lent his Califon, NJ address to the zine so that Sobriquet could begin selling via mail order.

After a second issue, I modified the format to a single-sheet newsletter, since he was moving to Norway and doubted whether he could afford to print longer issues. Upon discovering that my host parents actually owned a photocopy machine, but rarely used it, I resumed the thicker zine format, which would serve Sobriquet well for the next few, pre-digital years.

When I started attending college in Minnesota, Sobriquet Magazine moved there, too. After landing a gig hosting a punk rock radio show and discovering the communicatory possibilities of the internet, I managed to snag a few contributors. As the zine grew slightly more sophisticated, other zines began mentioning Sobriquet and I received a slew of records for review. The eighth issue of Sobriquet made good use of these freebies, and I reviewed them all (along with give-aways from KSTO) alongside contributions from Minnesota, Wisconsin, England, and the Philippines, making Sobriquet #8 the strongest issue to date. Maximumrocknroll favorably reviewed the issue, calling the zine “a real punk threat,” at which point I promptly stopped publishing regularly (Sobriquet #9 came out nearly two years later) and devoted myself to school.

In 2001, despite some work having gone into a print issue of Sobriquet #10, I decided to start www.sobriquetmagazine.com, figuring a webzine would be less expensive to maintain. Over the next couple of years, I interviewed several bands and figures of interest to the punk rock community, added a popular links section, published several guest columns, and published reviews of live performances as well as recordings.

In 2004, after reading an article on blogging in Time, I decided to alter the format of Sobriquet yet again to that of a blog. Although I had known about blogs for several years, something about the article made me think, “hey, blogging is like zine publishing!” The rest, as they say, is history. Today, sobriquetmagazine.com publishes Sobriquet Magazine on a monthly basis and integrates many of the features that made the original website appealing. In 2005, www.sobriquetmagazine.com began hosting Ed Kemp’s excellent blog, Eyeless in Gaza. Though separate from Sobriquet Magazine, Eyeless in Gaza consistently provides good reading, much of which is very much in tune with the tone of Sobriquet.