When artists Mike Kelley, Jim Shaw, and Niagara, together with filmmaker Cary Loren, set up to play their first show as Destroy All Monsters on New Year’s Eve in 1973, their only instruments were a violin, a saxophone, a vacuum cleaner, and a coffee can. Since that humble debut, the Detroit musicians and performance artists continued to play shows from 1973 until 1985, but rarely recorded (many had never heard the band’s records until Thurston Moore issued a three-CD compilation in 1994). Also during that time, they created six issues of a now legendary zine entitled Destroy All Monsters. Released between 1976 and 1979, the handmade issues contained graphic collage, photography, illustration, writing, and other works that distilled the group’s prismatic and dystopian view of media and social values. Nonprofit art publishers Primary Information have put together all six issues of the zine (plus a portion of a lost seventh issue that has never seen the light of day) in Destroy All Monsters Magazine 1976-1979. The 225-page tome pays tribute to and documents this exemplar of DIY media that shaped the face of American punk. Know your role models. Destroy All Monsters. Available this month from primaryinformation.org.

From VMAN 22, on sale now.

KEYWORDS: Cary Loren, Destroy All Monsters, DIY, Jim Shaw, Mike Kelley, Niagara, punk, zines