The first issue of Hairy Hi-fi was a lowly little thing, A5 size and photo-copied. It was meant to be a goofy sideline to the self-published comics I’d been doing and an outlet for my music enthusiasms. Back in the dying days of the Thatcher empire only yuppie boffins owned computers so most fanzines had that dated typewritten appearance left over from punk’s grubby pioneers. Motivated by a desire to be different (and with a nod to Lindsay Hutton’s Next Big Thing) Hairy Hi-fi had a deliberately handwritten / designed look with tons of gorgeous wackoid lettering and eyeball grilling illustrations. By issue 3 it had grown into an A4 offset printed beastie and was by then most definitely a team effort. Articles and interviews by the regular “staff” of myself, Marc Baines and Ed Pinsent and a host of other tortured contributors covered the gamut of the coolest pop culture, taking in legends like Moe Tucker, Richard Hell, Savage Pencil and Tav Falco but giving equal space to cogitations on the Addams Family, Trolls, psychedelic cartoonists and horror auteur William Castle. The final issue was number 5 and a half , a fold-out giveaway that included reports on Hairy Hi-fi’s New York visit and live “Schwing Ding”event at Glasgow art school. The other day I nearly choked on my Weetabix when I realised that happened 10 years ago! It seems a shame that lots of curious folk might’ve been too young or too un-hip to have ever owned an issue of the legendary Hairy Hi-fi, so, for a short time only, we present some choice selections from an archive that will be forever hairy.

- John Bagnall.