Jim Saah Interviewed by John Davis June 11, 2018 Wheaton, MD
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Jim Saah Interviewed by John Davis June 11, 2018 Wheaton, MD. 0:00:00 Davis: So, today is June 11th, 2018. My name is John Davis. I’m the Performing Arts Metadata Archivist at the University of Maryland. I’m speaking with Jim Saah, who is the man behind Zone V and Uno Mas fanzines. And we’re going to talk about those today as well as just your life in DC punk over the last thirty-five some odd years. And so, first, thank you for taking the time to talk to me. Saah: Sure, sounds good. Davis: And, I guess I want to start with, how did you get into punk in the first place? You grew up in the DC area, correct? Saah: Yes, I’m born and raised here. Davis: And what was sort of the--what was the first moment that got you into this path you’ve taken? I mean, was it certain bands that got you into the gateway into it? Saah: It was actually something a little less intriguing than that. It was just bored suburban kids looking for some fun and we ended up going down to “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” in the midnight, you know, at the, The Biograph or The Georgetown Theater. And, before the movie, they’d play music and people would go down in front of the screen and dance. And they played punk rock. Which I’d--you know, at the time I was really into music. I have seven older brothers and sisters that were into good music, so, lot of ‘60s, Dylan and Beatles, and all that, you know, Rolling Stones, all that stuff. But, I heard The Stranglers. I heard The Buzzcocks. I heard no, like, local hardcore. It was more like British ‘70s, late ‘70s, first wave British stuff and some new wave. I think there was, like, some American new wave. I want to say, like, Flock of Seagulls or Human League or something like that, at the time. But, I went out to Joe’s Record Paradise and found some of this music and then people there told me, “Oh, you like punk rock. Well, there’s punk rock happening here, you know? Like, try this.” And I think it was Minor Threat and I was like, “this 1 band lives here and plays?” And, so, then I went to a show. I think it was GI [Government Issue] and Minor Threat at University of Maryland, in 1982, I think, and was just hooked. Davis: Was it in one of the ballrooms, or something? The Grand Ballroom or something like that? Saah: Yeah, yeah. It was in just one of the [Stamp] Student Union ballrooms or something. Davis Mm hmm. How long had you been working on your photography, at that point? Saah: A few years, at that point. I started taking photography in high school. I took pictures before that but got serious about, you know, developing and printing my own stuff. Davis: Right. So, when it came time to doing a fanzine, Zone V, as far as I know, is the first publication you did. You did it as Zone V [pronounced “five”]. It isn’t Zone V [pronounced “vee”] or anything like that? Saah: Yeah, Zone V [pronounced “five”]. It’s from a black and white, z-zone system of grays, from black to gray and it’s a zone system. Davis: Ok. Saah: That’s what it has to do with. It’s actually a photography term. Davis: Were there other photozines that had inspired you to do that? Or what, what made you decide to do that? I mean, I think maybe the second issue there’s an interview--there’s more, sort of, traditional interview types of--I think I remember the first issue was mostly just photos. 0:4:42 Saah: Yeah, there was an interview in the first issue, too. The format was pretty close to the same. Lots of photos, scene reports, interviews. I think the first one had an interview with Henry Rollins. And the second one had an interview. 2 Well, it was two. I think it was the Big Boys on the cover. There was an interview with Tesco Vee. Either in one or the other. And then there was a scene report from--I had Thurston Moore doing a New York scene report. He was very thorough. Davis: How did you know him? Saah: Just going to shows and hanging out and stuff. He was always pretty accessible. Davis: So, were there--I think there was Glen Friedman that had the My Rules zine around that time. Saah: Yeah, yeah, I was going to say that. He says that he created the term “photozine” which, you know, I never really saw it before My Rules and that was probably an inspiration, sure. I mean, I obviously did see that before I made one of my own. Davis: What else were you reading at that time? Saah: Touch and Go, Maximum Rocknroll, a lot, Flipside. Maximum Rocknroll was probably the biggest one I was reading in the early ‘80s. But then all those others came a little later. Davis: And what was it that made you want to make your own? Saah: Just the whole DIY--I was taking pictures and I was already thinking about maybe, making it a career and I think I got permission through punk rock to just, instead of waiting for just someone to want to publish me, then just do it myself. Davis: As far as the actual assembly of the fanzine, you know, how did you do that? This was cut and paste, essentially? Saah: Yeah. The first one was a little bit--Zone V--Zone V was a little bit more legit, in a way, where it was actually offset printed and bound and stuff by the printer. And I actually had to lay it out conventionally with, you know, waxing articles and putting them down and using the line tape and rules and stuff. The other one came into--that was before computers and desktop publishing. Davis: Right. 3 Saah: So, that’s the way I did that. The next one, desktop publishing--Uno Mas--had come into play. And I laid it out on a computer. And then, my sister was a Xerox repair woman and she had to do a lot of copies every day to make sure that the machine was working properly that she had just repaired, so she would just put pages of Uno Mas down. (laughs) Davis: (chuckles) Mm hmm. Saah: And do them instead of some just random thing that she would’ve put in the recycling. Davis: Do you remember where you went to get Zone V made? Like, that early offset-printed issue? Saah: Yeah, I actually do. It was a print shop right downtown Silver Spring [Maryland] called The Suburban Record. It was a newspaper called The Suburban Record. It was kind of like the Gazette or something. But, they also had their own print shop and would take in printing from other people in addition to doing their own printing. Davis: Do you still have the camera-ready artwork from that? Saah: I do, actually Davis: Wow! That’s unusual. Saah: Yeah, yeah, it’s surprising. It is unusual. I save a lot of stuff. Davis: Good! Saah: It’s rolled up on these boards in my attic. Davis: (laughs) OK! Is it both issues you think you still have? Saah: I think so, yeah. Davis: Wow! So that last issue was what? Maybe nineteen-eighty- -was, Zone V, ‘83? Saah: ‘83. 4 Davis: And then Uno Mas was your next fanzine. It was probably six or seven years later, right? 1989? 1990? Saah: Yeah. 0:9:40 Davis: What was going on in the interim and what sort of inspired you to do something, to do a new fanzine? Saah: I wanted to do a culture magazine and my idea was to cover music and, also, I had fiction, poems, artwork from illustrators, illustrations on linocuts, like all sorts of stuff. And--I don’t know, it was a vehicle for my photography. But, I really didn’t have--I would have maybe a photo essay in each issue. Maybe, two or three pages from something but I’d also publish a lot of other people’s photographs and things. 0:10:47 Davis: Did you collaborate with [editor of Greed fanzine] Kurt Sayenga at all? Wasn’t there some sort of crossover almost between the end of Greed and the [beginning] of Uno Mas? Saah: Yeah, I did. I collaborated with him on Greed doing photography and we actually did some reviews together. We interviewed a couple of members of Wire one time together, and some other things. And he, then, helped me out. He wrote some stuff and edited and, actually, he was one of the early people that knew how to do desktop publishing and had a computer so, he actually laid out some of it. 0:11:32 Davis: And so did you learn that from him or in the subsequent issue of Uno Mas? Because, you know, it’s pretty unique in how polished it was that early. Saah: Hmmm. Davis: You know, to have something that was that well put together. I mean, Greed, to me, is sort of the first [D.C.] zine that really sort of stands out like that. And then, Uno 5 Mas sort of felt like the next step from that.