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UMAmi No. 40 (2026-10)
Granny Anarchy
@grannyanarchy.bsky.social
39 followers 1 following 38 posts
Member of the UMAmi zine team. Newly launched solo zine AnGrr! Punk/indie/goth/etc music, art, photography, sociology & so on 👩🏼🎤🎸🎶📰🧷
![Article in August 2026 UMAmi:
Negative Creep: A Personal Recollection of Grunge
By Granny Anarchy
Intro: Aero Zeppelin
The 70s were a tumultuous, tempestuous time in music and culture. External crises and changing social mores were reflected in glam rock. Significant acts and venues were born and died. But by the early to mid-80s, some hardcore bands had taken the rawness of punk, added metal elements, and were even further influenced by indie musicians with unique sound structures (Pixies) or noise elements (Sonic Youth.) The time had come for a new "Verse Chorus Verse."
Part 1: About a Girl
As a member of Generation X, I lived through the change and believe I remember it accurately. The end of the 70s and early '80s were fairly bland. Disco seemed lush and escapist but lacked much substance. Pop was mellow and smooth. Rock was bombastic, and even harder rock seemed cliched or recycled. That left punk or new wave, which got progressively more packaged, palatable, shiny and sanitized in a faintly alarming push for futurism.
There was a Cold War threatening nuclear annihilation if our nation offended what was then the USSR.
Germany was still divided by a wall. We'd not yet seen the full benefits of anti-pollution legislation or anti-smoking campaigns (most of us were still smoking indoors in restaurants, malls and bars - it was an ashy, butty, smelly world). We had a plethora of issues - such as AIDS, homophobia, and systemic oppression ... which had kept many people closeted, cowed ... [in] poor or actively harmful circumstances.
So when sax-y, bright, big-haired pop songs danced through the zeitgeist in teal, neon and hypercolor, we craved alternative voices. And that's largely what we called them. Sometimes we referred to "college rock," because college radio stations played the things we wanted to hear. Remember, readers - this was before the internet and before people had computers in their homes or phones in their pockets We had the radio...](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:dijzxwunbnhsu6nvsklegioe/bafkreigxvhkh7eoplzclbfp2twd4rrjmttnhghnlo5dvjlmqfnlyyx2mku)
![Front cover of AnGrr! (a Made in China [or Taiwan]) American Flag which the photographer found in the trash) in front of an EXIT sign](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:dijzxwunbnhsu6nvsklegioe/bafkreihy5dsz4bdq57jivkhg6ntsrthxywihonxe65f4enj5rbpe74nd6i)
![Front cover of AnGrr! (a Made in China [or Taiwan]) American Flag which the photographer found in the trash) by a bowl of cauliflower puffs](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:dijzxwunbnhsu6nvsklegioe/bafkreici3lkqqevtbgaagai2czcipqvmnoa7sa4qsbbxuhiar6av66b2ju)
