Slampt, the ‘fans’ and ephemerality: Punk, subject and object

Abstract

Slampt Underground Organisation was conceived in 1992 by Rachel Holborow and Pete Dale, issuing music, fanzines and ephemera from then until 2000. Perceived as a record label, Slampt sold tens of thousands of units and seems to have had a significant impact on particular individuals who might or might not be best described as ‘fans’. This article uses the author’s archives and reflections to collate detail, much of it not publically available before, about a label/distributor/organization, which has already been a point of interest to several researchers and journalists but which is nonetheless unknown to most, even in punk-related music scenes, in the present century. The author, as one half of Slampt’s de facto leading partnership, reveals that this status as a largely forgotten arm of 1990s UK punk is not entirely accidental: Dale and Holborow actively believed in ephemerality as an ideal, particularly in punk. Using this case as a starting point, the article asks whether punk really ought to be as fixated on documenting its past, finding its place in museums/galleries and gaining recognition in rock history. Is punk about collectible objects, about a particular mode of subjectivity or, perhaps, about a phenomenological combination of the two? The irony of the author writing the article at this time is acknowledged: Slampt is being written back in to punk history, even if only in the margins, through the act of publishing this piece. Nonetheless, the article is based around the assumption that the present and the future will always be more important than the past.