Punk. (Zine Thing).

Awright, it's been 25 years since PUNK 'zine first hit the streets of NYC and elsewhere. The Ramones, Blondie, The Dead Boys, The Dictators and countless others got some of their earliest press in the pages of PUNK; and it helped define a movement. Like all good things, however; it met its demise only to reappear years later. The hype around the revival of PUNK 'zine has been circulating for months, but now it's on the newsstand. And the verdict is ... mixed. Honestly, it's got some cool stuff in there, especially the comics, the Niagara interview, the Richard Hell Japan story, and some of the random shit, but some of it seems questionable. A lot of it has to do with people who were around for the original punk, perhaps at the cost of some more relevant (read: current) stuff. Some of it is just bad (Wrestling? A Simpson's survey? And to top it all off, a High Times-style top 99 list, minus the hippy shit? C'mon!). Still, what's good is good, and if you can get past the "back-in-the-day" stuff--called "droppin ' years" by the way, sort of like how people drop names for points--it's a worthy read. Time will tell if the subsequent issues step up or step back. Send $5 to PUNK, PMB 675, 200 E 10th St, New York, NY 10003.