Speaking of Books with John Davis: Keep Your Ear to the Ground

In Keep Your Ear to the Ground, the archivist and musician John R. Davis unveils the development of punk fanzines and their role in supporting DC's hardcore and punk scene from the 1970s into the twenty-first century. He sheds new light on DC's scene and highlights some of its key personalities, including many who are often left out of punk history, with high-quality images of rare zines and insights from numerous interviews with zine creators and musicians. This book vividly weaves together the origin of zines and their importance in underground communities.

For punk enthusiasts, zine creators, American studies scholars, and anyone who has ever felt like an outsider, Keep Your Ear to the Ground traces how the unique environment of Washington, DC, helped zines thrive.

John R. Davis is the curator of Special Collections in Performing Arts in the University of Maryland's Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library. His articles and commentary appear in the Washington Post, NPR, MLA Notes, The Journal of Popular Culture, Punk & Post-Punk, and The Journal of Digital Media Management.