Trouser Press was a
rock and rollRock and roll is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States after World War II in the late 1940s, from a combination of the rhythms of the blues, from the African American culture, and from America's country music and gospel music scenes...
magazineMagazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles, generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed
fanzineA fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
by
editorEditing is the process of selecting and preparing language, images, sound, video, or film through processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications in various media...
/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow
WhoThe Who are an English rock band formed in 1964. The primary lineup consisted of guitarist Pete Townshend, vocalist Roger Daltrey, bassist John Entwistle, and drummer Keith Moon. They became known for energetic live performances including the pioneering spectacle of instrument destruction...
fan Dave Schulps and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" (a reference to a song by the
Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah BandThe Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band are a band created by a group of British art-school denizens of the 1960s...
and an acronymic play on the
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
rock TV show
Top of the PopsTop of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. It was traditionally shown every Thursday evening on BBC1, before being moved to Fridays in 1996, and then moved to Sundays on BBC...
). Its original scope was British
bandsIn music, a musical ensemble or band is a group of musicians that works together to perform songs. The following articles concern types of musical bands:* Big band* Boy band* Christian band* Church band* Concert band* Cover band* Dansband* Fife and drum...
and artists (early issues featured the slogan "America's Only British Rock Magazine").
Trouser Press was a
rock and rollRock and roll is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States after World War II in the late 1940s, from a combination of the rhythms of the blues, from the African American culture, and from America's country music and gospel music scenes...
magazineMagazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles, generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...
started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed
fanzineA fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
by
editorEditing is the process of selecting and preparing language, images, sound, video, or film through processes of correction, condensation, organization, and other modifications in various media...
/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow
WhoThe Who are an English rock band formed in 1964. The primary lineup consisted of guitarist Pete Townshend, vocalist Roger Daltrey, bassist John Entwistle, and drummer Keith Moon. They became known for energetic live performances including the pioneering spectacle of instrument destruction...
fan Dave Schulps and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" (a reference to a song by the
Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah BandThe Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band are a band created by a group of British art-school denizens of the 1960s...
and an acronymic play on the
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
rock TV show
Top of the PopsTop of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. It was traditionally shown every Thursday evening on BBC1, before being moved to Fridays in 1996, and then moved to Sundays on BBC...
). Its original scope was British
bandsIn music, a musical ensemble or band is a group of musicians that works together to perform songs. The following articles concern types of musical bands:* Big band* Boy band* Christian band* Church band* Concert band* Cover band* Dansband* Fife and drum...
and artists (early issues featured the slogan "America's Only British Rock Magazine"). Initial issues contained occasional interviews with major artists like
Brian EnoBrian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as simply Brian Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, music theorist and singer, who, as a solo artist, is best known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at art school, taking...
and
Robert FrippRobert Fripp is a guitarist, composer and a record producer best known for being the guitarist for, and only constant member of, the progressive rock band King Crimson. His work, spanning five decades, encompasses a variety of musical styles...
and extensive record reviews. After fourteen issues, the title was shortened to simply
Trouser Press, and it gradually transformed into a full fledged professional-level magazine with color covers and advertising.
As the 70's music scene transformed, so did the magazine's editorial focus. From 1976 on,
Trouser Press frequently centered on the growing
punkPunk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed the perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
movements in both
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
and
New YorkNew York is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States and is the nation's third most populous. The state is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
. The magazine provided in-depth articles on bands like the
Sex PistolsThe Sex Pistols are an English punk rock band that formed in London in 1975. They are responsible for initiating the punk movement in the United Kingdom and inspiring many later punk and alternative rock musicians...
,
The Boomtown RatsThe Boomtown Rats were an Irish rock band, that scored a series of UK hits between 1977 and 1980, and were led by vocalist Bob Geldof, who organized the Ethiopian relief efforts, Band Aid and Live Aid....
,
The ClashThe Clash were an English rock band that formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk rock. Along with punk, they experimented with reggae, ska, dub, funk, rap and rockabilly...
, The Damned, the
RamonesThe Ramones were an American rock band often regarded as the first punk rock group. Formed in Forest Hills, Queens, New York in 1974, all of the band members adopted pseudonyms ending with the surname 'Ramone', though none of them were actually related. They performed 2,263 concerts, touring...
,
TelevisionTelevision is an American rock band, formed in New York City in 1973. Although Television have never had more than a cult audience in their American homeland, they have achieved significant commercial success in Europe...
, and many other similar groups, long before other U.S. music publications did. In 1980, the magazine introduced "America Underground", a recurring column devoted to local music scenes from different areas of the country. By the early 80's, the magazine's focus was almost exclusively on
new waveNew Wave is a genre of rock and pop music that emerged in in the middle to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, and...
,
alternative rockAlternative rock is a genre of rock music that emerged in the 1980s and became widely popular in the 1990s...
, and underground rock from both sides of the Atlantic. Starting in 1982, flexi-discs were included with every issue to
subscriberCustomers, whether paying or not, who provide an organization with their contact information in order to receive something of value in return. Can be applied to both online and offline permission-based communication channels, as in a magazine subscription or email marketing...
s only, many of which have since become collector's items. Although the magazine seemed to be thriving with an ever growing circulation, editor Robbins ceased publication after the April 1984 issue (#96), citing a lack of interest in the continuing but stagnating new wave scene that left his writers with very little left to say.
As a concept,
Trouser Press continued to evolve after the death of the magazine. In 1983,
The Trouser Press Guide to New Wave Records, edited by Robbins, was published by
Charles Scribner's SonsCharles Scribner's Sons is a New York City publisher that is best known for publishing a number of luminaries of American literature including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Kurt Vonnegut, Robert A. Heinlein, Thomas Wolfe, George Santayana and John Clellon Holmes.The firm published...
. The book was sufficiently popular for four more substantially updated editions, with varying titles and publishers, to be issued over the years, culminating in 1997's
The Trouser Press Guide To 90's Rock. This final edition features all-new entries on over 2,000 bands and reviews of approximately 8,500 records and CDs, and is generally considered to be the definitive critical overview of the 90's alternative music scene. The contents of all five volumes are currently available on the
Trouser Press website, which is frequently updated with entries on new bands, as well as revisions/expansions of old articles, by Robbins and his stable of writers. TrouserPress.com went online in August 2002, and has now expanded to more than 3000 entries.