Bulletin From The Mosh Pit

So-called “alternative” music magazines may glossify with age, but punk publishing’s profane, not-for-the-faint-of-heart sensibility sturdily defies mainstreaming--a tradition Razorcake intends to uphold.

Founded on a credo of having as much fun as possible, L.A.’s newest punk fanzine sold out its 2,000-copy March/April debut issue in three weeks by serving the kind of pungent editorial stew its constituency eats up: band interviews, left-field columns by people on society’s fringes and reviews of music you will never hear on MTV.

The bimonthly’s publishers, Todd Taylor and Sean Carswell, wouldn’t have it any other way. “Rolling Stone is supposed to be a music magazine but it puts models on its cover,” says Carswell, 30, an independent book publisher from Florida who moved to Los Angeles to launch Razorcake. “They take no risks.”

“We’re at the age where we should be jaded but we’re not,” adds Taylor, at 30 a veteran of long-lived L.A. punk fanzine Flipside.

Irreverence rules in Razorcake’s obscenity-laced newsprint pages, where punk standard-bearers win praise for refusing to sell material for commercial use and rocker Tommy Lee is grilled about the infamous sex video with Pamela Anderson (“Did you rent or buy that speedboat?”). It may just be a formula for publishing longevity. “The great thing about punk rock is it’s 25 years old,” Taylor says.