I love zines, and I love miniatures—this book falls into both categories. The Raincoats Booklet is 10.5cm x 7cm miniature zine made with faded emerald green wraps. It’s one of my favorite pieces.
I have what has somehow become an incredibly large collection of post-punk books, vinyl, and ephemera, and I had been looking for a copy of this booklet for ages. I knew it existed, and I’d seen photos of it, but I had never held one. As a result, I didn’t realize how tiny it was until I actually found one for sale. I bought it at an auction, and I was honestly prepared to pay quite a lot of money for it. When I saw it, my heart skipped a beat. I love the Raincoats—their music, of course, but also everything the band represents to me. The idea that women can be musicians, artists, poets, and songwriters just by doing it. Fuck the sexist naysayers! Ana da Silva and Gina Birch formed the band in 1977 in London, and they continue to make amazing music and art.
So back to this tiny booklet. Inside, eight pieces of paper, sized about 14cm x 10.5cm, are stapled in the middle to make a sixteen-page zine (or thirty-two pages front-and-back). The front cover has the cost of the booklet in Ana da Silva’s handwriting: 20p. Inside, the reader learns that the book was “designed and written by: Ana” and that it was available for purchase at Rough Trade in London, located at 137 Blenheim Crescent. Rough Trade was, of course, the Raincoats’ label and one of the best-known British labels of the late 1970s and 1980s. Their self-titled album, The Raincoats, was released on Rough Trade in 1979. The booklet is from 1981, and it accompanied the release of the band’s second album, Odyshape, also on Rough Trade. Like the best zines, it has photocopied pages of handwritten lyrics, drawings by Ana and Gina, photographs of the band, and typewriter-printed details about their music.
To me, The Raincoats Booklet is the first Riot Grrrl zine of sorts. If you know anything about Riot Grrrl, you already know this booklet was printed about a decade before any of the Riot Grrrl bands came on the scene. Of course the Riot Grrrl zines were revolutionary (if you don’t know about them, please look them up!), but it’s hard for me to imagine bands like Bikini Kill without the Raincoats. And, in my mind, it’s hard to imagine the Riot Grrrl zines without material objects like The Raincoats Booklet. It’s seemingly diminutive in size, sure, but everything inside it is SO LOUD! Every time I look through its tiny pages, I hear the sounds of songs like “Fairytale in the Supermarket,” “Shouting Out Loud,” and “Dancing in My Head.” It’s a printed object, but it’s also a synesthetic pathway to the groundbreaking (and still incredible) sounds of the Raincoats.
by Audrey J Golden