Every time I get to go to Printed Matter, I feel like I’m in a different world: the world of fanzines, self publishing and DIY culture where casual to crazy ideas are born through paper pages. At the ”Destroy All The Monsters” exhibition, it felt like all the zine-making, weird picture taking and music playing punks united over a bottle or two and splashed the walls of the shop full of DIY art. 

As the name suggests, there were some Godzilla posters and an amazing banner of a bull mutant with a snake’s mouth. But aside from all the monster-related pieces, on the walls you could meet Nancy Spungen-esque ladies with knife wounds, stereotypical 70′s photoshoots, band memorabilia, flyers, collages, movie posters, old cut outs of Iggy Pop, Andy Warhol posters, a see-through LP and whole load of fanzines.

Turns out, “Destroy All Monsters” was a band in the 70s created by a foursome of artists in Michigan. They never recorded a full-length album, but were joined by the Stooges and MC5 at certain periods of the band’s lifetime, and Thurston Moore put together a compilation of the group’s music in the 90′s. “Destroy All Monsters” also released some video work, as one of the band’s members was a filmmaker, and always made fanzines. If famous names and punk history doesn’t excite, it is still worth going for a look around the exhibition — the chaotic, colorful walls scream of revolt and underground.

It inspires you to go through your own scrap books, make records with friends and publish your own magazine. Complete anti-pretentiousness: you like, you make. It’s also a great chance to pick DAM artists’ minds and to see where their inspiration to play on vacuum cleaner came from.