How did punk teach a generation to make its own records and magazines?

Punk taught a generation that you did not need a record company or much skill to make music and spread it. Punk bands, rooted in 1950s rock and roll and 1960s garage rock, rejected the overproduction and corporate nature of mainstream arena rock. Many embraced a DIY ethic, producing and distributing their own recordings through independent labels. John Holmstrom of Punk magazine described the music as "rock and roll by people who didn't have very many skills as musicians but still felt the need to express themselves through music".

The ideas had a visual form. In December 1976 an English fanzine, Sideburns, published a now-famous drawing of three chords captioned "This is a chord, this is another, this is a third. Now form a band". Fanzines were small, cheaply photocopied magazines, and most were printed in small quantities to promote a local scene. The first and best-known UK punk zine, Sniffin' Glue, was made by a Deptford fan, Mark Perry, who produced the first issue right after the Ramones' London debut.

Then came the record. The Buzzcocks had no record label support, so they borrowed about £750 from friends and families to pay for their EP, Spiral Scratch. It came out on their own label, New Hormones, making them the first English punk group to set up an independent label. The first 1,000 copies sold out, and the EP went on to sell 16,000, first by mail order. Many say that small DIY labels across the UK in 1977 took it as their inspiration. Punk's lesson was not the sound. It was the permission.