Keith Busch Northeast Ohio punk collection

The Keith Busch Northeast Ohio Punk Archive documents the graphic and musical activities of zine-maker, designer, and musician Keith Busch, dating from 1979 to 1990. It contains approximately 300 unique sheets of original collage and mockup for zines, flyers, and posters; 19 complete zines; 82 Xerox flyers and mockup sheets; three original collage artworks; and 49 cassette tapes of music by Ragged Bags, live recordings of local shows, mix tapes, and other home recordings. The materials provide rich context for understanding the oppositional cultural community of the 1980s Ohio punk scene, with a specific focus on its graphic production and printed matter. It includes Busch’s zines Le Canard Sauvage (Trout Gazette), Ragged Bags ’83 Bag It Tour, Our Navy is Small, and Death, among others, as well as original collage artworks and maquettes showing various stages of editing, Xeroxing, and layout. Flyers designed by Busch document performances by Ragged Bags, The Tormentors, The Offbeats, Scared Guns, the Tokays, Death of Samantha, and others at venues such as JB’s in Kent and The Bank in Akron. Busch also created annual collaged calendars and promotional materials for Kent record store Spindizzy. The collection examines the intersection of independent publishing, music performance, and visual design in regional punk subcultures. It situates Busch’s work within the broader lineage of Northeastern Ohio’s proto-punk and art movements. Materials outside of Busch’s creative output, such as correspondence, personal papers, or documentation of other Ohio punk figures, are not present in the collection.