Howard Wuelfing is a writer, musician, zinester and publicist involved in the USA and even international music underground based primarily on the East Coast. He has been involved in bands like The Nurses, The Slickee Boy and Underhaven and recently released a seven inch with legendary recording engineer and musician Don Zientara. During his long career Wuelfing has written for Washington Post, Creem, Spin, Your Flesh, Forced Exposure, Boston Rock, The ob and The Village Voice. As a publicist he was involved with Columbia Records and JEM Records as well as his own Howlin’ Wuelf Media. His work also appeared in the first volume of Where the Wild Gigs Were. Wuelfing has helped to promote numerous bands across decades and his reach is wider than would ever be obvious. In 2025 DiWulf Publishing run by Wuelfing’s wife Amy Yates Wuelfing and Steven DiLodovico (who put out the great No Slam Dancing, No Stage Diving, No Spikes: An Oral History of the Legendary City Gardens published in 2014) released Descenes and Discords: An Anthology. The large format book collects the entire run of Howard Wuelfing’s late 1970s and early 1980s zines Descenes and Discords. Descenes shined a light on D.C.’s punk and post-punk community and Discords took up a more national range of coverage. The book is filled with full facsimilies preserving its old school layout and Xeroxed aesthetic. The volume includes new commentary from Wuelfing as well as a conversation between the author and Ian MacKaye whom we all know from his work in Minor Threat, Fugazi and other projects as well as a forward by D.C.-based cultural critic Mark Jenkins to establish the historical context for readers. It is an important document for a time, a milieu and a subculture that has helped shape American culture to this day.
Listen to our interview with Howard Wuelfing on Bandcamp and order a copy of Descenes and Discords: An Anthology here.
Queen City Sounds and Art 
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