Phil Howitt Collection

This collection contains the complete run of Facelift a music fanzine that ran for 19 issues from 1989 to 1998.

Facelift, or as was latterly known, Facelift, The Canterbury Scene And Beyond was first published in 1989 by Phill Howitt on a xerox machine.  Phill was inspired by Pete Frames rock family tree which made the author aware of how prolific the music scene from the Canterbury area was in the late 1960’s, and how deserving the topic was of more attention than it garnered from mainstream music media such as NME and Melody Maker.   By the second issue production became more professional and it had moved from being printed on Xerox to being published by Opel Press, later it would move to the Juma Press. 

The fanzine concerned itself primarily with the progressive rock music/jazz fusion scene of the 1960’s and 70’s that centred on Canterbury, Kent. It contained articles about, and interviews from bands and artists such as Caravan, Bill Bruford and  Soft Machine, as well as family trees charting the fluid movement of musicians between groups.

The final issue was published in 1998 however as other projects took precedence for Phill Howitt, however in 2006 a final 20th issue was released online as a digital issue. This collection of Facelift fanzines was donated to the Arts, Design and Media Archive in 2023 by Phil Howitt.