Making his case for nationwide 55 mph velocity limits in the summertime of 1988, Senator Frank Lautenberg introduced out a well-worn freeway security slogan: “The statistics present that velocity kills.” A lot of his colleagues, nonetheless working within the lengthy shadow of the sixties counterculture, may have located that grave warning in congressional testimony about flower-children in Haight warning one another off amphetamines: “Velocity Kills!” And should you wandered into the fitting report retailer in Chicago within the early 90’s, you will have seen a music fanzine promising drag racing, report critiques, and extra: “SPEED KILLS.”
For the uninitiated: a music fanzine was a form of connective tissue. An area zine (pronounced “zeen”, like maga-zine) may inform you about current exhibits in your space, or current an interview with musicians who lived or labored close by. Many printed critiques for not too long ago launched music, with mailing addresses for impartial labels and distributors. Every little thing wasn’t analog, clearly. Usenet teams mentioned music way back to the 1980’s, and by the late 1990’s an mp3 may journey effectively sufficient on 56 kb/s for Napster to scare the RIAA. However to really get music into your fingers, and to listen to it at its full texture, you could possibly fastidiously copy an indie label’s mailing tackle out of a fanzine, stuff a couple of dollars into an envelope, and wait by the mailbox. For those who preferred what you heard, and saved following that thread, large ecosystems of D.I.Y. music opened as much as you.
Whereas some music fanzines took a caustic strategy, many emerged out of irrepressible enthusiasm for his or her scene or their topic. The extra current, speedy, you could possibly make it for the reader, the extra they might seize onto and perceive why you’re keen on this factor a lot that you would be able to’t maintain it again. That is the form of factor folks say about automobile tradition: convey somebody with you to a race; convey them to a automobile present you’re keen about; convey them a memento a minimum of, to allow them to contact a bit of it. Join it by some means to the issues that they’re already fascinated about. Make your enthusiasm tangible. Within the case of the fanzine, which means kind and minimize and glue your personal zine for print, and and use it inform anybody who will pay attention: “I like these items! These things will change yr life!”
Chicago music fanzine Velocity Kills, edited by Scott Rutherford, made its explicit “stuff” clear when its first difficulty went to print in 1991. The hand-screened cowl exhibits a cartoon skeleton in a dragster, and guarantees two interviews (Seaweed and Fuel Huffer) plus “DRAG RACING! 60’S STYLE,” and “LOTSA REVIEWS!” to determine itself as a music zine.
The music critiques in Velocity Kills #1 are customary fare, pulling from the catalogs of Sub Pop, Merge, Okay, SST, and Drag Metropolis, amongst others. Opinions for Nirvana, Pavement, Smog, and Superchunk run throughout Velocity Kills’ newsprint pages, subsequent to straightforward indie label ad-buys (and, in slightly Velocity Kills twist, classic advertisements for auto elements.) It’s not all tonal, structured stuff: two Trance Syndicate releases are beneficial within the “gtr. fuzz tape collage harm” of Ache Teenagers and the “unnervingly demonic” tape loops of Crust. However a curious reader skipping the remainder of the zine to verify the critiques may have their eyes already in movement, previous Harriet Data’ Wimp Issue 14 and Chicago locals Wreck, into the following web page. And throughout the web page gutters from the final critiques, continued from web page 21, is an interview speaking about Ford and oil springs as a substitute. Flipping again to web page 21, we discover the promised function on drag racing.
The interview is with Larry Ammons, launched right here as “one in all Cleveland’s native legends!” Rutherford prompts and follows alongside, as Ammons talks about avenue racing in Cleveland, driving to Livonia to ask Ford engineers questions, and the Detroit Autorama. He tells anecdotes and talks concerning the automobiles he drove within the sixties, he rattles off names and specs. What’s placing is the element saved within the interview. In getting ready it for print, Rutherford left the small print in: as Ammons discusses the improvements he put into his Boss 429, he talks about journals, bearing floor, a mannequin of carburetor. For somebody choosing up Velocity Kills for the music critiques, who’s by no means thought twice about what’s underneath a automobile hood moreover the beneficial upkeep intervals, that is all alien. However the events concerned speak about it with complete fluency, with out pausing to elucidate. The curious reader flips to the music interviews for one thing grounding. What’s the take care of Fuel Huffer? Nicely, in bins all through their Q&A, you’ll discover fast, readable, mildly sarcastic directions on the best way to exchange the rear most important seal on a crankshaft.
This was the connective tissue that Velocity Kills supplied: you’re already right here to see what the curious, artistic, bizarre folks of the world can do once they get their fingers on music; wait till you see what they’ll do with automobiles.
The obtained knowledge about subcultures is that this might by no means work. Absolutely, should you like drag racing, you’re blasting “I Can’t Drive 55″ out of your automobile stereo, not reviewing data from the label that put out Double Nickels On The Dime. These are decades-old Sorts of Man locked in ideological fight. However there’s a helpful body for this in difficulty #6’s function on Scorching Rods From Hell. Velocity Kills correspondent Wealthy Dana describes the group’s function: “To hunt out new life in a racing type principally ignored because the massive bucks of corporate-sponsored humorous automobiles and high fuelers eclipsed it within the early seventies.” HRFH organizer Scott Jezak concurs, and Dana quotes him as saying: “Humorous automobiles now are mainly instruments to get down the monitor… I like to look at them run, however drag racing as we speak lacks character and individuality.”
In 1994, John Power and capital-F capital-C Humorous Automotive could not have been NASCAR or F1, however for these drag fans nearer to their interest’s margins, every part is relative. Is that this so totally different from how D.I.Y. labels hand-dubbing cassettes checked out Sub Pop, even earlier than their Warner takeover? Sub Pop nonetheless oversaw nice data after 1995; you continue to love to look at Humorous Automobiles run. However if you need one thing tactile, one thing accessible, it’s important to get decrease to the bottom.
In that very same spirit of the Scorching Rods From Hell, searching for out the seen hand of the opposite human, Velocity Kills faithfully devotes evaluation area to small labels. This isn’t to say that its top-fuel model ever lets up for lengthy. The attention catches on bands with automotive-themed names amongst critiques: Cheater Slicks, Fastbacks, Alcohol Funnycar, Voodoo Gearshift, Crain. However area is made for music that solely exists because the painstaking work of individuals with day jobs and tape recorders. Velocity Kills typically options brief however glowing critiques for Fridge, brothers Dennis and Allen Callaci of Shrimper Data. Shrimper, greatest generally known as the primary dwelling of prolific rockers the Mountain Goats, relies in Claremont, CA; ten miles from the outdated NHRA headquarters, and thirty from Riverside Worldwide Raceway. A Velocity Kills evaluation of a neighboring label’s break up single calls for: “What the hell is occurring in Claremont?” What, certainly, was occurring simply north of the Pomona Raceway? Velocity Kills gave up attempting to reply that on a minimum of one event. Sidestepping an precise evaluation of the hypnotic, churning rock of Shrimper alumni Halo, the SK evaluation part rambled as a substitute concerning the ‘68 Chevy Impala 4-door on their CD’s cowl.
All through its run, the workers of Velocity Kills negotiated its two main sensations—velocity and sound—this manner, one turning into the opposite. An interview with 1978 NHRA Champion Kenny Prepare dinner reveals mid-way that Prepare dinner’s brother Jon performs guitar with Louisville rock band Crain (buddies of the journal), and that Kenny fixes the band’s tour van. When Velocity Kills despatched out Concern #5’s “Fave Automotive Survey” questionnaire, it drew responses not solely from John Pearley Huffman (previously of Automotive Craft), however from mischief-maker Nardwuar, Merge Data’ personal Laura Ballance, and Steve Albini. An interview with musician Eric Lunde will get free midway by way of, and leaves music behind for an extended dialogue concerning the aesthetics of collision, and the sacredness of Determine 8 crashes.
In one in all its strictly automotive options, Velocity Kills opted for a special form of zine scene report throughout its run: interviewing Chicago’s personal Norm “Mr. Norm” Kraus, legend of Grand-Spaulding Dodge and drag racing innovator, at size. The interview is launched “delivered to you by the Velocity Kills Historic Society!” in jest, but it surely will get fairly actually all the way down to nuts and bolts. You possibly can nearly hear the enjoyment, studying Norm Kraus’s solutions concerning the sorts of customized work they did for patrons, making their automobiles sooner: “We came upon that the 383 bearings labored higher than the Hemi bearings!” Requested about efficiency and weight, he goes on at size concerning the ‘67 Dart, concerning the manifold being too near the steering coupling in early assessments. He talks about how he ended up in racing, and slides into lengthy energetic anecdotes, dutifully transcribed and giving a sense of fixed straightforward movement. His sense of the place issues had been on the automobiles and the way every half he altered would make issues sooner, who he labored with and the place he was, his tactile feeling, all comes by way of clear and sharp. The “Mr. Norm” interview runs lengthy, break up in half and pushed to the again of the sixth difficulty, to carry all of those particulars. The interview is unique work, priceless work, and may’t be replicated or re-done. Norm Kraus handed away in 2021.
Final summer season I used to be mailed a heavy cardboard field. Inside was a stack of music fanzines, scattered points, all from roughly the identical early 90’s interval and with some attention-grabbing niches. The Tim Alborn/Harriet Data zine Incite! interviewed librarian-musicians in its twenty eighth difficulty, asking whether or not they most popular Dewey Decimal or Library of Congress programs. One other zine, Escargot (eds. Jeanne McKinney, Kathleen Billus, and Windy Chien) had detailed details about getting on-line in 1995, from choosing an ISP to netiquette to UNIX instructions. Points #5, #6, and #7 of Velocity Kills got here to me amongst these different enthusiasms, a sort gesture from a good friend sending me analysis materials. Digging by way of the critiques, wandering again by way of the options, I acquired the gist of Velocity Kills and set it apart to maintain sifting by way of all the fabric available. However I saved coming again to the sixth difficulty, which had initially been mailed out with a Superchunk single. I hadn’t heard of Velocity Kills, however I puzzled if any of my Superchunk devotee buddies had seen the identify, or had a duplicate.
The sixth difficulty of Velocity Kills is simpler to search out than the early points. Due to the Superchunk single, an merchandise with affordable demand and worth for collectors, copies of difficulty #6 usually tend to have been purchased, bagged, saved, listed, together with the 7″. There’s a really actual risk that the interview with Norm Kraus, in all its nice vitality, all its element, will survive for a drag racing fanatic additional down the road to check and revel in, effectively past the bounds it might need in any other case.
And on the extent of sheer enthusiasm: I actually hadn’t given drag racing or scorching rodding a lot thought, earlier than digging into these. Now my ears perk up once I hear information concerning the NHRA, or once I see outdated problems with Automotive Craft by the vintage retailer rows of Street & Monitor. Scott Rutherford and the remainder of the staff who made Velocity Kills poured their effort, their time, and their love for their very own area of interest of automobile tradition into the zine, and that reached me nonetheless in 2024. It introduced me alongside, and it advised me the one factor I wanted to know: they liked these items. These things may change yr life.
