Making his case for nationwide 55 mph pace limits in the summertime of 1988, Senator Frank Lautenberg introduced out a well-worn freeway security slogan: “The statistics present that pace kills.” Lots of his colleagues, nonetheless working within the lengthy shadow of the sixties counterculture, might have located that grave warning in congressional testimony about flower-children in Haight warning one another off amphetamines: “Pace Kills!” And in case you wandered into the proper file retailer in Chicago within the early 90’s, you could have seen a music fanzine promising drag racing, file critiques, and extra: “SPEED KILLS.”
For the uninitiated: a music fanzine was a form of connective tissue. A neighborhood zine (pronounced “zeen”, like maga-zine) might inform you about latest reveals in your space, or current an interview with musicians who lived or labored close by. Many revealed critiques for lately launched music, with mailing addresses for impartial labels and distributors. All the things wasn’t analog, clearly. Usenet teams mentioned music way back to the 1980’s, and by the late 1990’s an mp3 might journey nicely sufficient on 56 kb/s for Napster to scare the RIAA. However to really get music into your arms, and to listen to it at its full texture, you possibly can 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. When you favored what you heard, and stored following that thread, huge ecosystems of D.I.Y. music opened as much as you.
Whereas some music fanzines took a caustic method, many emerged out of irrepressible enthusiasm for his or her scene or their topic. The extra current, instant, you possibly can make it for the reader, the extra they might seize onto and perceive why you like this factor a lot which you could’t maintain it again. That is the form of factor individuals say about automotive tradition: convey somebody with you to a race; convey them to a automotive present you’re obsessed with; convey them a memento no less than, to allow them to contact a bit of it. Join it someway to the issues that they’re already fascinated by. Make your enthusiasm tangible. Within the case of the fanzine, meaning kind and lower and glue your individual zine for print, and and use it inform anybody who will hear: “I like these items! These items will change yr life!”
Chicago music fanzine Pace Kills, edited by Scott Rutherford, made its explicit “stuff” clear when its first difficulty went to print in 1991. The hand-screened cowl reveals 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 Pace Kills #1 are normal fare, pulling from the catalogs of Sub Pop, Merge, Okay, SST, and Drag Metropolis, amongst others. Critiques for Nirvana, Pavement, Smog, and Superchunk run throughout Pace Kills’ newsprint pages, subsequent to straightforward indie label ad-buys (and, in slightly Pace Kills twist, classic adverts for auto elements.) It’s not all tonal, structured stuff: two Trance Syndicate releases are really useful within the “gtr. fuzz tape collage injury” of Ache Teenagers and the “unnervingly demonic” tape loops of Crust. However a curious reader skipping the remainder of the zine to test the critiques could have their eyes already in movement, previous Harriet Data’ Wimp Issue 14 and Chicago locals Wreck, into the subsequent 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 “considered one of 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 vehicles he drove within the sixties, he rattles off names and specs. What’s putting is the element stored 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 Pace Kills for the music critiques, who’s by no means thought twice about what’s beneath a automotive hood apart from the really useful upkeep intervals, that is all alien. However the events concerned speak about it with whole fluency, with out pausing to clarify. The curious reader flips to the music interviews for one thing grounding. What’s the cope with Fuel Huffer? Effectively, in bins all through their Q&A, you’ll discover fast, readable, mildly sarcastic directions on substitute the rear principal seal on a crankshaft.
This was the connective tissue that Pace Kills supplied: you’re already right here to see what the curious, artistic, bizarre individuals of the world can do after they get their arms on music; wait till you see what they’ll do with vehicles.
The obtained knowledge about subcultures is that this might by no means work. Absolutely, in case you like drag racing, you’re blasting “I Can’t Drive 55″ out of your automotive stereo, not reviewing data from the label that put out Double Nickels On The Dime. These are decades-old Varieties of Man locked in ideological fight. However there’s a helpful body for this in difficulty #6’s function on Sizzling Rods From Hell. Pace Kills correspondent Wealthy Dana describes the group’s function: “To hunt out new life in a racing type largely missed for the reason that massive bucks of corporate-sponsored humorous vehicles and prime fuelers eclipsed it within the early seventies.” HRFH organizer Scott Jezak concurs, and Dana quotes him as saying: “Humorous vehicles now are principally instruments to get down the observe… I like to look at them run, however drag racing in the present day lacks character and individuality.”
In 1994, John Pressure and capital-F capital-C Humorous Automobile could not have been NASCAR or F1, however for these drag lovers nearer to their pastime’s margins, every thing is relative. Is that this so completely 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 in order for you one thing tactile, one thing accessible, you must get decrease to the bottom.
In that very same spirit of the Sizzling Rods From Hell, in search of out the seen hand of the opposite human, Pace Kills faithfully devotes overview house 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 house is made for music that solely exists because the painstaking work of individuals with day jobs and tape recorders. Pace Kills usually options quick however glowing critiques for Fridge, brothers Dennis and Allen Callaci of Shrimper Data. Shrimper, finest generally known as the primary residence of prolific rockers the Mountain Goats, relies in Claremont, CA; ten miles from the previous NHRA headquarters, and thirty from Riverside Worldwide Raceway. A Pace Kills overview of a neighboring label’s cut up single calls for: “What the hell is occurring in Claremont?” What, certainly, was occurring simply north of the Pomona Raceway? Pace Kills gave up attempting to reply that on no less than one event. Sidestepping an precise overview of the hypnotic, churning rock of Shrimper alumni Halo, the SK overview part rambled as a substitute concerning the ‘68 Chevy Impala 4-door on their CD’s cowl.
All through its run, the employees of Pace Kills negotiated its two major sensations—pace 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 (mates of the journal), and that Kenny fixes the band’s tour van. When Pace Kills despatched out Challenge #5’s “Fave Automobile Survey” questionnaire, it drew responses not solely from John Pearley Huffman (previously of Automobile Craft), however from mischief-maker Nardwuar, Merge Data’ personal Laura Ballance, and Steve Albini. An interview with musician Eric Lunde will get unfastened midway by, and leaves music behind for an extended dialogue concerning the aesthetics of collision, and the sacredness of Determine 8 crashes.
In considered one of its strictly automotive options, Pace Kills opted for a unique 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 Pace Kills Historic Society!” in jest, however it will get fairly actually right down to nuts and bolts. You’ll be able to virtually hear the enjoyment, studying Norm Kraus’s solutions concerning the sorts of customized work they did for purchasers, making their vehicles 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 exams. He talks about how he ended up in racing, and slides into lengthy energetic anecdotes, dutifully transcribed and giving a sense of fixed simple movement. His sense of the place issues have been on the vehicles 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 clear and sharp. The “Mr. Norm” interview runs lengthy, cut up in half and pushed to the again of the sixth difficulty, to carry all of those particulars. The interview is unique work, beneficial work, and might’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 methods. 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 Pace Kills got here to me amongst these different enthusiasms, a sort gesture from a pal sending me analysis materials. Digging by the critiques, wandering again by the options, I obtained the gist of Pace Kills and set it apart to maintain sifting by all the fabric readily available. However I stored coming again to the sixth difficulty, which had initially been mailed out with a Superchunk single. I hadn’t heard of Pace Kills, however I puzzled if any of my Superchunk devotee mates had seen the identify, or had a replica.
The sixth difficulty of Pace Kills is simpler to seek out than the early points. Due to the Superchunk single, an merchandise with cheap 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 chance 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 review and luxuriate in, nicely past the bounds it may need in any other case.
And on the extent of sheer enthusiasm: I personally hadn’t given drag racing or sizzling 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 previous problems with Automobile Craft by the vintage retailer rows of Street & Observe. Scott Rutherford and the remainder of the crew who made Pace Kills poured their effort, their time, and their love for their very own area of interest of automotive tradition into the zine, and that reached me nonetheless in 2024. It introduced me alongside, and it instructed me the one factor I wanted to know: they liked these items. These items might change yr life.
