XLR8

XLR8
What: Fanzine
Where: Houston, Texas
When: 1980?
Who: Kathy Jolly

XLR8 was a great fanzine coming from Houston, Texas, focused mainly on the local punk/wave scene. With articles and interviews with the female post-punk band MyDolls, the synth-punk Culturcide and the artsy punk Big Boys and a wonderful graphics, XLR8 its an excellent depiction of the brilliant scene out of Texas.

Here's Kathy talking about the fanzine (video) "[...] back when this whole thing started I was living in southwest Houston. I used to have to tune my band to get little snatches of this really wonderful program that used to appear and I started taping it - it was the S+M program, that time it was the M+M program and I was going: "this is really great! this is music I don't hate!" [...] I'm thinking about how inspirational this station has been for me and for the magazine basically it was a kind of an impulse thing, none of us knew what the hell we were doing and it was great, this station kinda of tell me the right words to go with the music it was the same kind of spirit and I really enjoyed hell of a lot of it listening to Gang of Four, X-Ray Spex, The Hates, Really Red and all that stuff that was coming out and very poorly received by the radio station. We used to play at work whilst we start the magazine and it led to experiences such as being snobbed by Lydia Lunch at one of her show to an impromptu recipe for margaritas developed by Gang of Four which included Sloe Gin which was dumped over the floor and spit, I was almost runned over by the Urban Animals and almost arrested a few times It's been really great so [...]"

XLR8 Vol. 1 No. 3 (jul. 1980)
Inside Joe King Carrasco, interviews with Big Boys, The Judys, plus reviews, interviews, fashion...

 

XLR8 Vol. 1 No. 5 (sept. 1980)
Inside article about Really Red, Devo, 8 Eyed Spy, The Cramps, Red Crayola, Culturcide, Street skating and more...

XLR8 Vol. 1 No. 7 (nov. 1980)
24 pages
Ultravox live review and interview, live reviews with pictures of Big Boys, DNA, B-52s, Judys, F-Systems, Mo-dettes, record reviews include the F-Systems, Mechanical Servants for which there is also an ad...

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