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...

[image from 1,2,3]

XIPHOID PROCESS

XIPHOID PROCESS
What: Fanzine
Where: Austin, Texas
When: 1979-82?
Who: John Slate

Xiphoid Process was a punk / new wave fanzine out of Austin, Texas, among Ground Zero, Sluggo, Contempo Culture and others. It was published by John Slate, known also as Control Rat X. The guy later played the JFK assassination expert on one of my favourite movie: Slacker (1991 Richard Linklater). The zine featured music reviews, art, games and interviews.
This attitudes for jokes and games lead him to create the Bodily Funktions a conceptual band that never played a show, advertising them with flyers organizing meetings in the parking lot of the legendary punk/new wave club Raul's.

"John Slate, using the colorful moniker Control Rat X, began producing handbills in 1980, including a series for his nonexistent "poster band" Bodily Funktions. Though his work occasionally lured small groups of confused Bodily Funktions fans to Raul's parking lot, he is best known for the punkish periodical, Xiphoid Process, which he published from '79 to '82." [from Postering in Austin Texas by Nels Jacobson]

 

 

He realized the artwork for the Reactors "It's Not Important / Cold Eyes" (7'' 1980) single on Stress Records. Two great sloppy art-punk songs from this Austin band formed by Mike Runnels (vocals, guitar), Steve Estes (bass) and Karl Schultz (drums).

 

Xiphoid Process No. 4 (1980)

8 1/2 x 11". 8 pages

Black and white photocopy with hand-colors. Inside collage....

 

Collage by Tim in Xiphoid Process, November 31,1980

Xiphoid Process No. 8 (1982)

Inside interview with Saccharine Trust, Top ten, Games and puzzles.

Xiphoid Process No. 15 (1983)

Inside article on Trouble Funk, Big Boys and three full pages of Bill Barminski comics..

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TEXAS FANZINE

TEXAS FANZINE:

"Robin has put out sixteen issues if her contribution, called New Musical Excess, and there are at least a dozen other publications in Texas - and hundres around the country- in various shapes, sizes, and degrees of dormancy or vitality. In Fort Worth, King Vitaman, who doubles as drummer for a band called the Hugh Beaumont Experience, puts out Throbbing Cattle. Dallas has Steel Press. Austin has had such stellar efforts as Chattering Pest, Western Round-up, Duck Butter, the Austin American Stainsman, Plan 9, and, peraphs my favorite, Xyphoid Process, which is put out by a really sweet kid named Control Rat X. Houston's finer examples have included Hymnal and Wild Dog. San Antonio has Alamo Rag, and a University of Texas at Arlington student named Murry Hammond puts out AKA. The smallest known center of punk culture is the tiny Wise County town of Boyd, outside Fort Worth, where Darryl Smyers puts out Small...But Effective.
They're all known as fanzines, or just plain 'zines for short. Most are photocopied, appear irregularly, and are printed up whenever the publisher has enough money. At their most basic, they're about nothing but music: Western Roundup devoted an entire page to listing 106 Austin bands, including such immortals as God on Toxic Drugs, Jerryskids, Young Bankers, and Kamikaze Refrigerators. Hymnal, a dark, jumbled gaggle of type and pictures that's a perfect analogue to a long night of punk debauchery, gives off the most insistent feeling that the world could end at any minute. And I don't even want to know the story behind Strange VD, a horror that makes the others (well, maybe not Hymnal) look like Modern Bride. But the more ambitious ones, such as Xiphoid Process (named after a bone in your chest that serves no purpose whatsoever) or Throbbing Cattle (which bills itself as "Culture for Mammals"), have something to offer in the way of off-the-wall social commentary or punk philosophy. Xiphoid Process is probably the funniest, and it has the most ecumenical musical tastes."
(from the article "Invasion of the Zines" appeared on the nov. 1982 issues of Texas Monthly here)