Four years ago Scott Rutherford decided to combine his two main interests–cars and music–to create the fanzine Speed Kills. But far from being a testosterone-charged muscle magazine, Speed Kills is a literate and visually stimulating look at the finer points of rock music, auto design, and racing.
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“The magazine is almost like my mirror, a reflection of what I enjoy and what I like,” Rutherford says. He likes the music of seminal 70s krautrockers Neu! and early Tubeway Army and says he favors garage rock, dance music, punk, and “dronier stuff,” like Flying Saucer Attack, a British band included on the ten-inch record that comes with issue number seven. There’s also a lengthy interview with the band inside the zine.
Past issues included a profile of 70s drag racer Kenny Cook and an interview with MCA of the Beastie Boys. The current issue (number seven, the “Art and Science Special”) has a ten-inch vinyl record with songs by four artists, including Portastatic and Back Off Cupids. There’s also an engaging story on the career of Virgil M. Exner–an auto designer best known for the “forward look” of sleek Chrysler sedans from the 1950s–and an essay on the influence of Italian futurism on punk rock. The front of the zine is crammed with letters; one, by a Dallas woman, relates the demise of her ’72 Malibu.
