Kicks #6 (New York City)

It took about a year for Miriam Linna and Billy Miller to put together the average issue of Kicks, but as shown by #6, it was always well worth the wait. The cover feature is a lengthy story on Bobby Fuller, including an extensive discography; other articles include pieces on Sonny Burgess, Chicago garage bands, movie "star" Arch Hall Jr. (Wild Guitar), Ronnie Dawson, Elroy Dietzel and the Rockin' R's from Peoria, Illinois. Issue #6 also includes a Drew Friedman cartoon, zine reviews and the usual album reviews. With this issue, Kicks also jumped up in price to $4.50 per issue but they also checked in at a healthy 104-pages with a cool color cover. Given the range of early rock music that Kicks explored with every issue (a field they had almost entirely to themselves), one wishes that they could have put out issues more frequently.

To be entirely fair, however, Linna and Miller had their hands full during the mid-to-late-80s. Aside from Kicks, they also published a zine called Bad Seed, which I unfortunately never got a chance to see. They had also launched Norton Records and over the following 20 years would release seminal recorded works from great rockers like Hasil Adkins, Roy Loney, the Flamin' Groovies, the Sonics, Link Wray, the Dictators and many more. They're still going strong today with Norton, and aside from CDs and vinyl, they also sell books and zines. They also still have a limited number of copies of Kicks issues #6 and #7 available for sale through their online store. Because the subject matter is timeless and obviously well-researched as a labor of love, Kicks is a zine that is well worth the investment to find and add to your collection.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #6
• 1988, no month given
• B&W with Color cover, 104-pages (including covers)
• Style: music zine

ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS
Bobby Fuller
Sonny Burgess
Ronnie Dawson
Arch Hall Jr.
The Swags
The Rockin' R's
The Rumblers
Sparkle Moore
--> also album reviews, reader mail, book & zine reviews, lots of smaller articles

Kicks #5 (New York City)

A year after discovering Kicks at the Nashville Tower Records, issue #5 popped up and soon ended up in my greedy little hands. Linna and Miller had obviously found an appreciative niche audience and the zine grew by a third to a whopping 100-pages. The subject matter did not suffer from the growth in size and popularity of the zine, and if you'll forgive the pun, this issue kicks ass!

Kicks #5 kicks off with an exhaustive eight-page article on Hasil Adkins, who by this time was also a Norton Records recording artist. The piece includes a page with pictures of the labels of Adkins' self-released 45s, a very cool visual addition to the artist's discography at the end of the article. Other articles in this issue include a piece on the Rivieras, Joe Clay, the Pyramids, rockabilly legend Dale Hawkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and a cool "bull session" with Ed "Big Daddy" Roth. There's also a one-page "Hollywood Hell" cartoon by noted artist Drew Friedman, titled "Ugly White Guys – They Like Television"; and a funny four-page cartoon strip called "Milestones Of Teendom" by Jane King and artist J.D. King.

(Click on thumbnail to see larger picture)

VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #5
• 1986, no month given
• B&W, 100-pages (including covers)
• Style: music zine

ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS
Hasil Adkins
Jerry Lee Lewis
Joe Clay
Ed "Big Daddy Roth"
The Rivieras
The Pyramids
--> also album reviews, reader mail, book & zine reviews, lots of smaller articles

Kicks #4 (New York City)

One of the benefits of Tower Records moving to Nashville during the '80s was the ill-fated chain's liberal newstand policy. Although the "zine revolution" was already a few years old, the ready availability of zines – like most cultural advances on the "Music City" – took a catalyst like Tower to bring the phenomena home.

Kicks was one of the zines that I first picked up from Tower. Published by Billy Miller and Mirriam Linna, who was an early member of the Cramps and the Zantees, Kicks celebrated the roots of rock music. This undated fourth issue, from sometime during 1985, features stories on roots-rock idol Wanda Jackson, hillbilly rocker Hasil Adkins, the Fort Worth Music Scene and more. The zine was published a magazine-sized 8.5"x11" with a hurried punkture graphic style that crowded a lot of text and photos (some random clip art) into multiple columns. The writing was top-notch, especially Linna and Miller's work, and this issue also includes articles by Greg Prevost and Nick Tosches. The subject matter, while narrowly focused, was nevertheless interesting to anybody with a love of music.

Linna and Miller would later launch the well-respected indie label Norton Records as an outlet for the kind of music that, while respected during the '80s, was still pretty hard to find (even at Tower). These days...forget about it! The pair were also the biggest boosters of Hasil Adkins' career, releasing albums by the West Virginia madman and making his work available to a wider audience.

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VITAL STATISTICS:
• Issue #4
• 1985, no month given
• B&W, 76-pages (including covers)
• Style: music zine

ARTICLES/INTERVIEWS
Wanda Jackson
Ronnie Self
Hasil Adkins
The Tempests
Trixie Norton
Freddie Blassie
Link Wray
--> also album reviews, reader mail, book & zine reviews, lots of smaller articles