Search and Destroy

Search and Destroy was a San Francisco punk zine published and edited by V. Vale, who went on to publish REsearch (bound reprints of both titles are widely available). The zine was published from 1977-1979 in a tabloid format and included incendiary interviews, passionate photographs, cutting edge art. Search and Destroy was a corrosive minimalist document of the emerging punk youth rebellion, packed with an energy that leaped off it's pages.

In Jon Savage's book about early punk entitled England's Dreaming, Vale said:

"I started working on Search and Destroy in January '77. Our approach was really minimalist, we felt that that was the new philosophy. It wasn't just going to be a documentation, it was going to be a catalyst. We felt that the music was the fun part but that it was an entire lifestyle, you don't spend your entire life playing music on a stage, so we gave book lists, we tried to encourage people to read, we listed films... I soon realized that Punk was total cultural revolt. It was a hardcore confrontation with the black side of history and culture, right-wing imagery, sexual taboos, a delving into it that had never been done before by any generation in such a thorough way."