SEARCH & DESTROY — NO. 2 (1977)

Published by: Search & Destroy, c/o City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus, San Francisco
Year: 1977
Editor: V. Vale
Issue: No. 2 — “New Wave Cultural Research”
Dimensions: 29 × 22 cm folded (11.5 × 8.75 in); 45 × 29 cm open (17.7 × 11.4 in)
Language: English
Format: Tabloid on newsprint
Pages: 28
Condition: Fine — exceptionally well preserved overall. The copy shows only visible wear and minor damage consistent with its original newsprint format and the passage of time. Aside from these age- and format-related imperfections, the interior remains in excellent condition.

Search & Destroy was the seminal San Francisco newspaper that documented the emergence of punk and the wider underground culture surrounding it. Published by V. Vale from City Lights Bookstore in North Beach, the paper operated between journalism, cultural research, and DIY publishing, creating a direct record of a scene that was still taking shape. Vale would later transform the project into RE/Search, one of the most influential publishing ventures devoted to underground and transgressive culture.

Issue No. 2, published in 1977, captures the first wave of punk at a moment when the movement had not yet settled into a defined aesthetic or commercial category. Its pages move between San Francisco, New York, and London, recording artists and ideas as they circulated through an increasingly interconnected international underground.

The issue's “Flight Log” opens with Iggy Pop — described through the unforgettable phrase “bass voice, metallic wit, spike hair, x-ray smile” — alongside the Ramones' journey west. Elsewhere, Nickey Beat examines The Weirdos and their confrontation with the fashion industry, while the issue features a substantial Clash interview and centrefold.

Further contributions include The Dils, Devo's “De-Evolution Decade,” The Zeros, Vivienne Westwood in a London street report, Patti Smith, Nico Ordway on “Anarchy in the UK,” Johnny Moped, and Penelope Houston of The Avengers. Together, the articles create a fragmented but remarkably immediate portrait of the underground as it existed in 1977.

The masthead extends the publication's deliberately militaristic and irreverent language, listing a “Flight Crew” composed of pilots, bombardiers, radar operators, and other fictional ranks. Among them is photographer Ruby Ray, whose photographs became some of the defining visual documents of the San Francisco punk scene.

Printed inexpensively on newsprint and folded once as issued, Search & Destroy was never intended to become an archival object. Its significance comes precisely from its immediacy: it documents musicians, writers, photographers, designers, and scenes before many of them had entered the historical canon.

Issue No. 2 is particularly important as a record of the moment when the Bay Area, New York, and London undergrounds were beginning to recognize themselves as part of a larger cultural network. It sits at the intersection of the early punk press, independent music journalism, and the emerging international exchange of ideas that would define the movement's visual and intellectual history.

A foundational document of American punk publishing and one of the key early issues of V. Vale's Search & Destroy.