30 YEARS OF HOOFSIP

The Joe Hornacek Interview

by Jerry White Jr.

September 2024 / $1.50

HOOFSIP launched thirty years ago and for its fifty-issue run, Joe Hornacek was one of the primary contributors along with Dan Augustine. Let’s see what Joe’s gotta say for himself!

JERRY: I just want to talk to you a little bit about your memories of working on Hoofsip because you were part of every issue I think. Obviously we started Pezz Wurld together and you did the first installment of that, but you did all kinds of stuff for the zine. What are some of your favorite memories about making Hoofsip?

HOOFSIP #1 CoverJOE: Well, I remember the first issue was really cool because it had a really cool cover that Dan found from some clip art. Dan was going into journalism at the time. When we met him, I don’t know, was he in college? I think he was.

We all had a bunch of artwork and there was a lot of things we wanted to do and that we were in the process of doing that never got finished. But this thing actually got finished and I remember the excitement of that. And Dan was really into it. He was just going around sending it to different people, trading things and then he’s getting a lot of attention from record companies and stuff like that. He was then a publicist.

JERRY: Do you remember some of the times we would get together to actually work on the zine? Like either at Kinko’s or at Denny’s and stuff?

JOE: Yeah. Mostly we did a lot of brainstorming at Denny’s. We were drinking coffee.

JERRY: Do you have any other things that were in the zine that you remember that you liked?

JOE: I think I did a couple From the Fingers. Maybe there was like a mention of my band, Vent at the time.

JERRY: There was an interview with you guys, yeah.

JOE: Okay.

JERRY: I did the interview.

JOE: Yeah. That was probably good.

JOE: I remember they made me do like a PCP Robot article one time. But looking back after watching the Pezz Wurld thing, I mostly remember the Pezz Wurld stuff, but I have to look at the magazine again because I haven’t seen it in a while.

JERRY: Do you remember Mike Pipper’s Stick Men comics?

JOE: Yeah, those were good. Like he had some funny stuff and it was at the end. Dan was the type of guy who wanted to put comics at the end of the thing, just like included some kind of comic every issue. And that was always entertaining.

JOE: They said Hoofsip was a good zine to poop to. But we had that guy, James from New York City, who was doing Pop Smear. And he used to hook us up with a lot of goodies. And he was like really down. Him and Ethan Minsker was cool with us too. And that was about it. Looking back like the coolest people were from New York City. But I did go, I did an interview with Kelley Deal 6000. I think I was the one that had to do the interview for that.

JERRY: That’s cool.

JOE: I interviewed Kelley Deal, Kim Deal’s sister. We ended up playing spin the bottle, but no one did anything.

JERRY: It’s been a long time since Hoofsip stopped, at 50 issues. What do you miss about doing a zine?

JOE: The fact that we had a lot of contacts and stories going through different musical outlets and people being interested and being able to have new people to talk to a lot and new things coming out, free music a lot, and stuff like that. I miss that a lot too.

JERRY: Do you think you would ever want to do a zine again?

JOE: Yeah I would. It’s just a little bit of work with wondering if you ever make any money at it or what not. Because you do something for so long and then you realize you got to get a day job. Or you might want to try a different hobby or project. That’s probably why it stops don’t you think?

JERRY: For me doing zines and putting out music, I don’t expect to make money from it. So it’s the kind of activity that I really care about, but I don’t think it’s going to pay my bills. But you’re right I have to pay my bills, so that I don’t have as much time for the free things.

JOE: Right, yeah.

JERRY: But I still want to do the free things because I don’t want everything to be about money, money, money. But it’s hard——you know, we’re all juggling making music, making videos, writing stuff. Do you ever write stuff anymore?

JOE: No, but I should. I really want to. I still got stuff that I’ve written that I have to like go back and revisit. Just like the ideas I’ve jotted down to like sentences and stuff like that.

JERRY: I feel the internet took over zines. Like there was a point where I remember how excited we were when we had a Hoofsip website. Like “Oh dude you can hover over this and click it!” More and more people started making websites and blogs and so it felt to me like “Oh well, zines is what we used to do, now I want to do websites,” but then the problem with websites is they disappear. Like if you had a geocities, it’s gone. We started our zine in the 90s when we were still teenagers, Dan was in his early 20s. If some teenager now wanted to start a zine, would you give them any advice?

JOE: Find people to trade zines with. Like I guess what’s popular is people are doing that with graffiti stickers now, but if you can get that and trade, then do that.

JERRY: Like actually mailing it.

JOE: Yeah and you know if you get free tickets to go to shows, go to the shows. You know that’s a free show you and your friends get free tickets, just go there and hang out.

JERRY: You have to review the band or interview the band.

JOE: Yeah if you got to interview them and then, you know, try to get out and see a lot of more shows because like some of the shows are really cool. Like, it’s hit or miss sometimes when you go to a show, like you know get some asshole or something like that, or everything is really cool and really in the band and everything is like really awesome you know that happens sometimes too.

JERRY: If you could interview one band now who would you like to interview? Or not just band like singer artist or something.

JOE: Um. . . [Long pause]

JERRY: You want to interview Taylor Swift?

JOE: No. Trying to think, that’s a good question.

JERRY: Jack White?

JOE: No not Jack White. Interview? [Long pause] I don’t know, I guess Katy Perry. [Laughs]

JERRY: Yeah? Why?

JOE: I don’t know because she’s a good, she’s like a, I don’t know. . .

JERRY: Because she’s pretty?

JOE: No, she’s getting older now, but because her actual songwriting skills are pretty good. She seems like a cool person to talk to.

JERRY: Any last words on anything Hoofsip?

JOE: Um, I think you should keep doing it. You should have never stopped.

JERRY: Yeah, you think Dan should have held on?

JOE: Yeah.

JERRY: If Dan started making a new issue would you contribute to it?

JOE: Yeah.

JERRY: Okay I’ll let Dan know.

JOE: Okay.

Read the other interviews in the Hoofsip Restrospective Series!

Dan Augustine | Ethan Minsker | Mike Pipper | Jesus Rivera

Click here for the first THIRTY-SIX issues of HOOFSIP!