V. Vale

V. Vale
Occupation	Writer, Independent Publisher
Nationality	Japanese American
Alma mater	UC Berkeley
Period	1980 — present
Genre	Art, Music, Culture
Literary movement	Punk Rock Movement, Industrial Music
Notable works	Modern Primitives, Industrial Culture Handbook, Incredibly Strange Films
Spouse	Marian Wallace
Children	Valentine Marquesa Wallace
Website
www.researchpubs.com

V. "Valhalla" Vale is a writer, keyboard player and, as Vale Hamanaka, was a member of the initial configuration of Blue Cheer, prior to that band becoming famous as a power trio. He is the publisher and primary contributor to books and magazines published by his company, RE/Search Publications. Vale is the host of the television talk show Counter Culture Hour on Public-access television cable TV channel 29 in San Francisco. The show is edited by his wife Marian Wallace. He studied English at UC Berkeley and is a Japanese-American.

Vale was born in 1944 at the Jerome War Relocation Center to actor Kiyoshi Conrad Hamanaka and Mary Takaoka of the Vaudeville group Taka Sisters (Myrtle, Mary, Midi). The Taka Sisters broke up after the murder of Vale's Aunt Midi Taka in 1936.

By 1966 Vale received a bachelor's degree in English Literature at University of California, Berkeley and moved to Haight-Ashbury.

In 1977, while working at City Lights Bookstore, with $100 donated each by Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, he began publication of Search and Destroy, a San Francisco-based zine documenting the then-current punk subculture. In 1980, he began publication of RE/Search, a tabloid format zine focusing on various counterculture and underground topics, with financial help from Geoff Travis of Rough Trade Records and actress/film director Betty Thomas. At the same time he also started his own typesetting business, allowing for a day job to fund his publishing exploits and guaranteeing high quality typography and design for his magazines and books.

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