The Rebirth of the Music Rag
"The best arguments in the world won't change a person's mind. The only thing that can do that is a good story."-Richard Powers
“The frustrating, rough, rainy world outside of our screens it the place where our bodies and minds are at their best, the place where they are built, and grow and change.”-David Sax
It was announced last week that Spin Magazine will be coming out with a print edition for the first time since 2012. Like many magazines that were not able to make the jump from pre-internet age to post-internet age, Spin went from being one of the most read physical music magazines to being a lesser player on the web…with an occasional article bubbling up past the journalistic noise. But as David Sax discusses in both of his books, The Revenge of Analog (2016) and The Future is Analog (2022), there is an inherent desire for many people to go beyond digital and to celebrate experiences in the physical world: read a real book or magazine instead of reading it on a kindle, throw on a record instead of streaming it, hit a coffee shop with a chess board instead of grabbing a game through a website. Holding something…turning a page…being able to stuff that something into a rack with other somethings: these seemingly small gestures help give life meaning.
The world of print music journalism has interestingly evolved over the past few years, Spin’s announcement just being the latest. As Axios reports, it is a trend spread through many genres of magazines, combatting the withering on-line add sales, helping grow a brand passed a fire-wall, passed the lightning fast appetite of the scrolling consumer. For Spin, the magazine will go from being a monthly rag to a quarterly one, probably with more bells and whistles than before. Last year, Mojo Magazine started publishing “Collector Series” magazines, mostly focusing on specific classic groups tied to their brand of past-and-modern classic rock and rockers, with articles not available on-line or anywhere else (taking a cue from Rolling Stone, and even People Magazine populating the racks at a Safeway or Ralphs near you…but in a more heirloom fashion). Creem Magazine, the 1970s music magazine that challenged the Rolling Stone establishment with their unapologetically brazen and sarcastic-voiced deep music journalism has returned as a subscriber-only concern, even bringing back legendary Creem music journalist Jaan Uhelszki to help shape the modern publication (her interview with MC5 founder Wayne Kramer in the most recent issue—the last interview he gave before he passed—is a must-read [as are all of her contributions, she is still very much on top of her craft]. Their 90s-themed issue, Creem Vs the 90s, that takes a stupid pot-shot at the Afghan Whigs among other sarcastic misfires, is not).
Some magazines have road warriored through the new frontier: Wire Magazine, dedicated to the fringes of classical/electronic/avant garde/other music, has continued to press on with its wonderful monthly meditation through the droney, electronic and other worldly heartlands. Relix does the same for the jam band connoisseur. No Depression, for the Americana lover. Down Beat magazine jazzish lovers. Living Blues for…blues fans. There are a handful of genre-focused magazines that figured out how to evolve, with physical print intact, in the modern era beyond just a brand and a website. They are proof that niche-focused offerings might have a smaller audience, but a loyal audience that is willing and wanting to support their interests.
And then there are folks like Mike Mcgonigal, one of the legends of counter-cultural music journalism publishing, who has created the new, fantastic Maggot Brain quarterly, continuing his ongoing journey into barrier-setting philosophy, music and other arts, or Phil McMullen who has taken to the olde fashioned letter press, hand-making the beautiful and insightful Terrascopædia, focusing on psych and folky bliss.
The return of print is coming at a good moment, as opportunities for journalists have shattered with the death or reshaping of on-line publications such as Vice or Pitchfork. And then there are the platforms like Substack, offering an opportunity for anyone to write, but few to make a living. As a long-time subscriber to print magazines, these physical offerings are a wonder to find in the mailbox and leave on the living room table….flip through as the sun rises or during a rare quiet moment after dinner…pass on to family and friends (right, Mom?). This newest chapter in print media can only be a good thing.
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The Spin announcement comes on the heals of a social media regurgitation of an article they published post-physical-mag era in January if 2013 called: Blame Nirvana: The 40 Weirdest Post-Nevermind Major-Label Albums written by Andrew Earles. For the next Signal, we will dive into what that article is all about, and why that moment in the music industry has a continued impact on both popular and alternative culture (and if there is a difference between the two)….
MEANWHILE: I am working on two events over the next weeks that you are invited to, if you are in the Bay Area or want to come to the Bay Area. THIS THURSDAY, June 6th, I will be selling parts of my collection at the Other Records table at the SFMOMA/KUSF Record Swap. Noon to 8. C’mon down (and thank you Other Records’ Jason Silverio for the opportunity). THEN on June 15th…More, More, Oar: A Tribute to Skip Spence at The Chapel. Ethan Miller and I have put together a pretty stellar line-up of musicians to celebrate all that is Skippy…including Jerry Miller of the Moby Grape, who has not played in SF in years. It is a fundraiser for Music Cares. BUY A TICKET NOW!
WHITNEY BIENNIAL 2024 By Rachel Wetzler (and some other critics)
I had a free hour during my last visit to New York and ran through the latest Whitney Biennial. With all the video installments within the 70+ artist show, the experience could really last all day. But I was more than happy to have the time I did. Highlights included Nikita Gale’ Tempo Rubato (Stolen Time), which consists of grand piano spot lit in an otherwise darkened room. The piano keys are playing but disconnected from the piano’s harp an instead only make the rhythmical sound of the action of the key hitting the frame. The effect is unexpectedly magical, disorienting. Mary Lovelace O’Neals three huge, colorful, and chaotic paintings showcase why she is one of the great artists to arise these past decades. And to me, the crown jewel of the exhibition is Isaac Julien’s 2022 multi-media room-filling piece called Once Again…(Statues Never Die). Featuring a 20+ minute multi-imaged film broadcast on several screens in a dimly lit space that also features choice African art pieces, it is a serene, beautiful story about the race politics around museum curation. I could have stayed in that room all day.
When El Anatsui Isn’t Busy Being One of Africa’s Biggest Artists, He’s Collecting Vinyl
“To me, music is the most abstract of the arts, using pure elements of sound to create just like as a sculptor I attempt to draw on the innate potentials or properties of my media to create…I’ve mostly worked with ordinary commonplace media so far, and I have a feeling this was triggered unconsciously by my exposure to South African music in my formative years. Recalling what the likes of Little Lemmy Mabaso, Big Joe, Spokes Mashiyane, and other musicians did using the common, cheap pennywhistle in their infectious kwela music that I heard in Radio Ghana’s Saturday “Way Down South” programs of the 1960s probably paved the way for me to, after art school, turn to cheap, available local media to start my career and remain with.”-El Anatsui
I love this article because it truly delves into the mind of a collector…a book collector in this case, the article’s writer Brandon Kennedy. Kennedy is trying to figure out how to get his hands on some of the books from McMurtry’s storied 30,000 book collection, after the author had died. It is not an easy task to figure out how to do it. Anyone who has ever known about a collection and and tried to figure out how to get their hands on it…this article is for you. It brings up a point that is in between the sentences: what will happened to one’s collection post-death? What does that bring up about the reason and nature of collecting in the first place????
Read an extract from Truckload Of Art: The Life And Work Of Terry Allen by Brendan Greaves
This is a great read….
Review: ‘The Lehman Trilogy’ at ACT is epic for every minute of its 3 ½ hours
Barb and I went to this Tony Award winning play as it landed in San Francisco. I agree with this review: it was stunning. KQED’s review is harsher, commenting that the play does not do enough to demonize a family that made money off of pretty fiendish stuff…whose end in 2008 came while ruining so many lives. Both articles agree that the acting and the lighting and the sets are amazing. Very very worth seeing and tell as story in a fascinating way.
A Supermarket In California
By Allen Ginsberg
What thoughts I have of you tonight, Walt Whitman, for I
walked down the streets under the trees with a
headache self-conscious looking at the full moon.
In my hungry fatigue, and shopping for images, I went
into the neon fruit supermarket, dreaming of your
enumerations!
What peaches and what penumbras! Whole families
shopping at night! Aisles full of husbands! Wives in the
avocados, babies in the tomatoes! - and you, Garcia Lorca,
what were you doing down by the watermelons?
I saw you, Walt Whitman, childless, lonely old grubber,
poking among the meats in the refrigerator and eyeing
the grocery boys.
I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?
I wandered in and out of the brilliant stacks of cans
following you, and followed in my imagination by the store detective.
We strode down the open corridors together in our solitary
fancy tasting artichokes, possessing every frozen delicacy,
and never passing the cashier.
Where are we going, Walt Whitman? The doors close in an hour. Which way does your beard point tonight?
(I touch your book and dream of our odyssey in the supermarket and feel absurd.)
Will we walk all night through solitary streets?
The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we'll both be lonely.
Will we stroll dreaming of the lost America of love past
blue automobiles in driveways, home to our silent cottage?
Ah, dear father, graybeard, lonely old courage-teacher,
what America did you have when Charon quit poling his ferry and you got out on a smoking bank and stood
watching the boat disappear on the black waters of Lethe?
Happy Birthday Asen Karastoyanov
Great clip from the Shindig appearance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZiOuK-vhjQU