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The Print Magazine Is Not Dead: A Celebration of the Best, part one (continued)

by dave heaton

Wax Poetics

We're at a point in time when ever the nay-sayers have to admit that hip-hop is not a fad that's going to die off in a few years. The more the music takes a serious hold, in the US and the world, the more irrelevant its critics seem. In the last few years, it seems, that the serious study of hip-hop has really started to take off--it's a time when even middle-aged film critics who know next to nothing about hip-hop can go see a film like Scratch, a serious look at the history and practice of DJing, and praise it almost universally. Wax Poetics is similarly a product of our time, an offshoot of the fact that people who love hip-hop and who love writing about hip-hop are finding platforms from which they can really probe into its many facets.

As its name indicates, Wax Poetics is all about vinyl. More specifically, it's about the art of using older music as the basis for new music, about the art of the hip-hop DJ. A quarterly journal, Wax Poetics is an informative and overly arresting look at the music that's used as samples and the people who are using it. A relatively new magazine, which just published its fifth issue, Wax Poetics has a unique vision, one which hopefully will keep it going for a long time. The first issue that I picked up of Wax Poetics is so far my favorite, though the other issues I've seen since then (I've yet to pick up the newest one) are great too. Issue 3 was the one that hooked me. It was filled with flat-out great articles, the sort that you sink into and remember from then one. There was an interview with the late Weldon Irvine--his music is not only loved (and used) by plenty of hip-hop artists, but he himself is a huge fan of hip-hop, a fascinating interview with Diamond D--an often overlooked musician, an informative overview of "left-field Americana" albums, a great interview with Wild Style director Charlie Ahearn, and more. Wax Poetics is sharply put together too, a great magazine to look at and to read. And even just a quick look through an issue will make you discover plenty of musicians and records that you now need to hear.

{www.waxpoetics.com}

Q&A: Andre Torres, Editor-in-Chief

In a sentence or two, how would you describe the vision behind Wax Poetics, what it's all about?

Wax Poetics is about beatdigging: the search high and low, in every nook and cranny, for dusty, funky vinyl-if only for a few seconds worth of material. Wax Poetics is a high caliber journal focusing on hip-hop's use of old soul, jazz, and funk records; the technological and innovative aspects of sampling and production; and the historical context of DJing.

In your most recent (or next) issue, which article are you most excited about, and why?

It's hard to pick one in particular, but if forced to do so, I'd have to say I'm most excited about our article on the 1983 film Style Wars. Celebrating its twentieth anniversary, this documentary of graffiti and hip-hop culture is a crucial point of history that would have otherwise been lost had it not been for a few like-minded people there to document it.

What would you consider the most bizarre or unusual article you've ever published?

Nothing too strange yet, but we did publish an interview with UK drummer Malcolm Catto talking about drumming and production techniques, that somehow led into a discussion on the dangers of crack cocaine use.

How hard is it to keep the magazine going these days, in a time when plenty of magazines seem to come and go fairly quickly?

This has not been an easy ride financially speaking. I think if we knew then, what we know now, we probably would have never embarked on this endeavor. We were all a bit naive in the beginning as to the nuts and bolts of the publishing industry, from a business perspective. On the one hand, I think it's helped us to grow the journal at our own pace editorially, really making this a learning experience for all involved. But at the same time, it's taken us a while to understand the true importance of things like having a good Marketing Director and hitting your dates with the printer and distributor.

Besides your own magazine, what is one of your other favorite print magazines, and why?

I enjoy other journals like McSweeney's, The Baffler, and Transition for their smart writing. I also like the food journal Gastromica for its clean layout and insighful look at food, and Purple for its superb art direction and passionate look at fashion.

The Wire

Let's face it, the main reason to read a music magazine is to discover bands you've never heard of before. Having your interest so piqued from an article that you go buy an album, completely unheard, and then fall head-over-heels in love with the music is an indescribable joy. And if there's one magazine out there in which I'm most likely to read about groups I've never heard of, it's The Wire, based in the UK. That I can pick up an issue of The Wire and be flabbergasted at how many groups they mention which are unfamiliar to me is no small feat, considering that I listen to more new albums in a week than your average person does in a month (or dare I say, six months). It should be stated outright, though, that the music The Wire covers would on the whole be cast aside as too weird by your average person on the street. This is, after all, "Adventures in Modern Music." That said, while The Wire does focus their energies on music that's innovative and surprising, they cast quite a wide net within that realm. For while a glance at their recent cover artists--Yo La Tengo, M. Gira, Matthew Herbert, Autechre--demonstrates that they're quite on top of what's going on in music today, a look inside those issues will reveal The Wire to be genuinely eclectic, with coverage of all sorts of music, from underground hip-hop to Japanese noise music, Joe McPhee to Throbbing Gristle.

The Wire is the first place I read about Godspeed You Black Emperor!, the first place I read about David S. Ware, the first place I read about Blectum From Blechdom. They do great looks at music from parts of the world you know little about (as places, not to mention as sources of music), insightful looks back at music from the past, and often have among their pages some of my favorite current writer-thinkers about modern music, like David Toop and Kodwo Eshun. If you want to read about the sort of music that will take you out of your comfort zone and make you experience something new, The Wire is the place to do it.

{www.thewire.co.uk}

Q&A, Rob Young, Editor

In a sentence or two, how would you describe the vision behind The Wire, what it's all about?

The subhead says it best: 'Adventures In Modern Music'. It has always existed to illuminate areas of music and sound art that are often ignored or not taken seriously by other media. At the same time it is not afraid to take a critical voice where necessary, and we aim to publish writing by the best writers internationally on music.

In your most recent (or next) issue, which article are you most excited about, and why?

In the most recent (June 2003): a tribute to the late Nina Simone, by Ian Penman. Not just an obituary, this is a kind of eulogy that brings out the perpetual agony of a contained spirit (it reads better than that sounds!). In the forthcoming issue: A long article from a correspondent in Tokyo on Off Site, a tiny venue there that has been the epicentre of a very subtle form of extreme music, an interface of improvisation, minimalism, micro-electronics, etc, made by people like Toshimaru Nakamura, Sachiko M, Otomo Yoshihide, Tetuzi Akiyama, Taku Sugimoto, et al. It's fascinating, because in some respects practical matters like the need not to annoy the neighbours has led to the need to rein in the volume, but this in turn has created a wholly new mindset amongst these musicians (and in its small way, the aesthetic has spread around the world). I love getting these kind of features together that really zoom in on stuff that even hardened music obsessives often experience only through record reviews or hearsay.

What would you consider the most bizarre or unusual article you've ever published?

Some would say they're all pretty unusual! We published a memorable Coil interview where they talked about 'very peculiar practices' in the studio involving excrement and the summoned spirits of dead Egyptian kings. HipHop god Rammellzee provided the most amazing photo: trussed up in his incredible armour plated trash suit - and the guy has an incredibly arcane philosophy to match. We also had a piece on some crazy Australian 'composers', or perhaps 'decomposers', who make music on a job-lot of decaying pianos that are left out in the Western desert. That was pretty out there.

How hard is it to keep the magazine going these days, in a time when plenty of magazines seem to come and go fairly quickly?

Actually it functions incredibly well. It is owned outright by six of the magazine's staff, so we are fully independent, therefore we have no one controlling our editorial voice. Advertising is generated from within the community of music that we serve, so we don't need to hammer on the doors of ad agencies for beers, cars and clothing who don't get what we're about. I think it helps that the six of us directors have all worked for the magazine no shorter than four or five years (ten in a couple of cases). So we have really learned a lot and are able to apply that knowledge. Too many other magazines have constantly changing staff, so the learning curve is constantly interrupted.

Besides your own magazine, what is one of your other favorite print magazines, and why?

To name a few rather than one:
The London Review Of Books, an intelligent survey not only of writing but current affairs, by some of the best thinkers around.
Adbusters, the excellent Canadian magazine whose time has finally come in the age of Naomi Klein and Michael Moore.
Resonance, an occasional journal of experimental music published the the London Musicians Collective.
The Sound Projector, another London based zine beautifully designed that hoovers up tones of extreme sound, often that we don't have room for in The Wire.
The Onion (though I usually read it online), and Private Eye - two great satirical institutions.
And on Saturdays I'll always be reading the Guardian, flawed though it can be - and I commend to all your American readers the paper's online version at www.guardian.co.uk, for constantly evolving daily analysis of world events.

Issue 14, August 2003 | next article


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