music press

[Jim Hofmann <hofmann@AMSAA.ARPA>]

I like SPin - it's like a breath of fresh air in the mainstream
music press, mainly because it devotes some time to the non-mainstream
arena ( if you really like to read about the non-non-mainstream
among the best "zines" or periodicals is forced exposure and matter mag )
If anyones interested I can post some more info (not now cause I'm
busy). These zines (FE and M) aren't in 7-11s like Spin, though and
ya gotta send away and wait a long time - not knowing what they're doing
with your money.

the face sucks, period and NME, melody makers and most of british
zines found in record stores aren't much better.  Insipid might
be a good description.  I'm sure there are good underground british
press zines just hard to find and I would appresh anyone cluing me in.

My harshest crit is about Rolling Stone.  I desubscribed from this
rag the month they featured that awful, non-musical story called
"looking for mr. goodbody" which was the thing that equally awful
(from the clips I've seen and what I've heard by mouth) movie
Perfect is about.  I paged through a recent issue (because Knopler was on
the cover) and noticed a story on David Crosby, the same thing
that Spin did the month before(!).  As for the knophler interview,
it didn't seem that he said more than 50% of what he said in
the musician interview (which is another good periodical if you
like reading about equipment - and usually the musicans are more
open because there isn't some schmoe asking about their sex life)
the month before which was 1/2 the size of the bloated RS interview.
I did notice that RS had changed their format to look a lot more like
Spin.  Expect RS to begin a slow and horrible death as people 
subscribe to Spin instead.  

As for Spin being connected to Penthouse empire, remember so is
Omni and there is little influence 
by Bob exerted on that rag besides his layman's fascination with
science, he has no control (seemingly) over Spin though there was
that picture for no reason of some actress in a swimsuit in the second
or third issue, I assume this was an inside joke or Bob, Jr. shot off
his mouth in order to get her in bed.  
I detest the Penthouse attitude but guccione's son is the
one running Spin and except for the blurb in the beginning of
each issue, Glenn Close seems to run things.  I am particurally
enamored with one of their writers styles, Bart Bull.  His article
on X hit the spot and drove the dagger in without drawing any messy
blood.

hofmann