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1) Just a reminder that there’s still time for the perfect X-mas gift: Big Takeover magazine! Our brand new Fall/Winter issue 65 with the Sonic Youth cover is out on the stands (the Thurston Moore live action cover shot is to your left, and a description of its contents is below!), in case you want to treat yourself (you little devil!). Or indeed, if you want a holiday gift subscription for your friends or family whom you think would enjoy our pages (or one of our t-shirts, or any of our back issues, or our CDs), either way you can still order on our secure online store with Visa or Master Card by clicking on “SUBSCRIBE NOW” to your left!!!
Just let us know in the “comments” section of the order form that the order is for X-mas (why not write, in all caps, “RUSH! THIS IS FOR X-MAS!”), and we will be glad to send the package by priority mail to ensure it gets there fast and on time. And include in the “gift message” section anything you want to say, and we’ll take it from there. If it is for a subscription that you want to start with #64 (Decemberists cover) or the brand new #65 (Sonic Youth cover), we will similarly send the first issue(s) by priority mail. (If you want it to start them with #66 in the spring, we will also be glad to send a postcard for now to let them know about your gift, and that it is from you, with any message you might include.)
Remember, two-year, four-issue subscriptions are just $20 ($32 overseas and Canada), about 23% off the newsstand price including taxes, and our other stuff is even less. Good values in these leaner times!—a holiday gift that keeps on giving.
For our other stuff, our t-shirts come in three colors (black, white, and dark red) and six sizes (four men’s, two women’s—the shirts are only $12, even including postage!), all but two of our back issues are still available (if your friends like a specific band we’ve featured; and there’s always the mega-deluxe gift, the complete set of all of our 65 issues to date, including the two that are out of print!), and we are also offering used, good-quality CD copies of the three out of print SPRINGHOUSE CDs from 1991-1993 as well as sealed, new copies of Springhouse’s new third LP From Now to OK (see why it got an 86 in Paste !), EVEN WORSE , LAST BURNING EMBERS , DOUG GILLARD , NON-LINEAR THINKERS and EDP!
For those without a credit card who want to mail us a check made out to “The Big Takeover” for a holiday subscription or other gift of back issues or CDs or t-shirts (using the prices on our store), that would be possible too, but you’d have to hurry. Here’s the new address:
Big Takeover Magazine
356 4th St, upper fl.
Brooklyn, NY 11215 USA
In any case, there was a lot of information on our new issue 65 in my last post a month ago, repeated and updated below with some sample quotes if want to know more.
Hope you all buy not that it’s out! And/or hope you subscribe, as that is still by far the best way to support the print magazines you love if you want them to keep going. It means a lot to them!
And on behalf of myself and our entire staff of friends at Big Takeover, we wish you the best of holiday seasons and a cool New Year too!
Yours
Jack Rabid, editor and publisher, 1980-to-present
IMPORTANT: If you are a subscriber and you need to update your address, please tell us. Send updates to me at jrabid@bigtakeover.com
Here, again, is what’s in the issue:
Interviews
Sonic Youth (cover) • Lou Barlow (Sebadoh/Dinosaur Jr.) • The Decemberists, pt. 2 • TV on the Radio • Big Star • Chris Bell • Maxïmo Park • Swervedriver • L.A. punks The Controllers, pt. 2 • The Lucy Show • powerpop legends The Nerves • Grizzly Bear • Love and Rockets • Yo La Tengo • Hope Sandoval (Mazzy Star) • Fairport Convention’s Dave Mattacks • Trash Can Sinatras • The Proclaimers • The Music Lovers • Ringo Deathstarr • Jason Lytle (Grandaddy)
sample quotes:
[On playing in punk rock band Even Worse with editor Jack Rabid in 1982:] “We were too old. [laughs] That’s the first time living in New York where it felt like I was older than the demographic that I was getting involved with. I was always the young kid, and everybody else were older artist-types, people in their older to mid-20s, and I was always this 18-year-old, and there was always this weird animosity that I was the kid hanging out with the artist, because there were no real teenage bands in the ‘70s. Even The Ramones were in their early 20s. Patti [Smith] was already 30 when her first album came out.”- THURSTON MOORE, SONIC YOUTH
[on the late Chris Bell leaving the band in 1972, after a fistfight led to some smashed guitars:] “The guitar damage was just a fight that Chris got in [with me] because Chris was kind of being a dick during practice one day, and I popped him in the nose. Which I thought he richly deserved. Him leaving the band was a much deeper-seeded set of problems that he was reacting to there, and he was primarily very disappointed in the fact that the first album hadn’t sold, and there was nothing he could do about it.”- ANDY HUMMEL, BIG STAR
[Before Dinosaur Jr. reformed:] “I spent a lot of time talking to [author] Michael Azerrad , and articulating all of my problems with Dino, and J [Mascis] and then when I read his chapter [on Dinosaur Jr.], I was struck by how sad it was! Really! ‘How sad is it that we won’t actually ever play together again.’ ‘Cause I had revisited, I would always listen to Dinosaur at least once a year, if I was hanging out with friends, and drinking or something. And I would think, ‘Wow those are really cool records!’ And I started to realize how sad it was that the personal things were more important than the musical things.”- LOU BARLOW, DINOSAUR JR., SEBADOH
[Prior to Blondie ’s cover of their “Hanging on the Telephone”:] “I went to Blondie’s manager [in 1977] and gave him our little EP, and the press, and said we’d like to open up for Blondie. And he calls me back and says—I don’t know if it was true, but I’ll never forget it—‘Blondie told me that this is the worst band they have ever heard, and they would absolutely under no circumstances ever consider playing with you.’”- PAUL COLLINS, THE NERVES
“You started seeing this story pop up a few years ago. The album was ‘going to die’ and singles were the way to go. My response is I don’t think that people do just listen to singles, or exclusively listen to music on shuffle. I think there will always be a place for an album, even if it’s not conceptually tied together one song to another; you like to hear a collection of one artist’s songs, together, in a decent span of time.”- COLIN MELOY, THE DECEMBERISTS
[on their 2001 relaunch:] “I did an interview before we started playing again in 2000, and the guy asked me if I wanted to play, and I said, ‘Hell no! Fat-ass old punks should just stay the hell off the fucking stage and forget it.’ He has, of course, pointed that out to me several times.” [laughter]- JOHNNY STINGRAY, THE CONTROLLERS
“I would like to think that we offered something that didn’t sound exactly like anything else. The other thing is that we were these two songwriters from North America who had lived in England and absorbed that country’s music, and maybe that was the spin.”- MARK BANDOLA, THE LUCY SHOW
“It’s all different things that are going on with you that filter into the music. I will say that on the second album, I was questioning myself a lot, asking myself, ‘Is this what I want? Is this really the life that I want to have?’ But on this album, the lyrics are guilt-free!”- PAUL SMITH, MAXIMO PARK
[On their reunion tour:] “It is weird, but you have a bunch of 40-year-old guys playing songs written by a bunch of 23 year-olds. And the first rehearsal did seem incredibly punk rock. I thought, ‘Wow, this band’s so fast and so loud…’ Bu the more you did it, the more natural it felt.”- ADAM FRANKLIN, SWERVEDRIVER
“There are things that make me want to go and get a gun. There are things that make me want to pick up something blunt and change things immediately, but history has proven over and over again that that is not a sustainable method. Art and music are the only tools that I trust.” – KYP MALONE, TV ON THE RADIO
[Editorial: “On the Culling of Print Media, The Big Takeover , the Future of the Format, and the Content Conundrum”:] “As opposed to just the ‘free internet inevitably eats paid content’ debate—applied to the output of music mags and labels, the newspaper and magazine industry, and increasingly, the book and movie biz—our culture is running smack into an age-old conundrum of human nature. We only appreciate what we can’t have, or can have only rarely. The entire question of ‘print vs. internet’ pivots on this issue. I am not a Luddite, and this piece is not written to rail against the internet. It has helped a slew of indie-minded bands develop sizable followings, since it brought down Berlin Wall-size barriers to exposure, rigidly enforced by big money, big labels, and media strangleholds. And I further believe that the internet can yet be a productive partner, rather than predator, in the continued viability of print publications. Nevertheless, the worry endures that the internet is producing a generation that, given constant access to free content, are losing the ability to appreciate it. Consequently, they’re losing the sense of personal choice and patronage that was previously inherent in their purchase of independently produced art. If every song, book, movie, article, or poem is yours for a mouse click, why should you pay for any particular one, just to keep the artist, author, or auteur going? And if no one wants to give monetary support for creative content, how can it persist? If as some free-internet advocates claim, ‘content wants to be free,’ how can we compensate its providers?”- JACK RABID
EDITORIALS: Rabid: “On the Culling of Print Media, The Big Takeover, the Future of the Format, and the Content Conundrum” • Michael Ackerman: “Michael Jackson—King of Pop, King Kook and the Last Crossover Star” • Tim Sommer: “My First Band [Even Worse], With Some Other People You Know” [Thurston Moore, etc.]
LIVE REVIEWS: Mark Burgess (Chameleons) • The Church/Adam Franklin • Elvis Costello • Mark Eitzel • Fear/Agent Orange/D.I. • Art Garfunkel • Paul McCartney • Motörhead/Throw Rag/Reverend Horton Heat • Bob Mould · Naked Raygun • Joe Pernice • Posies/Ken Stringfellow/Jon Auer •. Pure Hell • X • The Zeros
HUNDREDS OF CD REVIEWS: Bats/Clean/Verlaines • Jello Biafra • Breakaways • Jeff Buckley/Tim Buckley • Cinemasophia • Channel 3 • Chambermaids • Cheap Star • Creedence Clearwater Revival • Dimes • Dirty Projectors • Jeremy Enigk • exlovers • Feelies • For Against • Flight of the Conchords • Furious Seasons • The Gears/D.I.s • Doug Gillard • God Help the Girl • Golden Bloom • Green Day • Flaming Lips • Hatcham Social • Hawkwind • Idlewild • Jayhawks • John Lennon & Plastic Ono Band • Let’s Wrestle • Gary Lewis & the Playboys • Jeff Litman • Madness • Magazine • Meat Puppets • Eugene Mirman • Mission of Burma • Don McGlashan • Neats • Newtown Neurotics • New Model Army • Parties • Pointed Sticks • Iggy Pop • Elvis Presley • R.E.M. • Emitt Rhodes • Sloan • Stephenhero • Stone Roses • Sweet • David Sylvain • Tripwires • Visqueen • Muddy Waters • Wilco • Astrid Williamson • Young Fresh Fellows and more!
Hope you all order it, or buy it when it’s out! And/or hope you subscribe, as that is still by far the best way to support the print magazines you love if you want them to keep going. It means a lot to them!
And hope you can share the gift of reading with your friends!
Cheers!
Jack R
P.S.— Remember, Big Takeover subscriptions (and shirts, cds, and back issues) make the perfect gift!
P.S. Reminder, we are still also selling the—first album in 15 years!— SPRINGHOUSE limited edition, 550 copies Bruce Licher -designed letter-press deluxe art package CD, From Now to OK, which would also make an excellent gift!
See why Paste magazine did indeed give it an 86 out of 100 at pastemagazine.com/articles/2008/11/springhouse-from-now-to-ok.html. Or hear a few tracks at myspace.com/springhouse. Or you can order “pay what you want” downloads of the new album at springhousemusic.net as well!!)
