Cleaning out skeletons from the ol' closet last night, and dusted off these doozies...
Thats the first issue of THE FACE I ever bought. Imported and priced at $5.50 at the Borders. Adjusted for inflation and given today's dollar it would cost around a whopping $10 today, barring a stimulus package in your mail.
They sure don't make magazines like they used to -- because they don't make magazines anymore. But when publishers did, two of my faves were RAYGUN out of Santa Monica and the London-based one above. Both were staffed by very dynamic people, some of whom are now anonymous suits while others are thankfully still producing creative culture.
Other notables included New Times L.A., which was taken over by the much duller L.A. Weekly. And a groundbreaking website called Addicted to Noise, which eventually became SonicNet which eventually was taken over by Yahoo!Music which now sucks.
Thanks to all of them I'm today reading Playboy for the articles, Rolling Stone for the ads, and watching MTV on mute.
Economy and a rapidly changing media landscape -- the Interweb says 'hi' -- are only parts of the equation. Another one is that this era hasn't produced as many interesting, innovative artists worth covering. The cream of culture rises to the top a lot slower when society becomes more conservative. Thats why the 90s era is increasingly looked upon fondly, and this one is not. Yet.
Whenever I hear "news" about the latest shenanigans from Amy Winehouse, I'm reminded of another Jewish Brit female musician back in black who could rock out in her own unique way without simply wannabe'ing different.
It says a lot about an artist's orginality (or lack thereof) when they're starving for media attention AND caloric intake. You don't need junkie tattoos, junkie boyfriends, and junkie songs to stand out from the crowd -- the stuff you produce should speak for itself. But maybe they simply don't have anything interesting to say? Thats what's missing from these clowns: no meaning, just makeup. Image before substance. ("substance abuse" doesn't count) Speaking of which its fitting her producer is Mark Ronson, another silver-spooner who literally banks off of other people's original songcraft.
Like Winehouse, Justine Frischmann also had a brit-popular boyfriend, who is thankfully as relevant and creative as ever. She herself took a long sabbotical after Elastica, going to grad school at some holistic medicine institute in Colorado. But her most recent contribution was in helping her friend Maya break into the music biz in 2005, after M.I.A. shot this album cover for Elastica's final full-length LP and directed their final music video.
We'll all thank Justine for that eventually. But I'll start now.
