Invisible Jukeboxes

7 thoughts on “Invisible Jukeboxes”

1. Wow, what a find, thanks. I started reading The Wire sometime in 1987 (based on my recognising the covers about that time). I wonder whether the magazine’s okay with them being made available. I used to love The Wire, even wrote a few reviews for them, but at some point 10 or more years ago found the whole thing rather stultifying and stopped reading it. I picked a copy up a few years ago at a station and was shocked that the format and layout were still pretty much the same as I’d remembered it from a long time before. There was an issue which featured Michael Jackson on the cover when Mark Sinker was the editor which caused a bit of a furore in the readership, but I’d have liked it if it had widened its critical perspective to include the mainstream as well. But this cache is great – I’ve randomly happened on Kodwo Eshun’s one pager with A Guy Called Gerald on Black Secret Technology from ’95. Wonderful.

2. I’m not sure what they’d think about back issues being available this way. I know they don’t mind articles being reproduced online so long as you include a link back to the magazine website. I’ve also had a few connections with the mag over the years. I did some ad designs for Steven Severin’s Re: label circa 2000/2001 and even visited their office when I happened to be in London at the same time some ad art needed to be delivered. I think I also had a letter in one issue.

   I’ve had issues with the design as well. I liked the Non-Format era (2001 on) but thought that whoever was doing the design after their stint made the whole thing look rather amateurish. The contents seem to depend a lot on the editor, inevitably. The balance they used to have between the old and the new has changed increasingly in favour of newer artists some of whom don’t seem to warrant the attention. One thing you always notice with old music mags is the artists who were being talked up as potential big names who subsequently disappear from view. It’s something I always have in the back of my mind when reading a feature about a new artist.

3. I imagine that this will be frowned on since access to the back issues is one of the perks of subscription, as far as i can remember. In these precarious times for print media anything that degrades the income stream is probably going to get stomped on. I used to read it religiously, cover-to-cover, each month in the ’90s and ’00s and randomly flipping through the scans I’m amazed at how much seems to have stuck in my memory – I recognise interviews, pictures, lumps of text and quotes. A sign that I should have got out more at the time, no doubt (June ’95 has an interview with Xenakis, to tie in with a post from last week). I still subscribe and read it but inevitably the excitement has diminished. The gap between over the top prose for some new hot-shot and the disappointment when you listen and find them a lot like some old, previous hot-shot older artist wears you down a bit.

4. I loved The Wire back in the 90’s. I think my interest piqued when I saw Bill Laswell on the cover. The magazine opened up a whole new world of contemporary classical and new jazz. I keep dipping my toes back into reading it very so often, but found I have never heard of many the artists it writes about and kind the music very niche indeed.

5. The Laswell issue from December 1994 was the one that made me realise this was the mag for me. I’d been buying everything he was involved with at that time and suddenly here was a magazine with him on the cover plus Jon Hassell inside talking about the greatness of Bitches Brew, and Julian Cope writing about German music in the article that eventually led to him writing Krautrocksampler.

   I think you have to give new artists a chance to establish themselves so I try to remain open-minded. That same Laswell issue had a page about Mouse On Mars who I hadn’t heard of at the time but shortly after was listening to a lot. But who gets featured depends on the perceptions of the writing staff. They’ve always had some writers whose recommendations I’d trust more than others. One reason I value the Invisible Jukebox idea is the way it makes interviews go into areas that aren’t just about the interviewee’s own music. I hadn’t really paid much attention to the Master Musicians Of Bukkake until they had Randall Dunn in the Invisible Jukebox slot talking about Jorge Luis Borges as well as his work with Earth and Sunn O))).

6. Fire!!: A Quarterly Devoted to the Younger Negro Artists.” Edited by Wallace Thurman. Published in 1926, in New York.

   https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/15947166?fbclid=IwAR3sDPi_bIeKnsvmLkoq-9gmUsqXyhw1g1KS9Nxabzac8FcJOmdjQyPJR_Q

   I am reading you for years, mostly on Sundays. I didn’t know how to send you this interesting book. You may not publish this email.

   Thank you
   Eirini

7. Thanks for the link. This is my contact page if you want to send an email:

   http://www.johncoulthart.com/contact.html

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