on 3/18/03 10:34 PM, Steve Smith at ssmith36@sprynet.com wrote:
Yes, All About Jazz does look pretty slick and mainstream, and perhaps that wasn't as good an example as the Vermont and L.A. examples I had in mind (the names of which I can't remember), but hey, you're a lot closer to Dez and Keith than they know...
As long as they don't figure that much out... BTW -- the first pizza I ever ordered in my first apartment in LA was delievered by Keith. So I really do hope the world of jazz is different.
I sort of feel like any attempt at DIY publishing comes from the same impulse as zines, no matter how slick the results may look. I mean, your own live tour CD 'Get in the Minivan' looks perfectly professional in comparison to demo-tape days, even though you did it all by yourself. And the cover continues to make me laugh out loud.
The impulse is still the same, but the execution is much more professional than ever before, which makes it, dare I say, less "zine-ish"
Genuinely successful fringe zines usually move closer to the center, the way Signal to Noise has done in appearance if not so much content. Remember that Option began as a crappy looking newsprint thing, as was Jazz Times. But the punk ethic, well, that's something entirely different, and I think it lives on in webzines more than anywhere else.
But, by the time OPTION was getting ready to shut down, it was slick, glossy, and all in color (and the first mag to run a feature about yours truly, god bless 'em). I guess MAXIMUM ROCK'N'ROLL is the last place where crappy graphics, amatuerish writing, and a bunch of true believers still stand for something this country needs stood up for. -- skip h http://www.skipheller.com