SPIN on Google Books

i'm weirdly pissed off about this whole thing. like the internet wasn't enough of a time suck.

http://books.google.com/books?id=5zrzfgLFgUYC&pg=RA1-PT48&dq=jim+greer+loveless&rview=1&cd=1#v=onepage&q=jim%20greer%20loveless&f=false

first thing i looked for

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPw-3e_pzqU

It's a lonely ol' night.

i found the letter that i wrote about bob stinson when he died in 1993
omg

― figgy pudding (La Lechera), Saturday, March 6, 2010 7:33 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

haha i found my letter that was published, too! all these years i've been paranoid about it resurfacing, but it's not nearly as embarrassing as I remember, mainly because I think they edited it down to a coherent point (still not linking to it, though).

how do you think this kid would feel about SEO?

http://books.google.com/books?id=FD4jKFVQOhMC&pg=PA38&dq=spin+%22al+shipley%22&cd=1#v=onepage&q=spin%20%22al%20shipley%22&f=false

haha i was asking for that, i know ::shakes fist::

You should name your band Staggering Hypocrisy.

You're from Delaware.

</ Dooley>

iirc i wrote a far worse letter to Rolling Stone a couple years beforehand that thank god wasn't published

RS published a letter I wrote in August or September '95, bitching about the Ann Rice cover story.

You can tell I was about to start grad school. Ugh.

found an amazing Relativity Records ad from a 1996 issue trumpeting Dayton Family, Fat Joe and 8Ball & MJG as "rap music for alternageeks"

Thank you, SPIN and Rob Sheffield, for forcing me to excavate my closet archives for 14 Songs.

"From the concert stage to the dressing room, from the recording studio to the digital realm, SPIN surveys the modern musical landscape and the culture around it with authoritative reporting, provocative interviews, and a discerning critical ear. With dynamic photography, bold graphic design, and informed irreverence, the pages of SPIN pulsate with the energy of today's most innovative sounds. Whether covering what's new or what's next, SPIN is your monthly VIP pass to all that rocks."

A lot of interesting stuff on Celia Farber on Wikipedia, guess I'd forgotten that she was still going, & that her ideas hadn't changed:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celia_Farber

As I remember it, getting information on AIDS wasn't easy in the late 80s, and SPIN had a monthly column about it which was amazing in itself. So if you were a young, into music, & didn't read a lot of newspapers, this might be your primary source of information. And yet every month, the column focused almost exclusively on fringe theories (no connection between HIV and AIDS, HIV is harmless, maybe AZT actually causes AIDS, etc.) and suggested that the real truth was being covered up.

from an observer article linked to on that wikipedia page

Ms. Farber said in an e-mail that after she wrote a piece for the New York Press about Bill O’Reilly’s sexual harassment case in 2004, the founder of American Apparel, Dov Charney, called her up “yelling about the whole fake feminism ordeal.” Mr. Charney had been dealing with his own harassment accusations, and he hired her as a “consultant and writer.” Ms. Farber referred to Mr. Charney as her “secret benefactor.”

Note: I had totally forgotten that Meryn Cadell's "The Sweater" ever existed, but as soon as I started playing the YouTube, I immediately remembered pretty much every single word, complete with cadence and enunciation -- clearly I had this on some sort of much-listened-to mixtape.

Since then I've learned that Cadell is now a college professor and a man

"They're like a species evolved on an island without natural predators. They never learned how to be shrewd."

they also got the last laff tbh

?

xpost -- wait, what?

http://books.google.com/books?id=3AHtQNYRR9YC&lpg=PP1&lr=&rview=1&pg=PA40#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Check out this very early reference to child-actor Elijah Wood, then click forward two pages.

Looking at this makes me wish I had an iPad.

i never realized that i had so many "lost years" until RIP mark linkous + spin archives reminded me. memory flood is a little much, tbh.

http://books.google.com/books?id=3AHtQNYRR9YC&lpg=PP1&lr=&rview=1&pg=PA40#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Check out this very early reference to child-actor Elijah Wood, then click forward two pages.

― kingkongvsgodzilla

awesome

So how come whenever I put "Sa-Fire" into the Spin search thing I just get non-Spin articles about William Safire, instead of that infamous cover story (by Leland I think?) about the Latin freestyle singer? (Infamous for being a somewhat odd cover for a national rock magazine, not for anything specifically said in the piece, as far I remember.)

Probably because Google's search algorithm parses out the hyphen.

And the commonality of Safire. Seems to be one of those things that coincidentally gets masked without a more elaborate search string.

Not sure. You did it with quotes, right? Here are the search results with quotes. Turns up nine issues including your 1994 review of Tommy Boy's ace freestyle collection. Sadly, however, one of those pesky bingo cards got in the way of the scan obscuring a huge chunk of your review. :(

Oooh according to Sia Michel's editorial, the 2004 Pixies cover was REVENGE for the 1988 Sa-Fire cover!!

Ha...found a letter of mine they published, too! Oh, man. Did I take some stuff too seriously.

Also, their best-music-you-didn't-hear lists were full of good stuff.

1991:
http://books.google.com/books?id=5zrzfgLFgUYC&lpg=RA1-PT20&dq=jim%20greer%20u2%20john&rview=1&pg=RA1-PT20#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Turned me on to Jimmie Dale Gilmore (still love that album) before I bothered w/ Pavement or Royal Trux, but also was the first I'd heard of Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn. And, Chuck, a friend of mine bought that Apollo Smile disc because of your review there. As I remember he only listened half of it before selling it back.

Reading that Kim Gordon/LL Cool J interview above. This is the fucking narcissism of small differences defined

Kim: Are you familiar with the early hardcore scene
LL: Uh-uh, what is that? Is it like heavy metal?
Kim: No, not at all! It was basically kids talking to other kids.

You know, Kim, "sort of" would have sufficed.

Haha, that's great. Sonic Youth's entire universe is basically the narcissism of small differences defined.

Looks like Spin was all up on Barbara Manning in '95. One of their album picks from that year--SF Seals' The Truth Walks in Sleepy Shadows--was one of Manning's bands.

http://books.google.com/books?id=b9_qs_-pof8C&lpg=PP1&lr=&rview=1&pg=PA82#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Classic Steven Daly-Jonathan Bernstein dialogue Singles column on the rise of acid house.

That Sa-Fire cover was beautiful. Had no recollection you wrote that great Scratch Acid piece. Two writers I regularly think about down the years without ever seeing anywhere are John Leland and Byron Coley.

Sa-Fire cover:
http://books.google.com/books?id=PdiXT9xoRXQC&pg=PA45&dq=Latin+Hip-Hop&lr=&as_pt=MAGAZINES&ei=l5OWS8HbLouwMo_J5MwH&rview=1&cd=3#v=onepage&q=Latin%20Hip-Hop&f=false

OH MY GOD, so much more interesting than the articles is the youth-targeted 90's ads (which I find rly fascinating)

Ha, me in a letter in 1991: "I see a magazine becoming increasingly trend-conscious and less and less art conscious."

I see a nation of millions strong, listening to Robyn Hitchcock photos.

I see mixed-and-(un)matched typefaces, angles, and crazy colors!

http://books.google.com/books?id=fsi_VCMy0tQC&lpg=PP1&lr=&rview=1&pg=PA6#v=onepage&q=&f=false

um

hey al good news you can now search the spin archives

Two writers I regularly think about down the years without ever seeing anywhere are John Leland and Byron Coley.

Leland is on staff at NYT; Coley writes regularly for The Wire.

And Leland went to Newsweek in 1990. Where, yup, he was equally genius, e.g. Mariah vs. NWA generation piece.

byron and chuck were the only two people i trusted in old spin days. i would actually go out and buy things that they liked. i got a lot of good records that way. thanks guys! i talk to chuck via the internet every day and i had a nice chat with byron a couple weeks ago in my record store. so, i still think of them. i don't think about john leland much. he should stop in my store! but, you know, i dug his column.

Leland wrote that History of Hip book a few years ago (which was the first time I'd ever heard of him).

xpost Thanks, Matos, I had no idea Coley wrote there, and I now remember seeing something in Arthur too. But Leland is a news reporter, right? I did pick up Newsweek for a while just for Leland, and remember that story--was it the Sister Souljah cover? Loved Hip: The History too. But I miss having these guys comment on albums I actually hear and buy.

Scott Poulson-Bryant brings the pain in '91:

In the immortal words of the Details cover star, Ice-T, I think Leyland played himself.

http://books.google.com/books?id=b4qmcLhXEsYC&pg=PA80&dq=%22dreaming+america%22&lr=&as_pt=MAGAZINES&cd=26#v=onepage&q=%22dreaming%20america%22&f=false

I miss Four on the Floor.