SPIN on Google Books

"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.

Haha LELAND.

Leyland plays himself on a daily basis, March-September.

Poulson-Bryant was always a big favorite of mine in Spin, I recall reading this but didn't know anything about Leland at that point.

Did y'all happen to notice that they have a bunch of old CMJs up, too? Like from when it didn't totally suck?

No!

I remember Leland's Details column and this response, two guys in the dark with the same elephant. Hard to imagine this kind of exchange happening now.

I don't know, there's bound to be a website about that very thing.

Yeah, but not with the same "fine, white boy, go home" tone, just because the sentiment that hip hop used to be more fun and less self-conscious isn't confined to white folks, if it ever was, and the question of cultural ownership has gotten more complicated, if it ever wasn't.

I did a search on Leland, and came up with this Jay Smooth description of a 2005 Public Enemy conference panel at NYU. Really cool to discover that Chuck D was in the audience at one of the Clash's Bonds shows:
http://www.hiphopmusic.com/archives/000829.html

Looking at this makes me wish I had an iPad.

― Mark, Sunday, March 7, 2010 12:23 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is pretty genius:
http://andrewhearst.com/blog/2012/03/spy_magazine_ipad_archive

"Our Readers Picks The Top 100 Songs Of Our Time"
Does anyone have input on what's going on with this thing? There's no way that's an accurately tallied list based on actual votes from readers with zero input from promotion companies and record labels who were trying to push shit onto consumers. No one actually listened to "The Sweater" by Meryn Cadell in 1993.. SPIN was paid to include that song at #100. I can't think of any other reasonable explanation why that song would've been included here because there's no way anyone actually included that in their votes for "The top songs of our time."

I love this...it really stands the test of time of relevence!!!!

I would've been too young at the time to care if I had actually seen this but looking at it now the whole thing just looks strange.

first time i've ever seen the thing. pretty entertaining tho. the smell of goat boys...