Adios e/i magazine… segues into unplanned appraisal of The Wire

The final edition of e/i magazine arrived the other day. As Darren Bergstein, writes (fulminates might be more accurate) in the editorial, he’s another victim of the lightning expansion of virtual media. I’m sad to see the magazine fold, its last few issues were notably handsome, a result of Taylor Deupree’s design skills and a distinct improvement on the recent caretaker work on The Wire following non-format’s apparently sudden departure. (Note to self, get round to writing a post on the Wire’s design rejig + critique of mag as a whole). I must confess that I found some of the writing in e/i went right over - or past - my head, but there were also some fine articles in there - and no, I’m not referring to myself. In the latest issue there’s a fine piece on the late Bryn Jones aka Muslimgauze that reminded me of the excellent one on Louis and Bebe Barron in the first issue of e/i that I came across.

If I were crazy enough to launch a print endeavour at this time, I’d want to treat a small number of key subjects in significant depth - e/i’s website proudly declares that the latest issue contains 150+ reviews - that does quite the opposite of what it’s intended to do. In light of the information glut I’m faced with on- and offline, what I want to read about are the underlying connections within and across media (from music to fiction, music to the fine arts and so on), the (possible) meanings of music in the wider cultural - and global - context. I’d like to see (serious) playfulness - if that’s possible, who knows. I do not want to have to wade through 150+ reviews. The same goes for those endless pages of short genre reviews at the back of The Wire (shivers). I want to see confidence, an informed authority that might make me care rather than recoil in data overload. Less is - in my book - very definitely more.

As well as the foregoing, I’d like to see a greater focus upon innovative music-related design, let’s say an ongoing folding-in of Adrian Shaughnessy’s approach in his Intro books. The Wire’s ‘my favourite album cover’ is interesting, but way too token. Why can’t reviews be presented with CD cover images? (Maybe it’s printing costs? Personally the site of columns and columns of text creates a marked reluctance to bother to read. I’d also like to see a greater range of deep coverage of not just experimental/esoteric/obscure music, but any sort of music as long as an interesting, viable perspective can be drawn upon it. All these years later, Richard Cook’s Michael Jackson issue (I’d always thought til now it was done by Mark Sinker) seems essential rather than crazy. This from the magazine’s online history:

88 June 1991
Infamously, the cover features Michael Jackson. In his editorial, Richard Cook anticipates the response of long term readers: “Michael Jackson? What the hell’s going on here?” He then attempts to reassure them: “Nothing, actually, that we haven’t done before. Maybe the scales are tipping a little differently as from this issue, but The Wire is essentially the same argumentative, alternative, demanding music magazine it’s always set out to be… [But] the word from now on is music [as opposed to Œjazz']. Music worth hearing, worth talking about, worth documenting.” And just in case anyone had failed to get the message, the subtitle changes from “Jazz And New Music” to “Music Now And All Ways”. The magazine starts calling itself The Wire again. The next four issues contain a ragbag of articles on The Jam, Stravinsky, Elvis Costello, Elliott Carter, Prince, Haydn, Kraftwerk, John Lee Hooker, Z’ev, Van Morrison, Test Department, David Bowie’s Tin Machine, Whitney Houston, Robert Wyatt…

The Wire continues to thrive - I assume - and it’s difficult for me to be balanced in my appraisal of it given the shabby treatment I feel I experienced. It has some brilliant writing, but I do feel thought that it needs a really good shakeup to bring it back to life. It doesn’t seem that Simon Bohn/Biba Kopf is the man, nor was Rob Young before him, however decent a writer the latter is. I’d say the last great period for the magazine was when Tony Herrington was the editor rather than publisher. Perhaps the magazine’s success at that time also had something to do with the music of the mid to late ’90s. Since then The Wire has certainly failed to engage with either UK Garage or the Grime/Dubstep movements of the last near decade - reviews of the new Burial and Boxcutter CDs appear, oddly enough, under Dub and Electronica respectively in the latest issue. The magazine’s also pretty much failed to engage in any interesting way with the web. It remains very much a print endeavour, its website is appalling badly designed (step up to the stocks non-format, print not web designers). Ultimately The Wire’s in significant danger of sinking under its own venerable status. Or perhaps it’ll sail on for decades…

Anyway, I wish Mr Bergstein luck in whatever future endeavours he undertakes, virtual or otherwise.