The Death Of No Depression

Reading Is Dead... long live reading.

“And I'm giving you a longing look
Everyday, everyday, everyday I write the book”-Elvis Costello






So for the past few years I have only subscribed to a couple of magazines. The first was the New Yew Yorker and the second was the Alt-Country music mag No Depression. So it was with some sadness that I was informed by my son that No Depression will cease publication with its next issue. No depression was around since 1995 and they had a good run.
To quote the Seattle Post Intelligencer:

“No Depression, named for a Carter Family song recorded in the 1930s, has been the top magazine for the roots-oriented, alternative-country genre.

Son Volt was featured on the cover of the first issue of No Depression, published in September 1995. The publication was quarterly in the beginning, then went bimonthly as it grew. The Chicago Tribune ranked No Depression No. 20 in its 2004 list of the country's top 50 magazines in all formats.”

That is some pretty heady stuff. I was there from the beginning and it was my music mag covering my favorite Genre lovingly and in heavy print stock. Chock full of adds which sometimes were just as good as the magazine itself. They got me into a lot of good music and also led me down some blind alleys just because the band being reviewed twanged a little.
It seemed like the magazine flourished starting with issue one which featured our own (Belleville’s) Jay Farrar and it flowed from there fairly dreamlessly with some truly brilliant stuff through the years. They had a reasonable eye for talent and were not afraid to reach out and embrace the different. The magazine also had a reverence for rock and roll royalty and spent ample time on Dylan, Neil Young, Elvis Costello and Van Morrison. The magazine introduced me to a record house called Miles of Music (milesofmusic.com) and i became a reasonably good customer. There was something liberating about buying CD’s from a catalogue or on line, and something that seemed noble or disciplined about waiting a week to ten days for them to arrive. And when a package of four CD’s arrived it seemed like Christmas.

Every month i would read the magazine, review the adds, check out the CD reviews and make a list of what I “needed”. It kept me current, if only in my little genre and the indie scene tangentially related to it. It is my understanding that they are going to keep up with their web site. Their last issue stated in a letter from the editor that decreased add revenue and ever increasing costs for things like paper made the future of the magazine a losing proposition. They also blamed the new postal regulations giving the mass publications that mail a huge advantage in postage because they could buy and maintain the proper sorting equipment. So big triumphs again and while No Depression dies key publications like “Outlaw Biker” and Cosmo Teen” will roll on. Dark times my friend. Dark times indeed.

Pick up the last issue of No Depression when it comes out next week. Read it, enjoy it and savor it These words are going boy and they ain’t never coming back.

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I still like the New Yorker. The quality of the writing is top notch. Yes it is liberal leaning but of course as I amble toward being a commie that becomes easier and easier to swallow. Sometimes their articles run long... some times WAY too long and with my well documented ADD that can be a problem but also, being a quitter, I find i have the ability to stop.The fact is that they employ some of the best writers in the world, whether for fact or for fiction and although they are no longer an edgy publication, they are a bastion of quality and deep thinking liberalism. So the New Yorker soldiers on and for that I am well pleased. But there is some more good news for readers.

I read a book a few years ago by a nice young writer named Dave Eggers called “They Shall Know Us By Our Velocity”... it was clever and quirky. There was no title page and in fact the book started on the inside of the front cover. Moreover it was published by his own publishing house, Mc Sweeneys. http://www.mcsweeneys.net. Mc Sweeney’s is irreverent and cool. They attract some of the best and most interesting writers and the topics run the gamut. This web site is a current readers dream. In the age where no one reads books anymore we all have to rely on Amazon and Borders and even worse on the old line publishing houses which... like the old line record companies are dying and had better morph quickly if they are going to survive. The costs involved with main line publishing and bringing a book to market are simply too steep for them to try anything interesting or out of step. Good for John Grisham... bad for everyone else.

Along with what is now a long line of books they publish several magazines and do some things on the internet or some multi media thing which I don’t even pretend to understand (Wholphin). Their web site is rewarding enough but I have recently started subscribing to a brilliant pulp monthly they do called The Believer. The Believer is what the New Yorker would be in this cyber age if the New Yorker started now. They have offbeat art, poetry and fiction. They do feature articles and short interviews of people they (and thus we) fin interesting. The Believer has a great column each month by (like him or not) Nick Hornby who if nothing else is extremely well read and I get some great book ideas from him that I simply would not read about anywhere else. The mag is only on it’s 51st issue so it is still in its toddling stages and it will be interesting and exciting to see how they form it as it goes forward. In short... The Believer might save your life.