Here's this weeks excerpts from the R.C. Weekly Newsletter. Sign up for the full unedited edition by contacting: [email protected]
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As the magazine hurtles towards press day like a cheese bagel down a greased Cresta Run, we are busy making last-minute adjustments and shouting at each other, with occasional fights breaking out. I have worked at many mags over the years and it’s always the same. I saw a sub-editor get nailgunned to a wall at Impractical Woodworker; at What Raptor?, a news reporter was covered in sardines and locked in a room with a half-starved fish eagle, and on Oi I’m Pregnant, Not Obese, an irritating secretary was made to do a taste test – of nappies. Bullying? Perish the thought. It’s part of the fun of magazine publishing. Here at RC, the ways we combat stress are more subtle. I might drag a sharpened fingernail across one of Ian Shirley’s tax-dodge albums – without telling him which one it was out of the 5,123 he owns. Tim Jones will play the same Foreigner album track 15 times in a row. And our admirable adman, Bill, will recite the entire lyrics of Sandinista over and over as a calming mantra until we all chuck fruit at him. Ah stress, we laugh in your tense, wrinkled face. All the way to the Priory!
Actually this issue is looking very tasty, although regrettably not as advertised. We’ve not been able to bring you the story about The Cure owing to an issue beyond our control, but it will appear in the near future. We’ve got a Fabulous (Music – gettit? Thought not) feature about Track Records; plus an Arthur Brown interview, and a lovely reminiscence about the ongoing career of a true Tyger. We learn what musicals have done for us (though I still loathe them), hear from the self-effacing Ian McCulloch, and meet Hank Marvin and try not to think about rhyming slang. Plus we have a tribute to the mighty Jackie Wilson (some things are never forgotten)to celebrate what would have been his 80th birthday.
Away from the hard graft, we’ve been enjoying throwing highly valuable Track goodies around the office in a game of dares. I bought a record I’ve owned since 1979, just because of the sleeve; last time it cost £3, this time it was, uh, substantially more. At home at the weekend, I had a Bob James afternoon, a nostalgia fest for me because I remember being a teenager in my mate’s Vauxhall Viva while he was playing a cassette of this on the way to a pub in the Old Kent Road. At the door: “Yes, of course I’m 21, mate; I’m 23 as it goes.” On the way home at 2am in reflective mood, he’d play this because he was on the buses and so was my dad. Anyway, back then Bob James meant classy music with some thought in it, and to me, it still does.
Hope you have a good week. And remember to keep away from deadlines…
Best wishes,
Ian McCann
Editor
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