The June 1990 issue of
Spin is certainly a time capsule. The cover star is Lisa Stansfield, which greatly annoyed the mag's alt-leaning readers but is fine with me—
Affection is one of my favorite albums ever, though "All Around the Girl" disqualifies it for the Cover Head Hall of Fame. The reviews section ("Edited by Jim Greer," it notes; Greer went on to play bass for Guided by Voices and then write
a book about them in which Greer's time in the band is barely mentioned) features write-ups of albums by Nick Cave, Cowboy Junkies, Blue Aeroplanes, A Tribe Called Quest, Television Personalities, the House of Love, the Sundays, Ernie Isley, the Silos, Stone by Stone with Chris D., Tony Williams, and Loop; Frank Owen's "Singles" column takes on New York's John Cardinal O'Connor's condemnation of heavy metal and the flap over Chill Rob G's and Snap!'s competing versions of "The Power"; the contents page tells us the magazine has 98 pages, which is a good thing considering there are almost no page numbers on the actual pages themselves. (That Bob Guccione Jr. and his minimalist design sense!) But the main reason I tracked down this piece of nostalgia on eBay is that after seeing the
Ludacris Area Codes Map, I remembered the "Hip-Hop Map of America" by Bob Mack, who would go on to edit the Beastie Boys' 'zine,
Grand Royal. The full map, and some choice excerpts, below.
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Idolator
A few years ago, writing a story about art-comics publishers Fantagraphics, I was intrigued to learn that Gary Groth, who runs the Seattle comics publishing house, had gotten his start in print by running a now-obscure rock mag titled Sounds Fine. Groth wasn't the only comics nut who would try his hand at running a music publication in the '70s; late in the decade, Marvel Comics launched a short-lived "youth culture" mag of its own, Pizzazz, which leaned heavily on the popular tuneage of the day. As Sean Kleefeld notes at the top of his set of 16 covers from the mag's run, there's a looot of Shaun Cassidy here. Still, the image of Linda Ronstadt backed by guitarist Dr. Strange, bassist Captain America, and drummer C-3PO is one of those things that make you thank the heavens for the invention of the scanner. [Kleefeld on Comics; HT Jess H]
A photo of a record store circa 1950-51 inspires a comment thread filled with other store snapshots and old ads. Look at all that we were missing! [
