Here’s some advice for anyone pondering guest-editing the Anti-Music Issue of a magazine in the future: Don’t tell anyone else what you’re doing. It’ll just complicate things. Here’s how it will work. You’ll say, “Hey, I’m guest-editing an Anti-Music Issue!” And the person you’re talking with says, “‘Anti-Music’? What does that mean?” And you will suddenly discover that your theme is a remarkably hard thing to communicate.If you persist in explaining, you’ll encounter another, even less comfortable phenomenon: the Breakthrough. The person you’re talking to will suddenly “get it.” Their eyes will glaze over and they’ll look past your shoulder and they will deliver an impassioned monologue. This may involve: bit rates, blogs, compact-disc prices, compact-disc manufacturing, covers, cronyism, dilettantes, foppish haircuts, poseurs, public fickleness, oblivious youth, overcompression, neo-jam bands, political posturing, rap jerks, reunions, thwarted reunions, too little file sharing, too much file sharing, and/or Vampire Weekend. The only consensus will be that—like the education system and those fat cats in DC—“something” is drastically wrong. But no two people will have the same definition of what that something is.That’s the bad news. The good news is you’ll have this issue ofViceto guide you. And, of course, if you’re guest-editing an Anti-Music Issue of some magazine in the not-so-near future, you’ll have bigger things to worry about (nano-assassins, Tube Foot, global famine). At which point this issue will still be something nice to read in the bomb shelter.Either way, enjoy!
Sam McPheeters ran a record label for 12 years and was in touring bands for 15 years.He lives in California and still grudgingly listens to Slayer.
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