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Jack White’s Third Man Records launches a magazine called Maggot Brain

Jack White likes old-school technology. Magnetic tape. Vinyl. Cameras that use actual film. Therefore, I guess it shouldn’t be surprised that he’s still into things like magazines.

Maggot Brain is a new full-colour quarterly.

From the press release:

“We love you and promise to never have a ‘real’ website. Long live print!

“We miss cigar-smelling newsstands crammed with amazing publications from everywhere all at once.

“We miss Creem. We miss Ragtime Ephemeralist. We miss Spy. We miss NY Rocker. We miss weirdo newsprint thrust at us right by subway entrances. We miss Weirdo. We miss Locus Solus. We miss Off Our Backs. We miss Low Rider. We miss Kicks. We miss The Voice. We miss Motorbooty. We miss Avalanche. We miss Grand Royal. We miss Slash. We miss the Gentlewomen of California. We miss Raw. We miss being able to find stacks of old Oz, It, or Black Panther newspapers in the back of that used bookstore in the strip mall. We miss the red and black. We miss the crowding into See Hear. We miss Index Magazine.

“We miss anything that Joe Brainard did a cover for, that printed words by Lucy Lippard, that ran yet another bare-chested image of Iggy Pop, that told stories for no reason other than they must be told.

“And yeah, we are aware how cheesy that last bit sounds, but we are pretty much cool with being cheesy — just look what the fuck kind of politics irony, disaffection, and that laziest vice of privilege have got us into.

“And yes, you get it, we love print but we do not merely live in the past surrounded by the moldy old, really. We mean, fantagraphics is still publishing new issues of Love & Rockets, plus there is so much new stuff. From every single piece of paper at the Printed Matter Book Fair to the eight-colored silkscreen books of Le Dernier Cri, from your scrawled punk grad thesis ‘zines to the perfectly printed works of Eberhardt Press, there is still so much, and so much we do not know about being made now. And we still believe in the democratizing possibilities of the internet, despite its current state. We’re not luddites, but. Just please don’t ask us where our website is.

“Over 100 pages packed with phenomenal content – art, music, literature, and unpublished archival stuff + more.”

Interested? Go here.

Alan Cross

is an internationally known broadcaster, interviewer, writer, consultant, blogger and speaker. In his 40+ years in the music business, Alan has interviewed the biggest names in rock, from David Bowie and U2 to Pearl Jam and the Foo Fighters. He’s also known as a musicologist and documentarian through programs like The Ongoing History of New Music.

Alan Cross has 37981 posts and counting. See all posts by Alan Cross

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