1. Who are you anyway and why do you want to be the coordinator of MRR?
Who am I? I’m Dave. Why, you say? I say that the reason I know about music is from reading MRR cover to cover for roughly six years while I was growing up. That’s pretty danged impressive, even to me. Without having read the mag, I’d probably be a drastically different person. Growing up in Cleveland didn’t necessarily afford me exposure to a slew of punk kids. There were some, of course – but MRR made the potentiality of the music more tangible to me. It was even pretty good about covering some of my city’s HC bands as well as the TKOs, who might still be my favorite punk band.
After taking so much out of MRR, I think that helping to run the show would not only be a just conclusion to all of this, but also a way for me to better acclimate myself to publishing. ‘Cause really, how many music mags have remained vital for over twenty plus years – and no, Rolling Stone, obviously, doesn’t count.
2. What do you like about MRR? Include both specifics (sections, columnists, etc.) and generalities (things we do or do not cover, policies, general direction/philosophical aim of the zine).
George Tabb has always stuck with me. I can’t say that Furious George ended up being my favorite band, but I could read about it and be entertained. The conversational tone – not just his, but a great many of the columnists – made punk seem like a friendly entity. Tabb’s drunken stories were good, which didn’t hurt either.
Scene reports, though kinda erratic in quality, were always a decent way for me to figure out what was happening in places I never thought really mattered.
The guest columnists that jive with the topics discussed within issue-specific editions of MRR are usually top notch. There’s a familiarity with topics that’s pretty reassuring even as the writing style that’s made use of seems familiar and simple enough for anyone to follow (I’ll address the other half of what I think about these folks in the answer to #4).
The top ten list and record reviews are indispensible introductions to new music as well.
3. What other zines/magazines do you read and like?
I wrote/write for Skyscraper – they ceased publishing physical copies at the beginning of last summer. The combination of long form analysis as well as simple design made it not only one of more insightful journals out there, but easy to get through.
URB, who also just quit publishing last month, always gave me some insider view of new acts that MRR wouldn’t cover. I also had a brief flirtation with Stop Smiling and Alarm. The writing in those last two are/were incredible even if the acts that they covered weren’t always my favorites.
Signal to Noise, while a bit to obscure, has a few writers that really need to be noticed. Again, the drawback of covering stuff that no one cares about makes reading that mag a sometimes harrowing, page skipping endeavor.