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May 11, 2006

* "words, words...between the lines of age"

Our longtime senior editor David Cantwell asked us if we wouldn't mind plugging his new internet blog at livinginstereo.com — which I've now managed to accomplish in my very first sentence, thank you very much — and it occurred to me that it might be nice to use the occasion to shine a little further light on all of the folks who most regularly and significantly contribute to our magazine's pages. You'll find them listed in the staff box of every issue as "senior editors" and "contributing editors", but chances are you may not know much about them, save for what they've revealed in author's notes at the end of articles they've written for us over the years. So here's at least a cursory introduction....

David Cantwell (Kansas City, Missouri): My somewhat hazy recollection is that David first came to our attention via Postcard2, an internet discussion board which sprouted in the mid-'90s (around the same time as the AOL "No Depression" board that partly inspired our magazine's name). David teaches English at a college in Kansas City and recently co-authored the book Heartaches By The Number, a ranking of all-time great country singles, with fellow ND senior editor Bill Friskics-Warren. In addition to his frequent writing contributions to the magazine, David also has been our proofreader for the past few years; aside from Grant and me, he's the only one who sees every page of the magazine before it goes to print. His corrections on matters of grammar, fact and style usually are accompanied by a few "comments" that make the final-proofing process considerably more entertaining and enlightening; his observations are often cantankerous, but he's usually right on the money, or at least has a good point.

Bill Friskics-Warren (Nashville, Tennessee): Bill was also an early presence on P2, I believe, and preceded Cantwell as ND's proofreader. A theologian by schooling, Bill is a tremendously smart fellow, and has a wealth of experience as a journalist; he has frequently contributed to such established daily newspapers as The New York Times and The Washington Post, and recently served a lengthy stint as music editor of the weekly Nashville Scene. He also helped to shape early impressions of alt-country by curating the 1996 Bloodshot Records compilation Nashville: The Other Side Of The Alley. Bill's articles inevitably send me scrambling through the dictionary to verify his occasionally obscure diction, but that's something I appreciate about his writing: He doesn't dumb things down, and I almost always end up learning a little more about our language from reading his work.

Barry Mazor (Nashville, Tennessee): Though Barry's been in Nashville for about three years now, I'll probably always associate him with New York, where he lived for several decades before making the move to Music City. Another regular of both the P2 and ND boards, Barry spent many years as an editor of computer-related trade magazines before eventually making a go of it as a full-time freelancer. His knowledge of popular music history is immense and his work ethic is dogged, but ultimately it was the passion with which he communicated his thoughts that first struck Grant and me when we began assigning things to him many years ago. His rise to our senior editor ranks has been one of the more pleasing developments for us over the past half-decade (and, we hope, for him as well).

Don McLeese (Des Moines, Iowa): Much of what I learned about music criticism came from Don, with whom I worked for a year or two at the daily newspaper in Austin, Texas, in the early '90s. Don arrived in Austin with major-league experience, as a staff critic with the Chicago Sun-Times and an occasional freelancer for Rolling Stone; he left about ten years later having set the standard for music journalism in Austin. Several "McLeese-isms" from my brief tenure with him have stuck with me to this day, among them "Good writing comes from good thinking" and "The music must be its own reward." No surprise that nowadays he imparts his wisdom to aspiring writers at the University of Iowa — and, thankfully, still finds time to write for us as often as possible.

Paul Cantin (Toronto, Ontario): Though he was a reporter for one of the Toronto dailies when we first made contact with him, Paul has since gotten into a considerably different line of work, handling media relations for the Health Council of Canada. His long background in reporting for Canadian newspapers and websites made him a natural choice to take over the reins of our news column when we expanded it to two pages last fall.

John T. Davis (Austin, Texas): Like McLeese, John T. is another alum of the daily-paper music critic job in Austin. As a native Texan, he has always been more reflective of the state's down-home manner, though his folksy delivery tends to occasionally be spiked with scholarly references that reveal the remarkable depth and breadth of his knowledge.

Silas House (Lily, Kentucky): An editor at North Carolina publishing house Algonquin Books turned us on to Silas' debut novel, Clay's Quilt, about five years ago. Both Grant and I liked his fiction voice, and, noticing the frequent references to roots musicians in his novel, we wondered if he might be interested in writing for ND as well. His 2001 cover story on Lucinda Williams began a rewarding and lasting association.

Roy Kasten (St. Louis, Missouri): Another early P2 recruit, Roy can inevitably be sighted surfing the crowd at St. Louis' annual alt-country soiree Twangfest, which follows ND into the 10-year club next month. When we queried our senior and contributing editors for thoughts about our redesign and relaunch for our own 10-year anniversary last fall, it was Roy who suggested the magazine should strive to cover "the past, present and future of American music."

Rich Kienzle (Greensburg, Pennsylvania): Many is the time that Grant and I (and probably you as well) have perused a reissue of some classic country album and found that the liner notes were penned by Rich. He is undoubtedly among the foremost country music researchers and historians of his generation, possessing an attention to detail rarely found in music journalists anymore.

Jesse Fox Mayshark (New York City, New York): We first encountered Jesse when he was a prime mover at the weekly paper in Knoxville, Tennessee; since then, he's moved to the Big Apple and has become a copy editor at The New York Times. We're glad he didn't leave us behind when he moved on up, as he consistently contributes some of the most insightful writing in our pages.

David Menconi (Raleigh, North Carolina): I've known David longer than anyone else in our staff box (including Grant and Kyla, even). We first met in 1987 when he was at the daily paper in Boulder, Colorado; for the past 15-plus years he's been the staff music critic at the Raleigh News & Observer in North Carolina. His presence there helped us gain a vital early jump on the plethora of NC Triangle alt-country bands in the mid-'90s.

Joe Nick Patoski (Wimberley, Texas): At times it seems like there's not much Joe Nick hasn't done, from writing for prototype alt-country publication Picking Up The Tempo in the mid-'70s to road-managing Joe King Carrasco in the early '80s to managing the True Believers in the mid-'80s to writing and editing for Texas Monthly in the '90s to making weekly appearances on KGSR at present. We're very glad he finds time to write for us too.

Linda Ray (Tucson, Arizona): Just as I tend to associate Barry Mazor with New York, when I think of Linda I think Chicago, where she was a constant nightclub presence and frequent gracious host throughout the mid-late '90s. She's since returned to her old stomping grounds in Tucson and has become an interwoven part of that town's music community as well. We're proud to be the first publication to have printed her writing.

Kurt B. Reighley (Seattle, Washington): I'm not sure if Kurt's tenure covering the Seattle music scene dates back to the days when Grant and I were at The Rocket, but in any event, he's been a fixture in the Emerald City for quite some time. These days Kurt writes a regular Americana column for The Stranger alt-weekly, and also occasionally performs with a rather entertaining band called Purty Mouth.

Lloyd Sachs (Chicago, Illinois): Though he has an extensive history of writing about music for Chicago papers -- he came to our attention through his longtime colleague Don McLeese -- Lloyd's primary presence in the Windy City press for the past few years has been as a member of the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board. Which is perhaps one more example of how intertwined the relationship between music and politics can be....

Allison Stewart (At Large): Don't ask where Allison resides these days, we've had a hard time keeping track of her globetrotting in recent years. She first came to Grant's attention when he was working with the RayGun empire, and she has proven to be a quite valuable correspondent in tracing the connective tissue between the indie and roots realms.

Jon Weisberger (Madison, Tennessee): Grant and I tend to be somewhat skeptical of journalists who are also regularly working musicians — conflict-of-interest situations can overwhelm those who try to do both — but Jon is among those who are able to make it work, largely because of his vast knowledge of bluegrass, and the respect with which he is held in that community.

We extend our sincere gratitude for the efforts of all these senior and contributing editors -- and, indeed, all the writers who have appeared in our pages -- for helping to make No Depression what it has been, and will be.

adios,
peter

Posted by Peter at 9:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)