Hi; I'm back again. Here are the facts on this subject, via the weekly New
York Observer:
Musician, which had a pretty good run in the 1980's as the
celebrity-froth-free rock and jazz magazine for people who actually know
how to play music, was shut down on Feb. 8. Its glory days were long past.
In the last few years, as its original writers and editors left, it had
morphed into a trade publication, a practical monthly guide for the working
musician with features on the importance of health insurance, "two-track
ambient recording" and investment guidance from such musical luminaries as
former Journey drummer Steve Smith and "techno rocker" Moby. "It was like
watching your child get lobotomized," said Vic Garbarini, who was editor in
chief from 1979 to 1985.
The magazine was started by two friends, Gordon Baird and Sam Holdsworth,
in Boulder, Colo., in 1976. They later relocated the editorial offices to
New York. A 1980 interview with Paul McCartney, published not long before
John Lennon's death, put the magazine on the map. Indeed, a recording of
the interview was nominated for a Grammy Award in 1981. By then, Messrs.
Baird and Holdsworth had brought enough marquee value to Musician to
attract the interest of Billboard, the music industry trade bible, which
bought the magazine in 1981.
As Charles M. Young, a writer and editor at Musician from 1983 until 1996,
put it, "The writers all knew something about music," and unlike the more
star-oriented Rolling Stone, "Musician got into the mystical side and the
technical side of music." In short, the magazine catered to an audience of
music cognoscenti, picking the brains of a rogues' gallery of
musicians-Keith Richards, Joe Satriani, Elvis Costello, Sinead O'Connor,
U2, T-Bone Burnett, Morrissey, George Clinton, Nirvana-and getting them to
wax about everything from the music they made to what brand of microphones
they preferred.
It worked well enough that, at a certain point in the mid-1980's, Billboard
considered taking the 125,000 circulation magazine to the next level,
beefing up its circulation and making it more of a mass-market read, like
Rolling Stone. But the owners decided to keep it small. Mr. Garbarini said
that in the 80's, the plan worked and the magazine was "making money hand
over foot." The stay-small-and-focused strategy continued under editor Bill
Flanagan, who kept the rock icon interviews and new music coverage coming
after he took the helm in 1985.
But according to Mr. Young, the magazine was slow to pick up on grunge and
"the atmosphere in the offices got rather toxic in the early 90's." By now,
Billboard had become a part of the BPI Publishing empire, alongside The
Hollywood Reporter and Amusement Business, and the management at BPI began
to meddle, some former editors said. In 1995, Mr. Flanagan left to become
vice president and editorial director at VH1, where he has successfully
repackaged the channel along the lines of his version of Musician-minus the
technogeek fixation on musicians' hardware.
With Mr. Flanagan gone, BPI hired Robert Doerschuk, a former editor at
Keyboard magazine, to make Musician less mystical, as it were, and more
practical-that is, a trade magazine for working musicians. After the
publisher was fired, the offices were moved to Nashville in 1998, where
Amusement Business is published. (Mr. Doerschuk declined to comment.) There
it remained, pumping out its no-bones financial and technical advice until
it was put out of its misery.
Mr. Garbarini, a Playboy contributor these days who also lives in Nashville
and had kept in touch with the staff, lamented that the magazine had become
a dry manual about the business. It was about "'Tell me about your business
plan,'" he said. "And nobody was interested. Of course they weren't!" A
source at the magazine confirmed that Musician's circulation had sagged
recently. It was Mr. Garbarini's understanding from talking to people at
the magazine that circulation was down to about 50,000.
Howard Lander, president of Billboard Music Group, referred calls to Karen
Oertley, an executive in Nashville who oversaw Musician. Through her
assistant, she said, "We suspended monthly publication, but we will
continue to do the Musician's Guide to Touring and Promotion twice a year."
