splendid (splen'did) adj.: Magnificent; grand; sumptuous. splendidezine (splen'did e-zeen) noun: Magnificent; grand; sumptuous & informative music website. Before I even attempted to start my very own "zine" (though we prefer "online music publication"), I was reading them all* - every day, every free minute. At work - they were & are always bookmarked and often hidden behind my actual work window on the computer. They did and have served as my buying guide (or sample via "free download") for some of the most rewarding gifts an audiophile can receive - good music. Atop the list of the many free "online music publications" - there's Splendid. Each new morning (or, if you are like myself, you see the daily update at 3 am), you can depend on Splendid to be there for your fix of not only informative music reviews - but a grand selection of features, weekly interviews, pointless questions (their term) and then some. With not only myself but at least 20,000 other daily readers strong - it's quite obvious that Splendid is an extremely influential music resource. Editor, writer, music lover, and online "zine" pioneer George Zahora was kind enough to take time from his "why are there only 24-hours in a day?" schedule (read along!) to tell the what's and how's of Splendid's success, beginnings and unprecedented professionalism. *(in order of importance: Splendid, Nude as the News, Drowned in Sound, babysue [weekly], Popmatters & Drawer B)
(
the oh so obvious first question) Well, I should preface this with a clarification. There are two kinds of people in the music-writing world -- people who love music and want to write about it, and writers who love music. Any good publication has a mix of the two. I'm more of the latter -- I don't just write about music, but it's something I'm motivated to write about more often and more passionately. As far as a specific album that sparked that desire... honestly, I can't remember. I've been writing about music for a very long time -- more than half my adult life -- so the details are hazy. I'm sorry. It would be a lot more romantic and satisfying if I could say "November 3rd, 1984, when I first heard (such and such)," but I can't. + Has there ever been an offer to make the transition to a print magazine? An offer, meaning has someone offered to foot the bill? I wish! I've had a gameplan for a print edition for years -- 90% new content, glossy, low cover price, etc. -- but the money just doesn't exist. I contribute to a few print titles and I've seen them struggling to make ends meet. If an established mag can't find an audience, or meet its costs, or collect its ad revenue from labels that are struggling to stay afloat, why would we? Perhaps if we gave the magazine away free... Most of my business ideas end with "...and we give it away free!" That's why I'll be sitting on a highway offramp with a crazy grin and a "Will bankrupt your company for food" sign when I'm 45. + Have you escaped a normal, corporate day job (yet)? If
I'm lucky, I escape one every day at 5:00. Sometimes it's more like
7:00. + You have some dedicated, truly professional help at Splendid - such as the tireless Jennifer Kelly (does she sleep?). With Splendid being a non-paying, "for the love of it all" working collective - how do you keep these amazing people on board? Thank you for noticing our fantastic staff. You're right -- Jennifer Kelly is fantastic; she's an amazingly productive writer who just happens to think of us as the "fun" part of her day, I think. We have a tremendous number of amazing people on staff -- some stay for only a few months, while others stick around for years, but they all bring something fantastic to the site. I can only assume that they stick around because they enjoy not only rooting for, but *being*, the underdog, and they like the creative opportunities that Splendid offers. It's a good thing these people are unpaid, because attempting to put a value on their contributions would be almost impossible. I couldn't ever pay them enough.
+ To the Splendid diehards - it just seems like .splendidezine.com is it's very own day-to-day functioning office. In "reality" - how does the submission process work? Do you receive all the sumbmissions yourself and distribute to hungry writers? If it seems like a real, functioning office, that's good -- that's the impression we're trying to create. Actually, Splendid's "office" is my desk, my PC, my laptop, my cellphone and roughly 60 square feet of CDs awaiting review. I handle all of the inbound mail, assignments, logging, incoming calls and e-mails, ad sales, billing, collections, design, package-making, shipping, and so forth (my wife sometimes helps make the packages). Writer packages are assembled once a week using a system I call "informed potluck". Basically, the longer a writer is around, the more his packages are tailored to his tastes -- more in genres and styles than specific artists. In their early days, writers get a little bit of everything while we test their mettle and get a handle on their abilities. + Coming from a one-man submission receiver and "html-wannabie" here at sctas, I know the update and email cut & paste process can be a huge (HUGE) weight. Do you have a "web kid" or do you update the site all by your lonesome? I do all the updating myself. Basically, Splendid works on a seven-day production week that begins and ends on Sunday. (Half of the day goes to finishing the previous week, the other half to the new week.) I start out by assembling the longer "pick" reviews on Sunday afternoon, then edit (writer Brett McCallon helps me edit some of the daily reviews), proof and assign run-dates to them. They go into a database the following morning, usually at an ungodly hour (I get most of Splendid's work done between 4:30 and 6:30 a.m. weekdays -- I'm up, I'm productive and nobody else is awake to bug me.). On Tuesday I edit and assemble the week's feature interview and assemble the "at a glance" reviews, which I begin to edit that morning. On Wednesday I put Boombox files into the database and continue to edit the AAG files, and by Thursday I'm usually finishing up all of the straggler AAG's. Friday the AAG reviews go into the database at 4:30 a.m. On Saturday I try to do nothing, and on Sunday I finish out the week by editing the week's Department articles. Then it all starts over again. At the same time, I'm also writing three to five reviews, making packages and god only knows what else. In other words, I do quite a bit of stuff behind the scenes, but at least I don't have to write it all! + Is there a vice-George Zahora in place for vacation, rest or sick time? Nope. Those things don't really exist for me, at least for now. I had high hopes for cloning myself, but I think the election put paid to that. + About the titles / headers each day on the site - do you keep track to make sure you're not doubling up (that's an impressive list if so) ? Are they just on a whim or planned? Totally
done on a whim, and tracked solely in my head. We've probably duplicated
one or two over the last three years, but that's all. (You may notice
that they've grown increasingly elaborate and nonsensical as the years
have passed, the better to avoid duplication.) + Back in the early stages, there was IMR - what, in a sum, can you tell us about that? IMR was a monthly e-mail-based zine started by a guy who, for reasons only he knew, called himself Elliott Smith; it wasn't his real name, and the "real" Elliott Smith wasn't famous yet. Its focus was a lot narrower and more experimental than Splendid's -- back then, covering Matador material was considered pretty mainstream. It was kind of a scattershot publication, but very much connected to the indie spirit. It died in early 1996, and Splendid essentially rose from its ashes. We've changed a lot since then, obviously, but many of our core values are the same. "Elliott" moved on fairly early in Splendid's history; he now runs an insurgent record label of his own.
+ How do you feel about the tag "zine" being associated with Splendid? Well,
it's better than "e-zine"! I look at it this way: + Did you know www.splendid.com is available (or at least not functioning!!)? It's not available -- it's paid for through 2008. For years, I badgered the domain hoarder who owned it to sell it to me for $500. He wouldn't. He finally sold it to a company called Splendid Films, which produced 'Pollock' and the two 'Cody Banks' movies, I think, then changed their name or vanished from the face of the earth. If we'd looked for the domain a few months sooner than we did (back in 96), we'd have had it. + With the 5th year celebration of the site in 2001 (also known as the 'wood anniversary'), you decided to make the move to a daily update with the site - what is the 10 year agenda (traditionally known as the 'tin / aluminum anniversary')? We will either stop entirely, or find a way to transmit the content directly into your mind. I've been saying for years that 10 years was a nice round number, and it'll probably be a good time to stop. There are other things I should be doing -- starting a family, maybe sleeping more than 4.5 hours a night -- and I think we'll have said all we can say at that point. Ideally, though, I'd like to stay on as publisher, fronting a bit of cash and writing a few articles and doing the fun stuff while someone else does the heavy lifting for a while.
+ You have mentioned (if you dig deep enough in the text of Splendid) that you may have to give up the "promising to review everything we receive" policy - any idea if this plan will have to be put into action any time soon? Understand: that was written while I was looking at a whopping 24 US mail crates full of CDs, etc., awaiting review, plus a dwindling staff. We've trimmed the backlog and brought on a lot of new writers since then. I don't think our policy will change, with one exception -- we're not going to do cassettes any more. It's just too much of a pain in the ass. That's purely a format issue, though -- we're willing to tackle the music in more workable form. The other thing you need to understand is that we get a lot of...well, "crap" is needlessly cruel. Many artists and PR firms send us everything they have simply because our policy requires us to review their stuff -- it's a guaranteed placement. Unfortunately, there may be no-one on staff whose tastes are well-matched to the music in question, which means a writer gets a CD he dislikes. We can only put so many of those in a box before the writer quits, so we're stuck with this growing backlog of bar-band CDs, singer-songwriter material, amateur light-jazz, relaxation music, third-string Gospel and god knows what else. + Do you have any picks for most under-appreciated album of 2004? For that matter - best album of 2004 period? I'm not sure about the best -- I can never, ever answer these questions -- but one of the most under-appreciated albums of 2004 was Mascott's 'Dreamer's Book'. It's a gorgeous, ornate, *sad* pop record that deserved more of an audience than it got. I also really liked the Buttless Chaps' 'Love This Time" (which may have come out in '03) and the Tarantula record, among others. + What makes George Zahora happy? Readers. Well-written copy. Duplicate copies of interesting new CDs. Pizza. Tadpoles. Rain. Eight hours without commitments or obligations. BONUS: Have you received any review sumissions from Antarctica yet? No... There's a big New Year's Day concert every year at McMurdo Station (big by Antarctica standards, anyway), and it's been recorded a few times; I considered buying a copy just so I could cross Antarctica off the list, but I never did. Seemed like cheating. So if you're reading down there on the ice -- send us a disc!
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