Straight No Chaser (magazine)

Straight No Chaser
Editor Paul Bradshaw, Neil Spencer, Kathryn Willgress
Categories Cultural Magazine
Frequency Pentannual (previously quarterly)
Circulation 10-20,000
Publisher Paul Bradshaw
Founder Paul Bradshaw, Neil Spencer, Kathryn Willgress
Year founded June 1988
First issue Volume 1: 1988
Volume 2: 1998
Final issue Volume 1: 1998
Volume 2: 2007
Country United Kingdom
Based in London
Language English
Website

Straight No Chaser was an influential British music magazine based in London and published between 1988 and 2007, which covered various forms of black music and electronic music.

The magazine was founded by journalists Paul Bradshaw, Neil Spencer and Kathryn Willgress to cover music of black origin including hip hop, dance, reggae, Latin and African styles that were largely ignored by mainstream media. It emerged in June 1988 coinciding with The Second Summer of love.[1]

Publishing

It was published in the UK and distributed for sale across Britain, much of Europe, metropolitan areas of the US and Japan. Claiming to be the first magazine to be designed and laid out exclusively on Apple Mac computers, the first few issues were designed by Ian "Swifty" Swift at Neville Brody's studio where he worked as assistant designer of The Face Magazine. Starting out as a quarterly, the team moved to 43B Coronet Street, Shoreditch, London, N1 6HD. It moved to 5 times a year on its second volume, however the actual number of issues released would fluctuate year on year and it didn't have a regular release date, so regular purchasers of the magazine often had to keep an eye out for its release when it happened.[2] It also had a slightly differing version that was published and distributed for sale separately in Japan. Occasionally a covermount CD or tape was also included with the magazine, sometimes either only for a limited number of copies or for its initial print run for that issue, but other times only for sale on the Japanese edition.

Tenth year anniversary

In July 1998, to celebrate the magazine's tenth birthday, Paul Bradshaw gathered all of the current contributors for a photograph with photographer Peter Williams. In tribute to Art Kane's famous 1958 group portrait of New York jazz players, A Great Day in Harlem, the photo was named A Great Day in Hoxton.[3] Alongside prominent music business faces such as Gilles Peterson and James Lavelle were many talented designers, fashion professionals, writers, dancers and fellow photographers.[4]

Slogans

  • The Magazine Tuned To The Freedom Principle
  • The Magazine Of World Jazz Jive
  • Interplanetary Sounds: Ancient To Future

Content and themes

SNC magazines' slogan was Interplanetary Sounds: Ancient To Future, which basically meant it covered Jazz music at the centre, with other black music's from around the world—especially soulful electronic music—forming the core of its focus. While most of the magazine contained charts from eminent DJ's on the scene (including a regular chart from Bradshaw's DJ friends James Lavelle, Dave Hucker, Ross Allen and Gilles Peterson)[5] or articles on underground music scenes around the world, it also had an eye on contemporary artwork, and underground fashionable trends in and outside various music communities usually not generally well-known about outside of the world's big urban centres (London, Paris, Tokyo, New York, San Francisco, et al.). Alongside cutting edge graphics the magazine championed the works of emerging writers, photographers and illustrators as well as providing an alternative context for world renowned writers including Commonwealth Writers' Prize winner Pauline Melville and Booker Prize winner Michael Ondaatje.

The magazine was often compared with the US magazine publication Wax Poetics which came along later, and could be argued copied Straight No Chaser's style in some design and content ways.

Editions

The magazine had 92 issues, released across two volumes of 46 issues in each: the first volume from 1988 to 1998, the second from 1998 to the last edition in 2007.

Volume 1: 1988 to 1998

Photo cover artists featured on the first volume issues:

Volume 2: 1998 to 2007

Photo cover artists featured on the second volume issues:

Ending

For various reasons, not least the spread of the internet and declining magazine sales, plus the changing affects in the general music culture from vinyl and CD collecting to more digital downloading, Bradshaw decided to shut the magazine down in 2007 with the last issue being number 46 from volume 2, the Summer edition released around August that year.[8][9]

No digital versions (pdf, ePub, or similar, format) of the magazine were ever released, and there have so far been no plans to reissue them as such. Paul Bradshaw is currently in the processes of producing the last couple of issues leading to issue 100 in 2017.

A relaunch was announced in January 2017 [10] with sales of Issue 98 going live online on 1 September.[11]

See also

References

  1. ↑ First issue, Issue 1 Vol 1, released in March 1988.
  2. ↑ List of most Straight No Chaser issues, with month of release dates.
  3. ↑ Alex Rayner “Gentrification's ground zero: the rise and fall of Hoxton Square”, “The Guardian” March 2018,
  4. ↑ Rayner, Alex (14 March 2018). "Gentrification's ground zero: the rise and fall of Hoxton Square". the Guardian. Retrieved 5 October 2018.
  5. ↑ Peterson / Bradshaw podcast feature.
  6. ↑ "Sidewinder vol.3: South Africa '95 – Collisions & Collusions" (PDF). Straight No Chaser. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
  7. ↑ "Outernational Meltdown – "South Africa Outernational Meltdown" - 3 × Vinyl, LP, Album at Discogs". Discogs. 1995. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
  8. ↑ Post subject: The end of Straight No Chaser Mag from the Beyond Jazz music forums, posted: 22 June 2007
  9. ↑ "The Final Issue, Issue 46 Vol 2, released August 2007". Retrieved 5 October 2018.
  10. ↑ "Cult music magazine Straight No Chaser set to relaunch as limited edition". thevinylfactory.com. Retrieved 2017-09-05.
  11. ↑ Chaser, Straight No. "Straight No Chaser – #SNC98". Straight No Chaser. Retrieved 2017-09-05.
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