Straight No Chaser (magazine)

Straight No Chaser
Editor Paul Bradshaw, Amar Patel, Ian Swift (Swifty), Gilles Peterson
Categories Cultural Magazine
Frequency Pentannual (previously quarterly)
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, which covered various forms of black music and electronic music.

The magazine was started by music lover, journalist, and general clubgoer Paul Bradshaw, to cover the emerging black music scene that he saw expanding in London and the UK around the time house music hit British shores in a big way around Summer 1988.[1]

Publishing

It was published in the UK and distributed for sale across the whole country, much of Europe, metropolitan areas of the US and other countries, from address 43B Coronet Street, Shoreditch, London, N1 6HD. It also had a slightly differing version that was published and distributed for sale separately in Japan. Starting out life being published quarterly, it moved to 5 times a year on its second volume, however the actual amount 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] Very occasionally a covermount CD or tape was also included with the magazine, sometimes either only for a limited amount of copies or for its initial print run for that issue, but other times only for sale on the Japanese edition.

Slogans

Content and themes

SNC magazines' slogan was Interplanetary Sounds: Ancient To Future, which basically meant it covered Jazz music at the center, 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 friend Gilles Peterson)[3] 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 worlds' big urban centres (London, Paris, Tokyo, New York, San Francisco, et al.).

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.[6][7]

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.

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. ↑ Peterson / Bradshaw podcast feature.
  4. ↑ "Sidewinder vol.3: South Africa '95 – Collisions & Collusions" (PDF). Straight No Chaser. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
  5. ↑ "Outernational Meltdown – "South Africa Outernational Meltdown" - 3 × Vinyl, LP, Album at Discogs". Discogs. 1995. Retrieved 16 January 2015.
  6. ↑ Post subject: The end of Straight No Chaser Mag from the Beyond Jazz music forums, posted: 22 June 2007
  7. ↑ The Final Issue, Issue 46 Vol 2, released August 2007
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