Another One Bites The Dust: Therondy For Harp Magazine

Aw, hell. Shortly after getting the news about No Depression, Harp Magazine announced that they would quit publishing after 7 years.

They cited mostly the same reasons as No Depression and Honest Tune.

This was one of my favorite magazines. It was almost strictly about music--no fashion or politics and very little bullshit. I liked it especially because they focused on music that didn't neccesarily come across my desk on a regular basis. It was ostensibly a "Rock" magazine though more and more it could be characterized as an Indie Rock mag, but that's mostly because a lot of the best music being made these days is getting tagged with the "Indie" label. It'll be something else in a few years. I guess most bands don't know what genre they're in until some asshole behind a keyboard (ahem) says so in a magazine, or I guess now a blog. They relentlessly hammered me with information about Cat Power (among others) until I finally acquiesced, and I'm glad I did.


Former Honest Tune scribe Andy Tennille had just penned a great cover story on the Mars Volta for the second-to-last issue. Andy's written for lots of folks but did some great articles for us, and really helped us find our footing. He did a great piece on Slang, the collaboration between Lang Martine and Dave Schools. He interviewed Jim Dickinson and John Hiatt and turned in countless other pieces. Other Honest Tune alums like Dennis Cook and Aaron Kayce were regular contributors. Aaron did a kick-ass story on Danger Mouse in the last issue. And I'd been talking to them about contributing some articles myself and, I think, getting close to finding something that fit.

Such it is that there aren't too many "small" (Harp was about five times the size of Honest Tune, but that's still small compared to Rolling Stone, Spin and Paste, and half the size of Relix) music magazines anymore. It's sad because it means that fewer musicians will get the ink they deserve as the larger magazines are more about broad appeal that artistic merit (in most cases).

So long, Harp. We hardly knew ye.