View: letter from the editor August

While music has always been a vital component of the territory that Interview covers, last August marked the first time we made it the subject of a special issue. You, the readers, responded so positively to that issue that we decided to make a special on music an annual Interview event. As we put together this August's rendition, the work clarified why it's a great moment for Interview to do a special issue on music--an independent view is really needed. Those who are alert to it can hear people complaining about the state of the music industry every day. Great recording artists complain, justifiably, how their record companies aren't behind them and only want to repeat formulas and follow trends. Others, also justifiably, criticize the way that radio--with the exception of a few visionary stations and souls who know how important their medium can be as a link between a new voice and the world getting to hear it--has virtually capitulated to the commercialism. Meanwhile, many record executives who actually w ant to push for the new and take a chance are quelled. But even with all these and other problems there's a fantastic amount of music out there that's authentic and exciting and covers a real range. And this is where Interview comes in.

There's nothing we like more than bringing the real thing to you, regardless of whether it has an audience of millions or is totally unknown and just being discovered. We are an independent magazine, and the freedom that gives us is priceless. It is, of course, really hard to cover all that merits attention, and we in no way claim to have covered all that is worth listening to here--indeed, when it was time to decide which stories would be included in this issue there was lots of heartbreak about the ones that had to be cut for reasons of space. Our choices were made the way Interview editorial decisions are always reached: through a combination of knowledge, instinct and nose for news. We typically work with those characteristics driving us and often it is only when we're done that we can fully understand what it is that has been uncovered.

With this issue, many things ended up being uncovered, recovered and discovered by the time we were finished, not the least of which is the continuing importance of being true to one's voice, and risking failure and mistakes in order to actually create something that counts. Without the willingness to get lost, nothing happens. On page 88, you'll witness the Dixie Chicks telling Bonnie Raitt about the breakthrough that took place after the group told their record label to go take a hike while they followed their hearts and made a bluegrass album, risking a big, fat flop. And on page 102, Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers tells our interviewer, Carlo McCormick: "There's an element to our band that's just a series of accidents and mistakes and mishaps and experiments which just turned into something that works."

Process, of course, is content. When I was reading the transcript of the conversation with Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore, I was stopped by a section that is all about the journey of how one makes something. In this passage, the pair talk about working on their new record and new projects in their lower Manhattan studio--right by the World Trade Center site--in the weeks following the cataclysmic events of September 11. Here's a little piece of what they told us:

"THURSTON MOORE: Concurrent with us making this record, they would dig up the street, then they would patch it; then they would dig it up again and then they would patch it. They kept changing and rearranging conduits of water and electricity...

KIM GORDON: And we were also recording a soundtrack for a French movie, Demon/over, by Olivier Assayas. He wanted us to do a lot of sound and noise to run parallel with his narrative.

TM: So we put the mikes out the window. When you see Demonlover, you're going to literally hear Murray Street."

This part of their conversation really struck me because it illustrated how music can hit the zeitgeist. People are always talking about the power that music once had to change the world. For instance, in Camille Paglia's column on page 68, about music's role in the evolution of her consciousness, there's a wonderful moment when she remembers hearing new music in college in the '60s: "Much less music was produced in the '60s, so everyone experienced major releases at the same time. The audience hadn't fragmented yet. Word would go out in college: 'So-and-so has the new Beatles album, Revolver. You've got to hear it!' People would gather.... We crowded into a dorm room to hear the long version of the Doors' 'Light My Fire,' and I stood there breathless, peering over someone's shoulder and just stared at the turntable.'

Certainly, that kind of collective experience was specific to that time and does not grace our moment now. But as Sonic Youth's anecdote illustrates, music can still be connected in profound ways to the changes in the world.