We Rock Like Music Journos Don’t

Artrockers,
spare a thought for our designer Rich, the poor devil's been up all night putting the finishing touches to the all new, all singing, all dancing Artrocker Magazine. We don't usually drive him so hard but he's off to Green Man this weekend so several days work have been condensed into one, long, lonely night. You see, we Artrockers don't let re-designing an entire magazine interfere with our Rocking Duties, nothing takes precedent over our work at the Rock-Face. Did you know (and why should you?) that every member of the Artrocker Executive is a member of a gigging band? (In Rich's case about eight bands and counting). How many music magazines can you say that about? We're out there dealing with all the traumas that being in a band is heir to, just like the people we write about. This isn't an intellectual excercise for us, it's what we do, it's our life. To that extent I guess that Artrocker is the exact opposite of a fanzine, we're a musician-zine, we don't just talk the talk, we walk the walk, hand in hand with the musicians we write about, sharing nasty dressing rooms, hot rehearsal rooms, the joys of getting it right and the misery of a poorly attended Sunday evening gig in Stoke. We know how it feels to be let down by the record label, we've broken down on the way to Doncaster, we've been told to set the drums up in front of the main band's drums leaving us three
square feet of stage-space for the entire band, we've raced up the motorway only to be told there won't be time for a sound-check, we've lived on M&S sandwiches for weeks and we've been banned from hotel chains for kicking the ice-cube machine to death in the middle of the night.
We don't stand outside of the machine and compliment its curves, we've got the bonnet up and our hands are covered in oil.

Tom Artrocker