Background in Popular Music and Culture
Pre-digital the layout, titles, photography captions and pull out quotes were the responsibility of editors and production staff. You simply handed in the ‘copy’, that’s the writing. For me this often proved upsetting. The example below shows the bottom half of a full page in the Melody Maker. I provided the introducing piece on Trickbaby. The title Baby Baby Baby, I felt, was a reference to the image of the three women, in a predictable ‘male voice’. On the left is the chosen photography for another introducing piece – check out the photo caption “We’ll be auctioning off this photo session – all bids to the usual address.” This was a male ‘in joke’. Finally, the advertisement for Salad’s single and promotional tour was placed here to create the overall impact of female artists as sexual beings. I wonder how Salad felt about that?
Post-digital meant freedom. Annette Barlow, web designer, coder, journalist and feminist launched thegirlsare website, for which I was lucky enough to join as the live editor. My learning here further embedded the understanding that the media assumed a white male audience when it came to rock and indie. Now I was writing for an LGBTQ+ majority audience, and women overall, which was liberating.
The online magazine, now defunct, also launched its own seasonal collection of printed magazines, under the moniker TGA. Below is a feature piece I wrote with Annette on The Breeders. Enjoy.
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