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PERMANENT RECORDS
If you're anything like me, you are just slightly on the wrong side of the technological tipping point. You may have had a beeper in high school, scoffed at phrases like the "information super highway," or bought a CD in a twelve-inch box. Particularly formative in determining our identities were the physical and monetary aspects of consuming music in the twentieth century - now a bygone era. I didn't have the money to acquire music from unknown realms or to splurge on secret indulgences. And I don't think I was alone in keeping to a relatively narrow range. In turn, we represented our musical caste using signifiers of our chosen subcultures. In the clothes we wore, the people we associated with, and the places we haunted, our music ultimately defined how we were perceived by authority figures and our peers. I would go so far to say that our musical persuasions from pubescence shaped our entire lives. But then a day came when ISPs started charging by the month, not by the minute. And so, the speed and convenience of online file-sharing opened up endless worlds for us in which to dip a toe or dive into. Today the only risk in checking out new music is a potential lawsuit from the university for downloading on the |
 dorm's T1 connection. Instead of listening exclusively to records released by Dischord from 1991 to 1997, we now find our collections filled to the brim with the broadest possible range of styles. It's this variety that we're trying to embody in this magazine. What makes all of these seemingly disparate genres cohere is a fundamental structure that we naturally gravitate to: the balancing act that makes a great song. You need repetition for the listener to grasp the tune, but too much of it can make it boring. You need diversity and surprises, but not so much that you get distracted. Furthermore, it is our contention that these rules apply not only to the composition of a song, but also in creating a story, a building, a body, a life. It's not the dreadlock or the spiked belt that defines who we are, nor is life a meandering zombic drum circle. The format for the journal you find here draws partially from the music masters and art directors, but more so from the rhythms and counterpoints in our friendships and lives. -B. Kalet |