ROCKist	HOME | REVIEWS | INTERVIEWS | BANDS ON TOUR> | LINKS
	INTERVIEWS Actionslacks At the Drive In The Faint Fluke Starbucker (Heavenly States) Jack Rabid from The Big Takeover Kill Creek Rocket from the Crypt ...more soon
THE BIG TAKEOVER (ROCKist 003) by Kevin S. Hoskins I forget know who it was that clued me in to The Big Takeover. If you think it was you, give me a call...I have a truckload of gold bullion I need to deliver to you house as repayment. The Big Takeover is, quite simply, the best zine I’ve ever read. Every issue is nearly200 pages and jam-packed with some of the most well researched interviews and record reviews I’ve ever seen. The tastes range from Brit pop to obscure American rock bands to punk. Started as a one-page newsletter to be handed out at shows. The man at the helm of this operations is one Jack Rabid. I have my doubts that he is real...I figure that he is most likely the amalgamation of a number of writers. After all, how can one man read about, listen to, and write about so much music? I nearly know how he does it, but he must be an insomniac or a madman. Jack Rabid has one of the best canons of musical knowledge of anyone I’ve ever read. He won my respect with his continued championing of independent music in general and British band Leatherface in in particular. He’s also a very nice guy. IN 2000 The Big Takeover celebrates its 20th Anniversary. I want to know how. ROCKIST: Let's go back to the beginnings of BT... Were you in bands before you started writing? Was Even Worse pre-BT? Had you been involved with music other than as a listener before BT? JACK: My best friend Dave Stein and I formed Even Worse with our best New York pal, Nick Marden and his friend John Pouridas on April 29, 1980. The Stimulators had no opening band for their show on the 2nd of May Tier 3 in New York, and Nick knew that Dave and I had been playing covers of Patti Smith, Ramones, Sex Pistols, Johnny Thunders' Heartbreakers, Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix and anything else we could learn, back in our suburban enclave of Summit, NJ, with two friends of ours. We had all of one hour-long rehearsal before our first gig. Needless to say it was total chaos and it was a gas, so we kept the band together, and it ended up surviving in various lineups until Jan. 84, when Dave and I and final bassist Tim Sommer played our final gig as a trio at Anthrax in Stamford, CT with Adrenalin OD and Chappaquiddick +5. I think the band's start kicked our ass to get even more involved than just seeing gigs and hanging out in New York clubs, as we had been doing for 2-3 years. We had ingratiated ourselves with seemingly everyone who went to punk or underground rock gigs at Max's Kansas City, Tier 3, CBGB, Hurrah, Trax, and Peppermint Lounge, and other nightspots bands played, and we were just so damn excited all the time watching Thunders or the young Ramones or Talking Heads or whomever, we could have burst. We were just teenagers. The mag, then, began in mid to late June, around 6 weeks after that first gig. We had to let everyone know about the New York scene! We couldn't write worth a damn, but we didn't care. That was what it was all about. Getting involved and getting creative and expressing yourself and all but dying from the surfeit of stunning music!!!!! ROCKIST: What prompted you to start the newsletter The Big Takeover? JACK: I think we were prompted by just a general excitement that was so tangible, everyone felt it, and everyone was completely carried away by it. It seemed like everyone older than us in the scene, in their 20s and 30s was attracted to the whole inspiration, everyone was DOING. I was meeting poets like my landlord for bits of '79-'80, Allen Ginsburg, and some of his friends I met though him of lesser note... and a lot of the actual punks were doing photographs, doing performance art, writing songs, managing groups, booking bands, writing short stories, making little films, having lots of wild sex without great to-do about shame, and most of all, playing in bands. It was just such a totally different mindset. You just couldn't help but want to spread this thing around that you'd stumbled on, and when we saw some other mags like Mouth of the Rat and Cheap Garbage For Snotty Teens, and things like that, we thought we might do something similar, too. Why not? Really, we had no great ambitions, no master plan, no idea of what might happen next. We were just plugging into that current for a moment, a big turn on, and we didn't even think about what would be the consequences. As it turned out, that connection was so strong for me, that after a few fits and starts, it became second nature to me that I would always be making more issues; I always keep thinking about the new bands and records or issues on my mind (musical or otherwise) I felt compelled to share. Now it's like that quote Greg Graffin inserted from one of his biology readings into one of his Bad Religion songs‹called "No Control," from the LP of that name in 1989 (he's got a graduate degree in Biology). I think it's: "There's no vestige of a beginning/No prospect of an end." The original author he was quoting was commenting, in Darwinian mode, on time, on the history of life itself (as opposed to creationism) and its future. But in my case, it's also true at this moment!!! (ha ha). Technically, our beginning was our first issue, but that current was what forced so many of us to get off our ass and do something of great expression, to "be more than a witness" as Flipside used to intone. That current is still there, and I assume will always be there so long as passionate and articulate people have a burning desire to also express themselves in music and I can somehow keep finding them. It still inspires me. Each new issue is like the answer to your question! It might as well be, "What prompts you to start a new issue?" (Like I will again next month!) And it will be that same answer. That current! That hot flash of connection, to tell people exciting ideas and spread the word about artists who move me so... ROCKIST: I think that's the most exciting reason to start something...that you were so fired up by what was going on around you that you HAD to be involved. I wish more people started playing music because they were inspired by their predecessors to play music as good or better, rather than "inspired" out of boredom. At what point did BT go from being a "fanzine" to being a magazine, or do you still consider it a fanzine?? JACK: I don't actually consider Big Takeover a "fanzine" any more, we're too professional (i.e. in art direction, copy editing, etc.), glossy, long, in color, and expensive ($35,000 in printing and shipping, artwork, and other expenses to produce each issue!) now in comparison to the usual fanzine ethic. But I think we are a magazine that's managed to retain the good elements of what a fanzine does, i.e., argue passionately for the things one feels strong about, and try earnestly to turn on people to great, often under-appreciated things if they are truly meritorious and inspiring--instead of worrying about what content will generate sales or ads, and worrying about what will make our mag seem hip or cool in some way so that we can appeal to advertisers and readers looking to get in on that so called "demographic" (I have always despised that word when it is applied to supposedly vibrant culture). I think we have been given the doubt by most readers who like fanzines as well as readers who would never go near anything that small, that we really believe what we say, we're not corrupt, we're not participating in cronyism (nothing like Jan Wenner killing unfavorable reviews for Paul Simon!!!!), we don't wait for the marketplace to confer legitimacy on an artist or style, and we most of all don't like something to feel better about ourselves--we like something because we think it's great and want to connect with others who might agree if only someone let them know of these artists' existence (or, when we do a Radiohead, or an R.E.M., or old Beatles record, to remind that just because something is popular doesn't automatically render it crap, a prejudice too many underground fans fall prey to, even if it is true in most instances!). That said, I think it is impossible to pinpoint when exactly we made the so-called transition, as it was so natural, and so methodical in pace, and so uneventful. Arguments could be made for several different issues, but if I had to pick one, perhaps it was number 30,in 1990, the first one that was laid out by an art director on a computer (a pretty new idea for most magazines, as that was a decade ago, when home pc's were still relatively new). Or perhaps it was issue 26, in 1989, our first glossy cover. Or perhaps it was number 36 in 1994, our first full-color cover (of Lush, that's framed and hangs on the wall of my office). Or perhaps it was issue 42 three years ago, our first all-glossy mag from top to bottom. I'm not sure, but I think the point is that we still feel like we are exactly the same magazine in content that we were in issue one, when we were only one typed-page 20 years ago, it's only the presentation and the expansion of that content, in scope and length, and the improvement in the writing (by myself and the others) that has shown any difference whatsoever, i.e., we remain honest fans who want to tell the truth, good or bad, and seek out what's important out there. I think people have seen us do it so long they've come to believe in our integrity and trust us. That, and unlike most fanzines, we never, never, never fail to get an order to the customer. and it the mail screws up, we send them another one!	ROCKIST: What's the toughest decision that you've had (or that you have to make on a regular basis) to make related to BT? JACK: That's a tough one. I don't have that many, actually, precisely because I've always allowed the magazine to cover what we like and nothing else, so there haven't been any compromises I have had to make in terms of coverage. Likewise, the folks who contribute do so out of love for the mag, so I haven't had to fire anyone or anything. And some of the big decisions for other mags have happened to us naturally. For instance, when we went from a Xerox cut and paste to a computer-layout, it's because one of our readers volunteered to do it in 1990 (now a close friend of mine, Eric Saul). Likewise, the ace woman who runs our web site (now also a close friend of mine, Shirley Sexton), also volunteered to do it. Ditto our index (Christine Young). We haven't made any radical changes, we've had a slow, steady evolution of upgrades I could point to, so none were really difficult decisions. They were more just a desire to make each issue a little better than the last going back two decades, culminating with our color spreads of the last few issues. What was perhaps hardest was the decision to actually go for it, to make Big Takeover my living about five years ago instead of the hobby it was for the first 15 years. That was a bit of a gamble, especially in my early 30s, with no certainty of much of an income, but I felt that if I the publication had evolved, as I said, so much, that it had become a much better magazine that readers and record label advertisers would enthusiastically want to support. So far, I haven't been wrong. Knock on wood, and cross my fingers... What was perhaps hardest was the decision to actually go for it, to make Big Takeover my living about five years ago instead of the hobby it was for the first 15 years. That was a bit of a gamble, especially in my early 30s, with no certainty of much of an income, but I felt that if I the publication had evolved, as I said, so much, that it had become a much better magazine that readers and record label advertisers would enthusiastically want to support. So far, I haven't been wrong. Knock on wood, and cross my fingers... ROCKIST: How did you come to that decision? Did it have to do with the 9-5 work you were doing at the time? JACK: Actually, I had been 10-6 at New York Life insurance company from 1985-1989, I wore the monkey suit and was even promoted to supervisor, but I hated working for a big corporation in a faceless office doing mindless, if important work. Fortunately, I had to quit and eventually found a part time job in 1989 because our band, Springhouse, started to play a lot, and I'd get back from places like Philly or Boston at 5 AM--not good for work next morning!! Then when we got signed to Caroline and released our first LP, Land Falls in 1991, I had to quit that to go on tour. I had to find another job that would allow me to be unavailable, out of town for months at a time. So for four years I looked after a tourist photo booth at the South Street Seaport when I was in town and my (now-ex) girlfriend would take care of it while I was away on tour (and keep the income). When the band called it a day for what we thought was for good in 1993, after our second LP, Postcards From the Arctic (we came back briefly for a 1994 tour and then reformed for good three years ago), I no longer had the band's recording and touring stopping me from a normal work schedule. So it was then I had to make that decision you ask about. I put it off for a while mulling over what I wanted to do, and as an understatement, it was a very tough time to decide what to do next. No, it didn't have to do with the work I was doing at the time as much as it being a crossroads in my life to date. At the time, in 1995, I was like a Country music cliche: My live-in girlfriend had left me for no reason and taken our cat, a truly double crushing blow, my band had broken up, exhausted, broke, and disillusioned by waning label support, I'd lost my regular column in Alternative Press, I was no longer DJing around town, and as a last blow, I lost my part time job too. So now I didn't even have any money coming in. (Since then, I got the cat back, hurrah!!!, got a more permanent girlfriend, got a better regular column, in Hit List, got the band back as Springhouse is almost finished our third LP, got a new second band, Last Burning Embers, who just released our debut single, and as far as losing my job, writing and publishing is now my infinitely more rewarding and soul-enriching job. Everything got better, but it took a long time. That and I'm glad to say I missed out on the final Country cliches remaining-I never lost my home, or my friends, thank Zeus.) So I was really down and feeling cursed. I was worried, and I was unsure of what to do with the rest of my life right then. It seemed like music as a joy and a personal involvement had largely deserted me. And just as disturbing, I despised the Commercial Alternative scene that was dominating in 1995. I felt like it had snowed under, undermined, and demolished this wonderful underground support network we'd all worked so hard for 20 years to erect. I was going to get out of music, I believed sincerely at the time. What else made sense in such a set of circumstances? Eventually I decided I was going to go to grad school and in two years, I would become a High School social studies teacher (I am a history enthusiast). I thought I would have to give up the mag when I got out of school or before that, even, if a new part time job proved too time-consuming. I'd even gone so far as to pick up applications from my alma mater, NYU, and Hunter College. But before I even enrolled in a single class, I suddenly, out of the blue, started getting some lucrative assignments writing for the Web when it first exploded that year of 1995. A lucky break‹there was a great need for content, and some of the folks looking for it were big Big Takeover readers who greatly enjoyed my work. I found myself making as much for a biweekly column for just one web site (Jam TV) as I had in a whole year, pre-taxes, when I'd started at New York Life! Another offer came in, and I started writing a weekly column for Paper Magazine online as well. Then I got a steady, good-paying DJ job on top of that, once a week at the local Coney Island High gig, playing any kind of rock 'n' roll I wanted to. These were certainly two short-term strokes of luck, two jobs I absolutely adored, that helped make up for all the bad luck I'd been suffering consecutively. Thus, with these three new incomes (none of which took more than a few hours a week!!!), I was able to buy some time as both a music writer (a good year before Rolling Stone Online bought out Jam TV and fired all of us writers-idiotic, that concept-and the fees for web writing in general came drastically down, causing the end of my Paper column as well) and magazine publisher. I spent all the other time I suddenly had free really going to town on the mag and building it up, investing a lot of the money I was making and all the free time into that. So I never really sat down and carried out the plan I'd made, I avoided that tough decision more than really made it. It was almost like events gave me the opportunity to give the mag a first time, full-time try after 15 years of it being a draining (money and time) hobby, without too much pressure, and things just clicked on the financial end as well as the job satisfaction end. Jam TV, Paper, and Coney Island High Club gave me that leeway to make the attempt, and I will always be grateful to them‹ specifically to Scott Hess, Angela Tribelli, and my old friend from the punk days, Jessie Malin, respectively, for this. These three individuals single-handedly saved me from this other path I felt I'd had no choice but to embark on, and by extension, their hiring me at that critical juncture saved the magazine's existence. Yet it was still surprising it actually worked, making a living on Big Takeover alone, when I tried it. All those 15 years had bought our mag at least a reputation and a trust we could build on. It was the total opposite of starting from scratch in that sense, so all the extra time and a little dough I had to devote to it could and did pay off immediately. We got more ads and more sales as we improved the mag from the investment of more cash and attention as a result. I was astounded that I COULD eke out a little living out of the ads and sales and free lance writing for other mags, like my regular gig in Stereo-types mag and my reviews for Request. I am still amazed and hope it continues indefinitely. I think the Big Takeover is quite the better for it, that's for sure. And it feels amazing to be saying all this, not only 20 years into the game, but knowing that I/we somehow survived that crisis of impending doom and capitulation I was staring at only five years ago. My personal life didn't cost me/us the publication after all, and I was able to table that decision-indefinitely! For many more years, that's for sure!!! Now I don't see a stopping point in the future at all. ROCKIST: I want to ask you about the present and how you think 2000 was for music. Was it harder to come up with your Top 40 this year? Surprises? Old demons? JACK: This [2000] was a lot better year for ME, because I found all kinds of great LPs, both by old favorites that hadn't done much in '99 (some in '98 as well), but also I found some real good new bands, like Doves and the totally revamped Idlewild. Yet I brood that it was another lousy year for music in the sense that almost every LP that knocked me out proved such a bitch to find for most people. I long for the days when more U.S. majors and indies were releasing tons more foreign product here, and when U.S. indies seemed to have more universal distribution and marketing than they enjoy at present. Idlewild's first LP wasn't so good, yet it came out here on Capitol. The new one is a knockout, and can only be had on import for $20-$30!!! That sucks. Glide and Whipping Boy's fantastic LPs are only available through their web sites, an alarming trend for someone like me that is glad to see them get all the money, but sad to see that stores naturally don't carry them. There's too much of that, now. Mail order is fine, but distribution and marketing is really important and too in my opinion. Only a minority of people will go that web-only route to buy music, so many go to stores still and buy stuff they've been hearing about.
BIG TAKEOVER CONTACT INFORMATION 249 Eldridge Street No. 14 New York, NY 10002-1345 jrabid@bigtakeover.com www.bigtakeover.com *I also recommend checking out this very excellent article with Jack: http://www.fufkin.com/rabid_int.htm