SLIPCUE e-zine: THE FINEST IN DISPOSABLE CULTURE

Welcome to SLIPCUE. This e-zine is the brainchild of Joe Sixpack... me... I'm yet another in a long line of pop culture wannabee know-it-alls... a noncommercial community radio DJ, lifelong TV watcher, smartie pants, record-collecting, movie watching, tree-hugging, sissyboy anti-hipster-- basically, the All-American kid next door...

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I actually have no idea who my target audience is. In fact, I only came up with the idea of doing an e-zine when I got such a groovy "domain name" when I went to register my website. I had already written a bunch of stuff about indie rock, country music and Brazillian tropicalia, and then I finally had to (gulp!) put it on line...

So, SLIPCUE. What the hell does that mean? Is it funny? Can you dance to it? Does it provide any sort of editorial focus to this misbegotten endeavor? Well, I certainly hope so.

A "slip cue" is a radio DJing term... or at least it used to be, back when radio stations played vinyl. Basically, when you slip-cue a record, you get the track you want cued up, then when you want it to play, you "pot" the record up (so people can hear it) while you hold onto the record by the edge, as the felt turntable mat slips along underneath it. Then, at the precise moment you want the record to play, you let the vinyl go, and Boom! there's noise going out over the air.

I eventually came to the opinion that slipcuing records was bad for them... I mean, if you think about it, letting the felt rasp along the other side of the disc, its just *gotta* be doing some damage. Simple physics. My DJ friends always look at me like I'm nuts when I say that. Doesn't matter, though -- most of the kids we're training to DJ nowadays have never owned an LP in their entire life, and they treat vinyl like saran wrap anyway...

What slipcuing is good for, though, is for good radio. When you're holding a record over a vibrating, live turntable, you're in the moment, paying attention, treating your radio show like a performance art... trying hard not to screw up. This is all beneficial. Radio *is* a performance art. It *can* be magical and exciting and fun. We've just gotten so buried under endless piles of boring, corporate cookie-cutter radio (and it's increasingly boring, corporate cookie-cutter NPR counterpart...) that most of us have forgotten what radio can be like. I think life might be kind of similar. It can be fun, it can be magical, it can be kind of touch-an-go, but you have to be willing to hold onto the record and let it get a little scuffed up. But like the medium of radio, I think a lot of us live in a boring, corporate cookie-cutter world. Everything is sold or spoonfed to us, from our cell phones and "sports utility vehicles" to our "alternative" music and rebellious swing-dancing Gap-ad lifestyles.

So, uh, where exactly am I going with this cliched metaphor? Jeez, I dunno. I told you I was making this up as I go along. Maybe I should tell you about my e-zine dreams, instead of bitching about modern life. Y2K will take care of the Gap ads for me. Hopefully the cell phones and the car alarms, too. Anyway...

Music Reviews -- Joe's Guides to Country Music and Brazilian pop... and much, much more!
Joe Sixpack's Home Page -- Joe's Guides to Country Music, Brazilian pop... and much, much more!
My Goofy Politics
My Dislike of Kenneth Starr
CyberSmell - The Greatest Invention Since The Spray-On Condom.