I hadn't seen a new issue of Chord for quite some time until this hit my mailbox, but I guess they're back, and this time with a more professional grade of paper (i.e. no more newsprint) with full color covers as well as some scattered full color pages within. There's still a ton of ads (too many in my opinion - and most of the color pages are wasted on ads as well), but at least the content is slightly better this time around. In addition to some tiny little quarter page blurbs on various bands, there are also some short little articles on everything/everyone from Thorp Records, Boy Sets Fire, and In Flames, to Karyn Crisis' leatherwork company. I'm not a big fan of articles, nor little one-page features, but the diversity is nice. Then it's on to the bulk of the magazine with some Q & A styled interviews. Geoff Rickley from Thursday interviews Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth, Jim Korthe of 3rd Strike (yeah, that 3rd Strike) interviews a couple of the guys from Bad Religion, there's a rather humorous "discussion" with smut/music peddler Matt Zane, and then there are talks with Dag Nasty and a few other bands/general madmen. Most of the reviews are short and not exactly informative, but they are slightly better than they have sometimes been in the past, and there are still one or two longer reviews, and a few really blunt and amusing ones to boot. I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't still argue with the $4 charge for this zine simply because if these advertisers are actually paying up these guys should be selling this thing for no more than $2 or $3 since it's not packed with reading material and 36 of the 68 pages are all ads (yep, just over half of the zine is all advertisements)... but what can you do? I don't know, I've been flipping through Chord in its various forms for many, many years now, and while I've never been blown away, I've never been fully disappointed either. I just know they can do better. And for $4, they should do better, especially since their ad rates are through the roof and all of the ads are supposed to be pre-paid. They've got the creativity and the humor in place, as they already do some amusing little spots, they just need to get more effort going as far as the writing and editing and general sense of content goes. Not bad, but I'm always hoping for that extra kick in the ass.
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Chord - http://www.chordmagazine.com
