Seconds Introduction #2

MAGAZINE SECONDS INTRODUCTION #2 SECONDS Magazine stands as Pop Culture’s In the SECONDS universe, vice sat coolest and smartest organ. For a decade alongside virtue; good and evil coexisted. We and a half we presented interviews with helped major labels break bands while milking intense and/or fabulous personalities of music, them for advertising revenue. We told people art, literature, film, crime, and science. We we liked their stuff even if we’d never heard adopted the tag “The Art Of The Interview” it. We ran free ads for PETA and other animal in celebration of our unique style. From 1986 rights organizations alongside interviews with through 2000, few hipsters would deny that serial killers. We burned printers. We were SECONDS ranked among their favorite mags. flown around the country, put up in luxury I am proud to have served as editor from hotels, fed dinners at overpriced restaurants on 1992 until the bitter end. In 1987 I became a unlimited expense accounts. We hung out into regular contributor. Such entertaining entities the wee hours with coked-out publicists; we had as The Workdogs, Black Snakes, Cop Shoot Cop, breakfast with beautiful radio astronomers. GG Allin and The Serial Killers were among Music’s biggest stars took time out of their busy my early subjects. My territory grew to include schedules to schmooze us. But most of all we got brand-name national acts, graphic artists and lavished with respect and accolades because our writers; ultimately I probed some of our era’s interviews were the best. We set the standard greatest minds. for Rock Journalism. We got interviews with The magazine’s lifespan paralleled very elusive and reclusive characters. We got our exciting times. From the streets came Rap; from subjects to tell the truth. captured electrons came Techno. Kaleidoscopic The magazine’s strength stemmed from our interbreeding of Rock styles yielded new contributors’ skills. When I assumed editorship, varieties of Metal, Punk, Psychedelic and Glam. publisher Steven Blush was the principal Grunge Rock engendered Indie and Alternative interviewer. Art critic Carlo McCormick often forms. Hip-Hop, Ambient, Acid Jazz, Trip Hop, contributed interviews of the high and mighty. Drum-N-Bass — all evolved energetically. The first regularly-appearing interviewer Among that era’s heroes were the engineers I enticed on board was Althea Morin who, with who ushered us into a Digital Age. CD technology the exceptions of this collection’s editors and opened up amazing archival opportunities that Mr. McCormick, served the magazine longer than led to the re-issuing of yesteryear’s musical anyone. She covered the Goth scene. Adam Keane gems; the cornucopia of musical history could be Stern joined next, serving as the managing had for home listening. Nostalgia itself became editor. He interviewed all sorts of interesting a recognized musical genre. characters. Then came the author of Lords Of In the beginning SECONDS went to press Chaos, Michael Moynihan, who reeled in some of as hastily-typeset “mechanicals” on stacks of our most compelling features. He reported from shaggy, re-used boards. In the end a Mac G4 the point where Rock meets crime. The illustrator processed everything, spitting it out on two Steven Cerio interviewed prominent artists. CDs. Very exciting times. Boyd Rice lent his wit to our pursuit of stars and I met Steven Blush on the Staten Island diabolical entities. Tom Terrell wielded a feel for Ferry, not commuting to that distant borough the funky, providing us with excellent coverage of but aboard attending a party thrown by cool shit. David Paul brought Classical and post- Capitol Records for 1986’s New Music Seminar. Modern music to life. Tamara Conniff reported Capitol rented the ferry boat for the night; on hot and breaking acts; she came into the fold during the cruise Skinny Puppy debuted to the after our interview with her musician father Rock cognoscenti. Steven handed out copies of Ray. Spider did some of Hard Rock’s hardest SECONDS with true Eighties indie publishing characters. Michael Uman harnessed the new spirit. In those days I did EXIT Magazine, so we waves of nascent Electronica. No political potato sorta knew of each other through the grapevine. was too hot to be handled by Robert N. Taylor. And, he knew Nancy Jean Keating, who later Nor was any taboo too sacred to be broken by served as both the SECONDS art director and that archivist of the insane, John Aes-Nihil. my wife for too brief a time. David West contributed hell-bent interviews, 10 ferreting out his subjects’ worst fears. Porn • The paragraphs preceding each interview mogul David Aaron Clark’s probing prickliness are brief excerpts from the original essays that sparked controversy. Thomas Colbath, who introduced SECONDS subjects. We referred to served as art director, explored the psyches of those essays as “intros.” The interviewers wrote art’s biggest fish. Irwin Chusid investigated them. Intros conveyed complete biographies weirdness. Thomas Stanley covered Jazz and within witty frameworks. The unedited excerpts Urban. Phillip Carlo contributed his exclusive herein were selected for their brevity and punch. interview with Richard Ramirez. • Over the course of the magazine’s existence, Many other excellent interviewers editorial styles evolved. For example, in the contributed to the magazine. Our failure to beginning, decades were presented numerically include them herein is not the result of any — the 60s, the 70s, and so on. Later they were hierarchical selection. The interviews in this written out — the Sixties, the Seventies. Genre collection, for the most part, record verbal names came to be treated as proper nouns manifestations of insanity, criminality, egotism, — jazz became Jazz with a capital J, rock and sheer will, or else they record moments became Rock. The first letters of drug names of overwhelming beauty from truly beautiful were capitalized — Heroin capital-H, Cocaine people. We worked with many cap-C et cetera. Unique interviewers who cranked out categories of Pop Culture great stuff for us, but their eventually got the same subjects were nice, treatment — we capitalized well-adjusted folk who didn’t fit the first letters of Science the mindset of this collection. Fiction, Blaxploitation, etc. Excellent interviewers We spelled out numbers — with whom we worked but the words “three thousand” who are not represented rather than the numerals herein include Eric Wielander, 3000. We wrote out words Chad Hensley, Jason Szostek, like “dollars” rather than Brittany, Ken Scrudato, using a dollar sign — after Tim Caldwell, Steve Martin, all, when our subjects Michael Andros, Sal Canzonieri, spoke, they said the words Sarah Kate Wade, Maria Ma, rather than the numerals or and Terrence Fleming. symbols. The personnel: Publisher Steven Blush In this collection, all stylistic characteristics conducted the lion’s share of interviews. This remain intact, so that each interview is writer served as editor, occasional art director, formatted as it originally appeared. Thus the and interviewer. Over time our efforts were inconsistencies of style encountered herein. augmented by the services of the following • Our seventeen-year-in-the-making digital individuals: Associate editor Jerry Lee Williams archive survives in various states of decay upon whipped the writing process into shape. Eric ancient floppy discs, old SyQuest drives, and Wielander served as senior editor. Kyra Burton aging Zip discs. Only the final two issues — assisted with writing tasks while living with me. 51 and 52 — made it onto CDs. Throughout RIP. Craig Molino transcribed & advised. the archive’s accumulation many files were Bobby Persanti was the first art director, damaged or lost. While much of the art herein followed by Nancy Jean Keating. Then, Thomas was preserved in its original 300 dpi glory, some Colbath art-directed for awhile, followed by the of it is reproduced from low-resolution images painter Kim Seltzer. In a final blaze of graphic or scans of the magazines’ pages. It would’ve glory, computer guru Eric Hammer did the last been impossible to obtain most of the original four issues. art, and we resisted the temptation to draw Photographers with whom the magazine upon the materials of currently-active collectors, enjoyed ongoing relationships include Michael fan clubs, record companies, publishers, or of Lavine, who shot most of the covers, Richard the subjects themselves. Kern, who shot some covers as well as our -------------------------- sexiest subjects, Wendy Idele, whose glamorous Peace to my family, all my fans and friends, giddiness graced many of the later covers, my demons, my cats, my supporters and Claudia Bellino, Seth McBride, enablers, my exes, those who protect me, and and Robin Perine. those I have yet to embrace. — George Petros, Brooklyn, October 2004 Editorial notes for .45 DANGEROUS MINDS 11.

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