March 1973 – Issue 1
MEDIA EXPLOITATIONS by Richard Robinson
Creator and Founder of ROCK SCENE Magazine (March 1973)
We spent a lot of time sitting around the office this week trying to come up with a descriptive slogan to explain what we’re planning to do with Rock Scene as a magazine. Eventually we came to the conclusion that Rock Scene was “the alternative to the alternatives”. Not the kind of slogan you might want to go around humming, but pretty much dead center for those of us who’ve been involved in getting this together.
Rock Scene has lots of elements to it, sort of a grafting of Rolling Stone, Hit Parader, Popular Mechanics, and Women’s Wear Daily. It probably doesn’t read like any of those prestigious magazines, but they’ve all influenced this one into existence. Partly for the things we think they’re doing right, admittedly because we think that there are some things they’re doing wrong.
For the most part, Rock Scene is a rock culture publication. The people who are writing for us are rock people, concerned with the music and the musicians. At the same time we’ve attempted to choose writers who will create the least possible distance between you and the music makers you’re buying this magazine to read about and look at. Good reporting takes you there and lets you make up your own mind. That’s what we’re aiming at.
In addition we’re not wearing our politics on our sleeves. Politics are an integral part of the American way of life, we don’t deny that. But one of the nice things about music is that the politics is inherent in the sound even if it isn’t outlined in the lyrics. So you just have to listen to the people we’re writing about to know where we’re at.
Okay, getting all that out of the way, let’s move on, to the first issue of Rock Scene.
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