Once upon a time, I was a music journalist

At the beginning of my second year of university, I walked into the campus newspaper office, walked right over to the entertainment section and walked out with my first writing assignment. The rest, as they say, is history, I wrote nonstop for the campus paper until I graduated, and was also managing editor of the campus radio guide.

After graduation, I was a freelance writer for CHART Magazine for several years, as well as variety of online zones that no longer exist. Most of this writing was done for free and the stories that paid added up to barely a couple hundred of dollars.

Would I have liked to earn a living at it? Sure. But even in the late 90s, the internet was taking a big bite out of traditional media. I did it mostly for the sheer fun of it, the joy of hanging around with creative people and writing about I what I love.

I still have all of magazine and newspaper articles I wrote, and I’ve decided to scan and publish them here. For a variety of reasons. To preserve them before the physical articles fall apart so I can finally clear those piles of papers and magazines out of my study. But mostly because I loved writing them and I want to share that.

To start, here’s a review I wrote of the infamous Sisters of Mercy show at the Dark Harvest III Festival in Philadelphia. It was SOM’s first North American show in 6 years and people travelled from all over the US and Canada. The show was notorious for entirely other reasons though.

What are they? You’ll just have to read the article to find out.

This story was published in CHART Magazine, August 1997, Volume 8, Issue 2.