GENERATOR MAGAZINE

Generator's lifespan was 1993 to 1996 and was a magazine covering the electronic underground dance scene, so they dipped into techno, house, jungle, garage, trance and so on, ranging from hardcore to chillout. The mag content included record reviews, artist profiles, nightclub action, gig updates and other such info.
The example I've plucked out here is an album review from a 1995 issue and is for Carl Craig's release - "Landcruising" - my copy being on double vinyl.

ACID JAZZ NEWS MAGAZINE

"Acid Jazz News" made its first appearance in 1993 and was a free magazine you could pick up in record shops.
Although it was a publication to help promote records & acts on the Acid Jazz label, it also covered the scene in general, so the content consisted of gig dates, club nights, artist profiles, record releases and so on.
The 2 copies I put on display here are from 1994 and in amongst the record review pages was the one above - "Manasseh Meets The Equaliser - Dub The Millennium". The review was sent in by a member of the public rather than come from within the editorial team, and the cover comes from my own shelves.

HAMBURG'S SOULCIETY - EARLY 1990'S

One of the items that appeared in the very first issue of On The One magazine in 1994 was a feature about the Soulciety scene in Hamburg, Germany.
It was started up by Michael Kirsch & Emu Von Gerkan with Gotz Buehler becoming involved shortly afterwards.
Soulciety had the Soulkitchen/Soulution Club operating in Hamburg as well as running their own record label.
The top image is a photo taken in the Soulution Club and has a playlist inserted showing the kind of sounds that were going down at the club at the time.
Underneath it are 2 Soulciety compilation albums I have in my collection going under the title of "The Soulciety Funky Family" - the red cover is dated 1992 and the green one is from 1993.

ON THE ONE MAGAZINE

The top image is the debut issue of "On The One" magazine, a publication from the States that came out in summer 1994.
In the middle are the opening words from editor, Andrew Jervis, letting it be known what the magazine is all about and what kind of content to expect to see in future issues.
The other item under them is from an issue of Birmingham "Vibe" who gave On The One a big UK thumbs up in their review of the magazine.

HUSTLERS CONVENTION EP - 1992

3 years after the "Hustlers Convention" LP (as featured in the previous post) this record above using the same name cropped up on the scene, only this time it was the name of the act.
This is "The Groovers Delight" 12 inch EP from 1992 on Stress Records and it contains some very tasty disco house grooves.

HUSTLERS CONVENTION ALBUM - 1989

I was already familiar with all of the acts on this album before I bought it but this was the first time I had heard the voice of Tim Westwood. I had seen his name plenty of times in music mags but these items above being from 1989 means that Westwood was a London based radio DJ at that time and was still a few years away from being the more nationally known DJ he became in the 90's.
The ad for the "World's first live rap album" comes from a 1989 issue of Echoes - and the slab of vinyl is from my collection.

ECHOES MUSIC PAPER

The image of the "Echoes" on top goes back to 1987 when it was published as a weekly newspaper.
It was always loaded with news about the latest releases so was a great way to keep one step ahead of the monthly magazines. It also managed to keep up with all the passing fads and latest trends that were doing the biz on the dancefloors.
Nowadays, although Echoes is still in circulation, it is no longer in its weekly newsprint format but has changed instead to being a monthly magazine.
There were a variety of record charts in each issue, a different one for each separate genre - soul, techno, hip hop, reggae and so on, but the one I've chosen above comes from a 1991 issue and was part of an article about Joey Beltram. As you can see, Joey didn't have any trouble adding his own release that was out at the time, "The Omen", to his top 10 list!
And I've taken my 12 inch copy of it out from my shelves of vinyl to accompany it.

VIBE MAGAZINE - DUNDEE

The last of the magazines I have going under the title of "Vibe" is this one on top which came out of Dundee in Scotland.
It started up in 2002 and was distributed around Scotland only when the first few issues went to print, however, the issue I have on display here is from when they decided to launch the magazine nationally in 2003 and was made available throughout the UK.
It turned out to be a fairly short lived venture though, because in 2004 it was transformed into "Clash" magazine and that one has been going ever since.
The content of Vibe consisted of trendy youth culture kind of stuff - fashion, computer gaming, street sports and such like, but in the main it focused on music with band profiles, gig updates and record reviews.
I selected one such album review from the above issue as an example - this being a classy compilation released on Ubiquity called "Rewind Vol 2" - with my CD copy to go along with it.

BNH IN USA VIBE

The 1994 Vibe magazine featured in yesterday's post, contained both an article about UK act, Brand New Heavies, as well as an ad for their "Brother Sister" album.
As you can see from my original CD on show, the USA version of the album had a different cover to the UK release.

VIBE MAGAZINE - USA

The top image is an issue of USA Vibe magazine dating from 1994.
Below it is a review of the USA magazine dated 1995 and was published in UK's Birmingham Vibe magazine.
The ad at the bottom is a reminder of "The Box" reference mentioned in the review and is from the same 1994 issue as the top one.
The USA Vibe closed down in 2009 but sprang back on the scene shortly afterwards when some ownership reshuffling took place, and it's still in biz today.
The Box, which was an on demand cable channel showing music videos, was taken over in 2001 by MTV.

BIRMINGHAM VIBE ALBUM REVIEW

This is an example of the kind of album they'd review in Birmingham Vibe magazine.
The one above dates from 1994 and is for a compilation called "Brazilica!" on the Talkin' Loud label - and that vinyl copy of it is from my collection.

THE BIRMINGHAM VIBE

I have 3 different music magazines bearing the name "VIBE" - one is from Birmingham, UK, another hails from the USA and the third comes from Dundee, UK.
I'll start with the Birmingham Vibe as shown above.
This magazine cropped up on the scene in 1993 and was more of a quality fanzine rather than being your customary publication so to speak, complete with Xeroxed pages, but they had a fine team of enthusiasts making a great job of the mag.
It covered jazz, African, hip hop, soul, latin and funk, with the emphasis on the dancefloor, so the content consisted of album reviews, DJ playlists, record label rundowns, clubbing & gig updates as well as presenting in-depth articles on a variety of musicians.
The image on top is a display featuring some of the tasty artwork they had on their covers, however, by the time they reached issue 17 in 1996, it was the end of the run.
Incidentally, they changed their name to "UK Vibe" by issue 16 and these days they have a very nice website up & running under this title.
The ad in the middle comes from another magazine called "Soul Vibe" and dates from 1994.
The bottom picture is a few bits of correspondence I found from back then.
The grey items are subscription renewal reminders and the white sheet is a reply I got when I asked them if I could buy copies of the first 4 issues. I didn't get my hands on Vibe until around issue 5 and so missed out on their earlier issues.
Unfortunately I was out of luck on this occasion too - they had all sold out!

MILESAHEAD MAGAZINE CONTENT

Here's a couple of examples illustrating the kind of content seen in Milesahead magazine.
The top image is one of their album review pages, and there were many such pages in each issue.
Underneath it is an ad for a couple of albums out on Warp Records.
So because Squarepusher crops up in both, I plucked that album out of my collection to accompany the items.

MILESAHEAD MULTI MEDIA MIX

The Milesahead collective engaged in the underground dance music scene in a variety of ways.
First there was the magazine of course, then there was their monthly dancefloor get-together at the Bug Bar in Brixton. They also had a weekly webcast show called "Incontinental" on the now defunct Groovetech website - and if that wasn't enough, they also found time to compile an album of cutting-edge grooves in 2001.
Milesahead's base-camp was in Brixton, London, with the mag's main team of editors being, Dimitris Lyritzis, Tony Sexton & Dave Stelfox.
The magazine itself was in circulation around the 1998-2000 period, the one above dating from the tail end of '99 - and the CD tracklist gives you an idea of the kind of music they enthused over during the course of their reign.