VIBRATIONS MAGAZINE

Vibrations magazine has been around since 1992 and is still in publication today.
It covers music from all over the globe but from a street level viewpoint so the underground dance scene is very much its area. From Jazz to hip hop, electronic to African, soul to reggae, drum & bass to Latin - all are given in-depth articles, with lots of interviews and record reviews. The magazine is a real treat visually too.
So the top 2 cover examples both date from 2000.
The item underneath the covers is a review of Vibrations dating from 1995 that was published in Birmingham Vibe mag.
Next is a page from a 1998 issue of Vibrations offering free CD's to subscribers.
Lastly, I've accompanied the subscription item with one of the CD's they had on offer - a UK hip hop compilation called "Black Whole Styles" released on Big Dada/Ninja Tune.

SOUL UNDERGROUND MAGAZINE

Soul Underground magazine ran from 1987 to 1991 and needless to say it covered all the latest music styles associated with the dance music scene at the time, so content included house, hip hop, swingbeat, acid house, acid jazz, soul and funk. The magazine's material contained plenty of features on the hottest acts and record labels, lots of charts, record reviews, clubbing info and so on.
Underneath the 2 cover samples at the top is an item from the very first preview issue showing that they were still getting organised at this point and stating they were "no more than a quality fanzine". The team were also on the look out for volunteers and contributors to help get the ball rolling. They did envisage, however, Soul Underground developing into a fully-fledged magazine further down the line, and indeed this was achieved.
The middle item is an ad from an issue dated March 1988 and lists some releases that came out on Warrior Records back then - and so I've included from my own collection one of the records mentioned in the ad, a compilation called "Acid Beats 1".

STREET SCENE MAGAZINE

Street Scene magazine was a rather short-lived publication, only on the go during mid 1980's.
It was the brainchild of Morgan Khan who was also doing the prominent Street Sounds compilation albums at the time.
The mag contained a mixture of mainstream and underground dancefloor music with some of the contributors being well known names linked to the dance scene - for example Ralph Tee was editor, Ian Levine covered Euro Beat, a young Gilles Peterson had a jazz page, Richard Searling was doing the soul, and so on - but the music styles were quite widespread in general, such as funk, hip hop, pop, reggae, electro and even alternative. All this was accompanied by record reviews, artistes profiles, lots of charts, radio playlists and nightclub updates.
So displaying the kind of charts they printed, the one above is the Import Soul & Funk chart from a March 1986 issue and referring to it I have plucked out a record that was sitting at the No3 position, George Clinton's "Do Fries Go With That Shake", the 7 inch vinyl copy here from my collection at home.

WIRE MAGAZINE

Wire magazine became galvanised into action back in 1982 - and the 3 cover examples shown at the top here are from its first 20 years in publication, so includes the very first issue, one from 1990 and another from 2002.
They state that the magazine is "devoted to creative contemporary music in all its forms" in an advert they placed in Take Cover magazine in 1990, which is the 2nd item I have on display above. You can read the ad itself to get a more detailed overview of the kind of material they enthused over.
Concentrating on the dancefloor side of things however, the 3rd item above is a chart that appeared in a 1990 issue containing some of the club tracks they were plugging, and from it I've chosen an EP out on Nu Groove by The Utopia Project, the vinyl copy here being from my collection.
I've also chucked on an ad that appeared in a 2002 issue - it's for a compilation album called "Cherrystone's Rocks" released on Lo Recordings, and this one I have on CD.
Incidentally, out of all the magazines being paraded on "Raider Of The Lost Racks", Wire is the only one that I still subscribe to today!

TAKE COVER MAGAZINE

At the top is the cover of the first issue of Take Cover magazine, a publication that came out in 1990.
Instead of me giving the lowdown about the kind of material inside, I thought it would be better to read for yourself the opening words from the editor along with the index page which will give you a better gist of the magazine's content.
One small item I have put up to accompany it is an article about the debut album by No Smoke & The Mali Singers called "International Smoke Signal" released on Warriors Dance records, with a little help from Manu Dibango and the Soul II Soul posse.
The LP cover comes from my collection.

THE TICKET MAGAZINE

UK underground music magazine, The Ticket, arrived on the scene in March 1994.
They covered various music styles such as soul, hip hop, house, acid jazz, reggae, garage, leftfield etc and so the main bulk of the mag contained material based around the latest artist profiles, lots of record reviews, clubbing updates and chart lists. However, they also had a few pages that touched on things like street fashion, music history, films and computer games.
The Ticket mag cover on display above dates from August 1994, but if you bought a ticket from the Magic Bus organisation, you could have attended The Ticket launch party that took place in London a few months earlier, with DJ, Eddie Piller doing the biz for that one.
So plucking out an example of the kind of record reviews they had, I've chosen one from the same August issue - it's an Italian compilation called "Tempo Jazz" released on the Right Tempo label, the sleeve of which is out of my vinyl collection.

INTOXICA! RECORD SHOP

The top item is a photo of London record shop, Intoxica!, that I took back in 2003, and the adverts I've put up along with it date from around the same era.
The first ad is from a Big Daddy magazine dated 2001.
The 2nd ad is also from Big Daddy magazine and dated 2002.
The 3rd ad comes from a 2003 Straight No Chaser magazine.
You can see in the ads the kind of music the shop specialised in - very eclectic, very obscure, very underground!
One of the albums in their window display on the photo is one I have in my collection, only mine is on CD - The Psychomania soundtrack.
The film dates from around 1972 but 2003 was the first time the music from it had been released.
The album itself is not particularly dance based material but I can image some of the psychedelic jazz rock grooves on it being sampled and given a new lease of life on the dancefloor!

JAMES AND JON

Following on from yesterday's item about Honest Jon's record shop and the mention that James Lavelle used to work there...here is one of the side projects he was involved in when employed at the Portobello Road emporium.
He used to compile these weekly jazz charts for Echoes music paper - that's jazz in it's broader jazz not jazz dancefloor term of course, so also included hip hop, house, soul and such like.
The example I have above dates from August 1991 and at the top of the list is an instalment of the excellent Argo / Cadet compilation series released on Charly Records, the one here being "Free Soul".

HONEST JON'S RECORD SHOP

The photo of Honest Jon's record shop in London at the top of the display here is one I took in 2002.
It's a place I'd been familiar with for at least a couple of decades prior to the picture, so I thought it would be a good idea to accompany the snap with some ads covering these 20 or so years.
The top ad comes from a 1982 issue of Collusion fanzine.
The ad under it is from a 1991 Echoes.
The final ad (now in colour!) comes from a Straight No Chaser magazine dated 2000.
As you can see they sold a variety of music styles - jazz, funk, leftfield, African, soul, hip hop, house and so on.
I've opted to pluck out an album from my collection that gets a mention in the first ad that goes way back to 1982 - the "Sound D'Afrique" compilation - although the LP itself actually came out in 1981.
Incidentally, the shop in shot is where James Lavelle once worked before he moved on to start up the excellent Mo Wax label.

DJ MAGAZINE

I thought I'd be as well to follow up yesterdays item about Jocks magazine with this piece about its successor, DJ mag.
1991 was when Jocks became restyled into DJ magazine. Now there was less emphasis on DJ equipment and more space was given over to the music involved in the underground dance scene.
The DJ cover image on top is dated 1992 and the items I've accompanied it with date from 1993.
The  small article is about an album called "Cultural House" and there was also the above full page advert for it in the same issue.
The album was available in 3 format choices - I opted for the double vinyl version.