Finally, the cat is out of the bag and other such clichés.
Last May, I was contacted by Phil Udell regarding a new Irish music magazine he and others were in the beginnings of setting up. I met up with Phil, John Walshe and other contributors. It all sounded very exciting and I agreed it was definitely something that was needed badly in Ireland. The crux of the idea was to produce an intelligent monthly music magazine with no genre boundaries, vibrant, intelligent writing which would embrace the blogosphere as one of its primary goals. I agreed to get involved with State at that meeting, humbled that I had been asked and galvanised by the ideas flying around at its inception.
It wasn’t going to happen overnight obviously, so I stuck to the day job in web design and waited for the opportunity to arise when State would become a reality. The time finally came in November to leave my occupation. Since then, my experiences in writing about music professionally has been extremely positive. Hell, it doesn’t even feel like a job! It’s a beautiful thing when the thing you love more than anything else in the world becomes something you: a) Make a living from, b) Get to talk about everyday and c) Get to write about everyday. I could go on to the letter Z…
As well as getting to grips with professional music journalism, I have, of course been working hard on the website for State which is the main reason for this post as the site, a magazine-style blog has gone live today. I’m delighted with the end result and ecstatic about the content we pulled together for the launch.
We have an exclusive Irish interview with Hot Chip, Goldfrapp and Lupe Fiasco album reviews, a Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip live review, Explosions in the Sky tickets to giveaway, the FIRST announcement of the Irish acts playing South by Southwest and the first mix in a hopefully long-running State mix series by Nouveaunoise. It’s only the beginning.
The first print issue of State Magazine will be out on March 6th nationwide and we have some big features lined-up. Futhermore, State has an international flavour with a number of prominent bloggers from around the world also getting involved. I will, of course continue to do what I do here on Nialler9 as well as maintain State.ie. A big thanks to Roger, John, Phil, Simon, Arlene and Susan for their hard work so far. I’m looking forward to the future 🙂 .
Jim Carroll has an exclusive on the magazine in The Ticket today.
