Wednesday, December 2, 2015

10 Years With Glide Magazine: A Look Back Part 1

Wow, @glidemag, has it really been 10 years since I first contributed to the website? That is hard to believe, time flies. In chatting with the sites fantastic editor, Shane Handler, about this series it turns out I have been the longest continual contributor to Glide, that's a fun feat. It continues to be a great ride but since everyone likes round numbers, I decided to take some time to look back at my favorite writings for the site.

To start this retrospective I wanted to focus on my first interview for Glide, which was also my first reporting interview anywhere. It was with an emerging band from Philly who were just starting to break out, Dr. Dog.
The band had just released We All Belong and were hitting the national radar for the first time. You can read the full piece here, but I want to reminisce on the experience.

They say you always remember your first, but it is never your best...unless we are discussing my interviews. I have done a bunch, over the phone, in person, via email, but none were as easy, engaging and fulfilling as this one. I had the legitimate pleasure to chat with guitarist/co front-man/songwriter Scott McMicken while he was on the road from Philly to Asheville to open the bands tour for the album.


We chatted for over an hour, and while I had a set of questions written out in front of me, I think I asked maybe one of those because the conversation just naturally flowed into and out of tons of varied subjects. Scott was clearly in love with music as I am and could articulate on lots of subjects. One that stayed with me was that he has "no guilty pleasures" when it comes to tunes. I can say I adopted that same stance on the spot, he convinced me.


In re-reading the interview I find myself right back in the summer of '07 chatting in a sun filled room in midtown Manhattan with a digital recorder next to my flip phone on speaker chatting with Scott. We could have talked for even more time, it just flowed so natural, it was a pleasure and this interview solidified both my love for writing about music but also music itself. I would start creating tunes right after this interview and I always see this particular interview as a catalyst to my playing.

Thanks for chatting Scott, thanks to Shane and the gang at Glide for the opportunity and thanks to all of you for reading all these years.   

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