• Cover feature about the book is in the Riverfront Times. Read it here.
• Buy the book directly from the author, or at Amazon.com.
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JET LAG MAGAZINE
Jet Lag began in March 1980. Here is a very brief history of the St. Louis fanzine.
And here are archived early issues.
I came into their scene in the fall of 1988 by submitting a photo and review of 2 different shows at Mississippi Nights: The Ramones and The Church. This contribution paled in comparison to my graphic layout and typesetting background, so John the Mailman instantly promoted me to Associate Editor for issue #84:
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By issue #86 (below) I was interviewing a post-Husker Du, smacked out Grant Hart who nodded out mid-interview, and was put in charge of doing everything to the fanzine but take it to the printer. I was too excited by this adventure to notice that John the Mailman was busy helping to establish the radio station KDHX 88.1 and had left me to my own devices. He was the best “boss” ever!
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By issue #88, I was editor-in-chief and only saw Mailman when we did The Jet Lag Radio Show together on KDHX. I had inherited a magazine, and assembled a whole new gang of music mad volunteers. And we reached a milestone moment with the 10th Anniversary, an accomplishment celebrated at Mississippi Nights with Jane’s Addiction as the party band. I still adore this anniversary cover, illustrated by Darren Snow:
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Jet Lag founder and publisher John the Mailman bequeathed the entire legacy to me in the summer of 1990. JL veteran Brad Bradberry joined me to sell advertising, which certainly eased some of the burden of running a magazine that we were about to change format and take national. Hell, I was young, had boundless energy, free records and shows, meeting musicians, DJing a radio show…. what was not to love?
I wrote under two names with the magazine, Pat Weiss and Toby. I was also writing a few music articles for the Riverfront Times (still in disbelief that they paid me to interview god-like Neil Finn!!). A JL piece I wrote that I still like is:
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The cover above marks that format change, for issue #91. It was no secret that all we did was blatantly ape every last detail of the once-great and almighty CREEM magazine, and since they’d ceased publishing at this point, the field was wide open for sincere imitation. We had the snarky photo captions, the irreverence and got into trouble with the printer for a cartoon of a nude Slash (though a topless Madonna was perfectly fine with them).
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By the winter of 1991, I was totally burned out with the extracurricular workload. Even though we were distributed to magazine stands throughout the U.S.A, had a decent subscriber base and were about to financially break even, the business hassles too-often erased the creative highs. Though I did not know it at the time, issue #93 turned out to be the final issue:
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Just as John the Mailman had passed it to me, I passed Jet Lag to my associate, Brad Bradberry. Shell-shocked and dazed, I did not listen to one note of new music for the next year. Having to write about it, promote it and attend to it 24/7 had killed my love for it. Temporarily. In retrospect, it was a heightened and glorious adventure, and I am proud to have been a part of such a fine legacy.
