New 'No Depression' (whatever that is)

"No Depression" magazine announced last week some pretty big doin's for its 10th birthday.

The September/October 2005 edition will feature a new logo (gasp!), a redesign (love you guys, but you have nowhere to go but up on this one), and -- hold on to your socks -- a new tagline. Yup. Replacing variations on the theme of "... alt-country (whatever that is)" will be "Surveying the past, present, and future of American music." Ain't a typo, folks. It says "American music," not "Americana."

Does this signal a new direction for the magazine's scope of coverage? Danged if I know. But the Lizz Wright cover and some hints at an expanded focus last issue certainly would hint at that. I'm all for broadening horizons, but I do hope that Americana music stays in the spotlight. Because a lot of folks are writing about non-mainstream music these days, which is great, but I would hate to see Americana music coverage go back to some dark, dusty corner because everyone's galloping away with a "broadened scope." Someone's gotta be the alt-country authority. Besides HickoryWind.org, I mean. :)

Also to celebrate the big 1-0, ND is releasing another book anthology of its writing: "The Best Of No Depression: Writing About American Music" (University of Texas Press). Out Sept. 1, It's got 25 articles from the magazine, including features on Lucinda Williams, Johnny Cash, the Drive-By Truckers, the Jayhawks, Ryan Adams, Gillian Welch, etc. etc. I would say buying that would be a good excuse to finally throw away all those ND back issues you've been saving all these years, but, well, I know it won't work for me. So soon I'll have a new book and more back issues. Aw heck.

But the good folks at ND aren't done with us yet! They're also sponsoring "10 Shows for 10 Years" in September across the United States. Look here for dates, places and performers.

We'll have to stay tuned to see what the next 10 years bring for "No Depression." The first 10 years have been great -- and have caused me to buy more CDs and see more shows than I can count. So I plan to keep reading (and emptying my bank account at the CD store) for the next 10 and beyond.

Thanks, "No Depression"! And happy birthday.