Bad News.

Just discovered, via XRRF, that Plan B is over:

Hi everyone,

Sadly, yes - we were preparing a nice statement to go on here for you all after telling all our contributors and contacts, but sadly the gossip machine has beat us to it. I'm sorry you've found out via hearsay.

We've come to the decision to close Plan B Magazine after the June issue after a lot of deliberation. The current economic climate, combined with the situation of the music industry - to which, whether we like it or not, the fortunes of a commercial monthly music mag are inextricably linked - has made it ever harder for us to continue producing the magazine the way we want to. To keep going, we'd need to make cuts in staff, content, size, frequency, print quality - and we're not prepared to do that. We're still above water, we're making some beautiful magazines, and we are quitting while we're ahead.

This forum has been a hugely important part of the magazine. At present, we'd like to keep it going as long as there's a will to do so, as the site will be continuing for a while. We are hoping to archive all our back issues as PDFs, and will be continuing to sell back issues for a limited period of time.

Subscribers will be refunded in due course - Richard and I will be in touch about that once the June issue has been sent out to you.

If you are a contributor and were not notified about this by email, our apologies. We tried to contact everyone today, but our mailing list messages do end up in junk mailboxes sometimes.

I'm you all have questions about this. If we can answer them, we will try to do so.

Thank you
x

*gutted*

I guess this marks the end of a near decade-long experiment in doing the unthinkable and publishing a regular, independent music magazine in which good writers write about good music that they actually like from a position based on DIY idealism, open-mindedness and inclusivity, and actually putting the damn thing on newsagents shelves at an affordable price.

Under the circumstances, I guess they did fucking well to last this long, so let's try not to get too maudlin and instead offer thanks all who contributed to keeping the magazine rolling, and keeping the quality so consistently high.

It's no secret that, ever since I randomly picked up the first issue of 'Careless Talk..' back in 2001 or 2002 (I forget the exact date), CTCL and Plan B have completely defined everything I've thought/done/aspired to as regards music writing and music culture. In addition to this, these magazines and their forums have helped introduce me to some good friends, and a wider network of solid souls, for which I am very grateful.

I haven't got the time I'd need to say much more than that at the moment unfortunately, but as Stew says in the link I'm gonna post below -- life changing stuff.

I guess in the past year or two, Plan B's collective tastes have parted ways fairly drastically from my own, but hell, that's probably just as well, who needs to read 100 pages every month about all the moaning, retrogressive three chord rock I listen to most of the time? For the record, I've still been buying every issue on the day of release and reading it cover to cover. Even recently, when there are some issues that haven't featured any bands I'm terribly interested in, there's still the work of so, so, so many fucking brilliant writers crammed in there to enjoy, not to mention photographers, and ILLUSTRATORS, for god's sake... I mean, where else am I gonna go to get a monthly fix of so many great people drawing neat pictures of things?

It breaks my heart that I'm going to be missing out on all this each month, and that anyone else who might be idly browsing the newsagent's shelves thinking "hey, that looks interesting" will be missing out on it too.

A sad day for print media, music writing and quality journalism in general, no doubt, but like I say, let's not get all grumpy. On the off chance that any Plan B staffers happen to stumble across this post - THANKS, in capitals, for the whole deal.

Some better words from...

Stew

E.T.

Labels: bad news, deathblog, Plan B