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| Categories | Music |
|---|---|
| First issue | January 2002 |
| Final issue | November 2003 |
| Country |  |
Careless Talk Costs Lives (usually known as Careless Talk or CTCL) was a British music magazine, published from January 2002 until November 2003.
Careless Talk Costs Lives was formed by two veterans of the music press, journalist Everett True (real name Jerry Thackray) and photographer Steve Gullick. True had previously been a writer for the NME , assistant editor of Melody Maker and editor of Vox magazine. He was a key media cheerleader for Nirvana in the early 1990s, and introduced Kurt Cobain to his future wife Courtney Love. Also, as The Legend! he was the first artist to release a single on Creation Records. [1] Gullick had been a successful photographer for NME and Melody Maker, and had also shot many record covers.
Disgusted by the state of mainstream music coverage, True and Gullick conceived a magazine to “bring down the UK music press” with particular venom reserved for the once iconoclastic, now insipid and marketing-driven NME.
The first issue was published in January 2002, with the Scottish band Mogwai on the front cover. It was fortunate that this coincided with a popular resurgence of guitar-based music, in the wake of the success of US bands such as The White Stripes and The Strokes. The focus was solidly on indie/alternative music, although there was an ongoing debate about the need for such classification. True tended to describe the content as reflecting “the music that we like”. Relatively new acts such as Bright Eyes, Electrelane, Oneida, Scout Niblett, The Gossip and Yeah Yeah Yeahs were featured heavily, although there was also coverage of more established artists such as Nick Cave and Marc Almond. The magazine also gave exposure to Detroit acts that had risen in the slipstream of The White Stripes, such as The Von Bondies and The Dirtbombs. True's penchant for female-fronted bands also showed.
Some established writers from the British music press, such as Stevie Chick and Neil Kulkarni, contributed to CTCL, but the bulk of writers were from the fanzine and webzine scenes in the UK, North America, Australia and beyond. At Gullick’s insistence, the magazine used no photographs issued by PR people or record companies, ensuring that CTCL would stand out from any other publication on the shelf. As well as striking photographs by Gullick and others, the magazine made heavy use of illustrators. Despite limited budgets (CTCL was effectively run out of True's house in Brighton), the magazine was printed on heavy matt paper, and production quality was a priority.
Careless Talk Costs Lives also spawned an internet radio show and a number of live music events.
From the beginning, it had been decided that Careless Talk Costs Lives would run for 12 issues, and then close, unless it had succeeded in its Quixotic attempt to destroy the rest of the music press. The issues were even numbered backwards, from 12 to 1. The final issue was published on November 1, 2003. True wrote:
True went on to publish Plan B magazine, and Gullick was behind Loose Lips Sink Ships.
New Musical Express (NME) is a British music journalism website and former magazine that has been published since 1952. It was the first British paper to include a singles chart, in the edition of 14 November 1952. In the 1970s, it became the best-selling British music newspaper. From 1972 to 1976, it was particularly associated with gonzo journalism, then became closely associated with punk rock through the writings of Julie Burchill, Paul Morley, and Tony Parsons. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s and 1990s, changing from newsprint in 1998.
The White Stripes were an American rock duo formed in Detroit, Michigan, in 1997. The group consisted of Jack White and Meg White. After releasing several singles and three albums within the Detroit music scene, The White Stripes rose to prominence in 2002 as part of the garage rock revival scene. Their successful and critically acclaimed albums White Blood Cells and Elephant drew attention from a large variety of media outlets in the United States and the United Kingdom. The single "Seven Nation Army", which used a guitar and an octave pedal to create the iconic opening riff, became one of their most recognizable songs. The band recorded two more albums, Get Behind Me Satan in 2005 and Icky Thump in 2007, and dissolved in 2011 after a lengthy hiatus from performing and recording.
Sarah Records was a British independent record label active in Bristol between 1987 and 1995, best known for its recordings of indie pop, which it released mostly on 7" singles. On reaching the catalogue number SARAH 100 the label celebrated its centenary by throwing a party and shutting itself down. In March 2015, NME declared Sarah to be the second greatest indie label of all time.
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are an American indie rock band formed in New York City in 2000. The group is composed of vocalist and pianist Karen O, guitarist and keyboardist Nick Zinner, and drummer Brian Chase. They are complemented in live performances by second guitarist David Pajo, who joined as a touring member in 2009 and replaced Imaad Wasif, who had previously held the role. According to an interview that aired during ABC's Live from Central Park SummerStage series, the band's name was taken from modern New York City vernacular.
Melody Maker was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies, and—according to its publisher IPC Media—the earliest. It was founded in 1926, largely as a magazine for dance band musicians, by Leicester-born composer, publisher Lawrence Wright; the first editor was Edgar Jackson. In 2000 it was merged into "long-standing rival" New Musical Express.
Indie pop is a music genre and subculture that combines guitar pop with DIY ethic in opposition to the style and tone of mainstream pop music. It originated from British post-punk in the late 1970s and subsequently generated a thriving fanzine, label, and club and gig circuit. Compared to its counterpart, indie rock, the genre is more melodic, less abrasive, and relatively angst-free. In later years, the definition of indie pop has bifurcated to also mean bands from unrelated DIY scenes/movements with pop leanings. Subgenres include chamber pop and twee pop.
"Sliver" is a song by the American rock band Nirvana, written by vocalist and guitarist Kurt Cobain.
Ben Blackwell is the creator and director of Cass Records, one of two drummers in the Detroit-based rock band the Dirtbombs, a music writer, and a vinyl record collector. He's a co-founder and minority owner at Third Man Records and the official archivist of the White Stripes.
Everett True is an English music journalist and musician, who grew up in Chelmsford, Essex. He became interested in rock music after hearing The Residents, and formed a band with school friends. He has written and recorded as The Legend!
Bob Stanley is a British musician, journalist, author, and film producer. He is a member of the indie pop group Saint Etienne and has had a parallel career as a music journalist, writing for NME, Melody Maker, Mojo, The Guardian and The Times, as well as writing two books on music and football. He also has a career as a DJ and as a producer of record labels, and has collaborated on a series of films about London. His second publication, Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!: The Story of Modern Pop, was published by Faber & Faber in 2013.
Roy Carr was an English music journalist, covering pop, rock and jazz. He joined the New Musical Express (NME) in the late 1960s, and edited NME, Vox and Melody Maker magazines.
Show Your Bones is the second studio album by American indie rock band Yeah Yeah Yeahs, released on March 28, 2006 by Interscope Records. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Alternative Music Album in 2007.
Plan B was a monthly music magazine based in London, England. It catered mainly towards independent music but did not discriminate between the relative popularity of the bands it features. Plan B also documented alternative culture such as film, comics, video games, visual art and books. It was founded by editor-in-chief Everett True, art director Andrew Clare and publisher Chris Houghton, although later editor and publisher Frances Morgan was also a major influence.
Robert James Sheffield is an American music journalist and author.
Does It Offend You, Yeah? were a British dance-punk band from Reading, Berkshire. They played their final show on 12 December 2015 at the Electric Ballroom, Camden, London.
Loose Talk Costs Lives are a London, UK based band who present a diverse form of popular music, taking influence from artists such as XTC, Four Brothers, Talking Heads, Owls and Steve Reich.
Tenebrous Liar is a musical pseudonym of NME photographer and Careless Talk Costs Lives (magazine) founder, Steve Gullick.
Neil Spencer is a British journalist, author, broadcaster and astrologer who lives in north London. He edited the New Musical Express (NME) from 1978 to 1985 and was a founding editor of the men's magazine Arena and of the jazz/art magazine Straight No Chaser. He writes regularly for The Observer, specialising in astrology, music and other aspects of popular culture. According to his website, his work has also appeared in The Independent, Mojo, Uncut and Elle, among other publications.
C86 is a cassette compilation released by the British music magazine NME in 1986, featuring new bands licensed from British independent record labels of the time. As a term, C86 quickly evolved into shorthand for a guitar-based musical genre characterized by jangling guitars and melodic power pop song structures, although other musical styles were represented on the tape. In its time, it became a pejorative term for its associations with so-called "shambling" and underachievement. The C86 scene is now recognized as a pivotal moment for independent music in the UK, as was recognized in the subtitle of the compilation's 2006 CD issue: CD86: 48 Tracks from the Birth of Indie Pop. 2014 saw the original compilation reissued in a 3CD expanded edition from Cherry Red Records; the 2014 box-set came with an 11,500-word book of sleevenotes by one of the tape's original curators, former NME journalist Neil Taylor.