visit BANDOPPLER Magazine on the web at: www.bandoppler.com

Conversations to An End: Bandoppler Magazine

Jason Dodd is the editor and founder of Bandoppler Magazine, a brilliant music journal recently launched out of a creative collaboration with friends Chris Estey and Matt Johnson and others throughout this vast network of independent media. Once a humble site on the Internet that garnered overnight success with its aggressive coverage of the underground music scene, Dodd closed shop to learn the ropes of magazine production at a struggling (aesthetically, creatively, and visually speaking it was a mess) magazine called HM. While stationed in Austin, Tex. working for the mag, he instantly transformed the publication into something respectable. The Pacific Northwest was calling though and Dodd cured his case of distaste for the state of Texas by returning to Seattle and again going out onto a limb. The result is two excellent print editions of Bandoppler that sticks with Dodd's vision of providing creatively destructive stories about the music we all obsess over.

Dodd recently fielded some questions about running a magazine, why he doesn't publish reviews in print, and the joys of juggling publicists and labels looking to fork over advertising money only in exchange of positive press.

Bandoppler started out on the Internet, grew a widespread fanbase and then disappeared during your time spent at HM only to resurface in print form. Was it your plan all along to have Bandoppler in this form?

I'm pretty sure it would not be honest to answer that with a simple yes or no. When I made the decision to go work on HM I was dealing with a lot of difficult personal issues, and to be totally honest I think I saw the job offer mostly as a means of physical and emotional escape. I had always wanted to make BANDOPPLER a "real magazine" (nothing against webzines -- I just love the tangibility of paper and ink), and I'm sure in the back of my mind I thought working at HM would teach me how to actually manifest that desire. And working there certainly did that -- I was able to learn about and experience almost every single aspect of producing a print magazine. But I didn't go to HM with any real ulterior motives. I went there to get out of Washington, and to make HM Magazine.

It was a new challenge. HM had lost any semblance of relevance that it may have once had, yet it still had a large readership and a long history behind it. I think anybody with proclivities like mine would see that as an attractive situation to walk into -- a chance to remake something stagnant into something vital. I'm not sure I achieved that goal, but I do know that I was able to print quite a few really, really good stories, especially with the contributions of Chris Estey, Chris Short, and Matt Johnson. The harder part of the challenge to stomach for me was that HM was explicitly a "Christian Rock" magazine. Even when I was most sucked into the "Alternative Christian" subculture during the late 90s I didn't buy the misguided separation of "secular" and "sacred" in the realm of art, even pop art. I think I was able to subvert that bad "doctrine" quite a bit while at HM, though, and challenge some people to rethink parts of their paradigm in a bigger context. If that did happen, I guess it was a good thing.

But anyway, no, it wasn't really my plan all along to bring BANDOPPLER to print, but I didn't really have any clear plan of any kind. I was just going with the flow. The notion to revive BANDOPPLER in print with Chris and Matt at my side became a viable idea about nine months before I left HM.

Talk about the changes in approach and format you made when relaunching Bandoppler as a print magazine. You mention in the first issue the influence Grand Royal had on you that first issue you picked up in a record store in South Dakota. In a way is Bandoppler the magazine you have been looking for ever since Grand Royal ceased publication?

I think you are hinting at the difference in content, since the difference between web and print format is obvious. Well, this is a bit of a complicated matter, but I am not going to evade anything.

The weird thing is, though, that when I started BANDOPPLER online it was because of falling in love with Grand Royal, and it was not a "Christian Rock" website. It wasn't really anything. I wouldn't even call it a "site." It was just me screwing around with my friend Justin on a Geocities webpage. He would do these silly topical essays that were obviously GR inspired and I would do reviews and other random stuff. But I was going through a very weird phase spiritually and emotionally.

Looking back, I think I was searching desperately for some kind of life balance, but kept swinging back and forth between extremes, and didn't even know what I really wanted. I would go from fratboy to Pharisee, to skate poser, to philosopher, to snowboard guy, to hippie, to college church group leader, to womanizer, to loner.... And it was in the loner phase that I started BANDOPPLER (the full name for most of its time on the internet was BANDOPPLER RADIO). It was something to do in isolation and at graveyard shift at work on my laptop.

I had had a big falling out with my church at the time because of some stupid shit I did revolving around girls, and the only people who would still come hang out with me were four high school youth group kids that had a Christian hardcore band. And that's how BANDOPPLER turned into something of a "Christian Punk," or "Alternative Christian" zine. I was hanging out with these really smart, really great kids that talked nonstop about ZAO, Overcome, etc., so naturally I started writing about that stuff on my little webpage.

And then people started actually reading it, and I went to Cornerstone, which is the first "Christian Rock" festival I had ever gone to, and I'm sure you can guess how things developed from there. It's really, really, really easy to get swept up in that energy. There's something very radical and inspiring about it, especially when you have an extreme personality and still haven't realized or accepted your true identity. I'm not trying to be condescending towards it and the kids that are currently enjoying it. I have a lot of good memories from that time. It was a hell of a lot of fun. And really, it had quite a bit to do with helping me find what I believe is a more balanced perspective on art, music, and life in general. Mostly because of some of the people I was blessed to meet during it all.

But anyway, I'm sure I'm insinuating some things that some people might find offensive, so I'll just move on. The point is that working at HM got that whole phase out of my system, and I decided to go back to my original intention -- to make a rock mag that I would want to read, a rock mag that would shun propaganda and lemming horseshit as much as possible. Yes, as you said I suppose, I wanted to make the magazine I was looking for since the demise of GR. The cool thing, though, is that now I actually know how to make that, and I have an incredible community of talented and knowledgable folks to help me make it. So, it was really a big circle that dropped me off where I began, but not quite. Not to sound melodramatic or whatever, but BANDOPPLER to me wasn't a webzine, it was a five year journey to finding myself. Which is why I saw no contradiction in reviving the name, even if some people might think the content has taken a drastic turn from what was online. But the content was always varying, evolving, devolving, etc., and it was always secondary to the experience it represented. I'm sure plenty of independent publishers and whatnot can relate to what I'm saying.

One of the things I found interesting from early on when you started the print magazine was your decision to not include record reviews. Tell me a little bit about this decision you made and what the reaction has been to not having the often obligatory record reviews?

Well, one of the things I grew to detest most while at HM was the album review. Not just in HM, but in all magazines. Because working at a magazine that was widely "serviced" by record companies and publicists, I was quickly initiated into the "Album Review" game. It's a crass dynamic of favor trading, and often even a test of ethics.

I think everyone knows how the game goes -- company sends magazine "free" CDs, magazine is expected to write about them (positively) or magazine finds it difficult to solicit advertising -- but it is most sickening when you are actually playing it. I mean, you have a lot of people yelling about "integrity" and panning records and thinking their tough, but really it's all a big joke. Rock criticism is pretty much a joke. There were Rock Critics. There may even be a few Rock Critics still around. But 99% of stuff operating under that idea is horseshit. People showing off and trying to play a number of games, not just the game between record companies and writers.

Chris believes in the form and function and importance of Rock Criticism more than I do, but even he will admit that the vast majority of it is mindless, impotent, insincere mung. One of my biggest hang ups is -- who am I to criticize someone else's art? And who are all these other parrots and jackasses criticizing someone else's art? But I do agree with Chris to some degree -- there is a place for it. There is a place for accountability and art dialoguing with art. But that conversation has to have a reason to be, and the only way that situation can exist is if the subject and the critic speak the same language. Lester Bangs is NOT overated. He spoke rock and roll. He loved it. He knew it. He had a right to criticize it. Most of us don't have that right, at least not most of the time. And that's where we developed our approach to it.

We decided that an Album Review would be a rare and special thing in BANDOPPLER. For it to see print, the writer/critic would have to live with his subject and speak its language and communicate his feelings for it effectively and sincerely. He would have to care enough about it to fight his editors to get it into print. So far, the only Album Reviews that have been printed in BANDOPPLER were by Matt Johnson. And he definitely earned those slots.

Now, on our website, it's a bit of a different story. We are a little less strict about the reviews, but still grill the reviewer beforehand to make sure they really care about what they want to review. They don't have to LIKE something -- that's the whole point -- they just have to CARE about it enough to say something worthwhile and valid about it. And then we have "8 Lines or Less," which is like a "Round Up" album review section, or the thing that most resembles a normal album review section. Yeah.... If it isn't obvious, it's a parody. A parody of all of it -- the "Album Review" game, the modern "rock critic," you, me, everybody. It's a total fuck off. It's admittedly a sophomoric parody, but I think it's still effective in making its point. The point of course being -- we don't care about this shit and we're sick of being pretentious!

In the past when you wrote a negative review of a particular album or even a positive one, what would the experience be like on the off chance that you actually ran into one of those bands or received some type of feedback from them in another form?

Some people, especially bald ones, still hold grudges about some shit I said about them or their music. Some people appreciated the honesty, or at least told me they did. Some people just razzed me about it. I think the few times when I had a right to criticize something, because I actually understood it and spoke its language and cared about it, and had viable suggestions or complaints to offer, that the criticism was received better than when I was just pissing on something out of boredom or pretentiousness. It's usually pretty obvious when someone cares and when someone is just being a prick.

And I was just being a prick plenty of times. My apologies. But then again, fuck you for sending me your uninspiring "music" and exploiting the game. (Not you, Matt, the people who sent me shitty music and expected me to pretend to care.) But whatever, I'm all about the love now baby.

The line between music journalism and music PR often seems to be blurred in many publications covering music. A major label takes out big ads as long as the magazine is favorable to the artists. If they aren't, so goes the advertising revenue. What are your feelings on this? What motivates you to write about or assign someone to write a piece on a band? Is it to simply praise them and tell others about music you feel is important or is there more to it than that?

Yes, that is the way it is. I won't lie, even with BANDOPPLER there is plenty of pressure felt from publicists and whatnot. But I give my word that we are trying our damndest to shrug it off and assign stories based on the merit of the story. Often times our motivation is to promote or talk about something we enjoy, to expose something to people that might not be aware of it, whether it's an idea or a piece of work or a person or whatever, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But we also carefully consider the potential literary value of a story idea, whether there really is a Story to tell, and what writer is going to best achieve those two goals. And we also write about things just for the sake of the Story. We are fans of plenty of things, but first and foremost we are fans of a good story, and we try our best to find and tell them. We fall short of that lofty goal, for sure. But you gotta set your goals high to get anywhere above mediocrity.

And also we try to have FUN. That is actually very, very important to our idea. There are plenty of smart, discerning publications with high ideals and good stories that are just boring and lifeless. The whole reason I loved Grand Royal was becuase it managed to be smart AND fun. So, that is really the ultimate goal of everything -- to find that balance. And there is also plenty of stuff in BANDOPPLER that is just fun -- at least for us -- no good story or smarts necessary. You gotta laugh at and with yourself when you're doing this kind of shit. Otherwise you're just another pompous cymbal banging. And making people laugh is a hell of a lot harder than most anything else. I hope we do make people laugh. That's really my only insecurity about BANDOPPLER. I know it's smart. I know it's pretty discerning and well made. I don't need affirmation for that. But, dammit, I would be crushed if someone told me nothing in it made them smile.

Tell me a little bit about the nonprofit umbrella behind the magazine. Who are the other players and what are the goals, motivation behind it all? What does the slogan "positive affirmation of creative destruction" mean to you on a personal level?

Well, we started out trying to create a new kind of media company with Jeff "Suffering" Bettger and Bubba Jennings -- a nonprofit one that was artist-centric. It was called the Artist Reformation Project, and it was a good idea. But unfortunately the US's tax codes do not allow for the activities of a media company to take place as a non profit. That was a bummer to discover, but we all moved on and continued seperately the things we had collected. And Bubba Jennings actually stayed with BANDOPPLER to be our business manager.

BANDOPPLER is now owned by Bandoppler Publishing, a private for profit corporation owned by myself and a few other people directly involved with BANDOPPLER. But our attitude towards the venture hasn't really changed. We just fill out different tax forms and have more trouble raising funds and paying the bills. HA! Bandoppler also has a web presence where reviews are included and some content not in the print magazine.

Getting the physical issue in hand of course is always so much more of an experience than checking the content online. Still, with information so easily available, doesn't that create a major challenge for a publication that comes out quarterly?

Yes, but we can't afford to print it more often. And even quarterly is hard on the wallet. Ideology and strategy sometimes don't fall in line with fiscal realities. That's really all there is to it. Much of what BANDOPPLER does currently outside of the creative realm is just pragmatic. Sigh.

What keeps you going and keeps your passion to write, to find new music, and spend countless thankless hours working on a magazine that obviously isn't making you rich (yet anyway)?

It makes my wife hot for me! No, uh.... Well, I've sounded pompous through most of this interview, so why quit now. I do it because I am always obsessively searching for a good Story to tell. That and I like making magazines -- the actual craft functions of it -- more than is probably healthy. Oh, and when you hold a physical thing you spent months making it is like holding a baby. And also 'cause of the human relationships involved. Working with a genius like Chris Estey is a rewarding experience in itself. We could be making pizzas and it would be fun as hell, as long as we were doing it together. And I gotta give props to Short, Johnson, Roy Culver, John Sant, Darren Vickers, Jeanette Strole, Kindred Winecoff, Christopher Wiitala, Tatiana Gill, and David Lasky. Working with them has been great. And in all seriousness, my wife Candace has been a huge part of making BANDOPPLER in print a reality. I can't thank her enough, and she definitely helps me keep the passion to keep going.

2002 White Elephant Productions