So what's the deal now with live reviews in the mag? - it says to scan for more content but since I don't have a scanner at home it's a little impossible. Is there more subscriber content on the website - or can we all see the reviews (which I can't find)....

I just scanned last months and got this URL
http://www.terrorizer.com/blog1.php/rev ... e-reviews/

There are so many live shows and festivals that we are using the print mag to lead in to more comprehensive content on the website, reason being it gives us the great opportunity to devote a decent amount of space to festivals like Eistnaflug and run reviews of shows pretty much the day after like this here Warbringer review.

It does make sense actually. I think that's a good way to show content anyway.

What is this 'scanning' of which you speak? Is it that black and white squares affair that you need a fancy phone to use? Bit elitist, if so.

Get wid da yoof, old man.

Oh, I'm hip. You kids still say "hip", right?

That's like so yesterday.

I can't fucking stand that sinister little square of black and white shapes that suddenly appeared everywhere, and I do mean EVERYWHERE - its insidious and disgusting omnipresence alienating the vast majority of the population without the latest expensive trendy gadget and looking like the dehumanising stamp of an occult dictatorship.

It was annoying enough when it was just on flyers, recently I've seen it on wooden posts in the middle of the New Forest and even the wristband on my newborn niece, which is just terrifying. Who do I get in touch with to tell them to shove it up their arse?

Japan had this years ago, Britain is playing very slow catch-up

...says the horse-riding swordsman.

I'm hot and cold with them, and scan them as frequently as I travel to the moon.

Spin Magazine (from the good ol' US of A) have pretty much taken live AND recorded music reviews out of the magazine and put them online, leaving the magazine to publish features etc. The physical mag publishes quarterly.

My thoughts are that this is likely to be the way going forward for music mags. The problem we face is that a mag goes to print on say Friday 20 July, it is onsale Wednesday 8 August, and of course all the live reviews are 2-3 weeks out of date at best (even worse for overseas readers). And in the meantime a bunch of blogs have posted a long review.

With album reviews, there is exactly the same problem, it's rare for us to get something before anyone else (like we did with Enslaved in #227) and of course it's possible for an online reviewer to knock out 1,000 words on the most obscure of releases and of course it is there before the print mag is even manufactured.

What Spin is doing is, of course, playing to its strengths: the authority of the mag enforces the authority and credibility of the online reviews leaving the publication itself to do what blog writers often struggle to achieve, and that is to produce a well-researched, professionally written feature about an artist.

Why doesn't it, then? 'TOP FIVE ARTISTS ON SMACK' et cetera.

That was in the reviews section, so it would never have happened

Seriously, though, drugs are so last century. And anyone who feels they are necessary for creativity is wrong.

I read Tez because of: HOH, live reviews; retro features; album reviews; genre features etc....

To be honest why not get rid of the 'news' bit - most of that can be found online.

When I go back through back issues I don't re-read the features cause it's usually artist 'x' talking about how great album 'y' is....and nothing more.

It's the reviews etc that stand the test of time...

I wonder if having a consistent and engaging style can be more important than the actual content. I know either myself or Gene ALWAYS mention this whenever the topic is raised, but I kept reading Amiga Power long after I got rid of my Amiga (and even after people stopped sending them games to review and they had to fill issues with JFK conspiracy theories and arc-plots about the Four Cyclists of the Apocalypse) because reading it felt like being in on a private joke.