Dirty Linen

Several months back, while shopping in the local Books-A-Million I ran across a music magazine I was unfamiliar with–Dirty Linen. And considering the bimonthly magazine, which describes itself as “the foremost U.S.-based magazine of folk and world music”, has been publishing since the mid-1980s, I’m ashamed to admit I had not read it earlier. After pouring through the issue, I contacted the co-editor Paul Hartman to email interview him about the publication. Here’s the core info on the publication: “It was founded in 1983 by T.J. McGrath of Fairfield, Connecticut, as Fairport Fanatics, a fan magazine for the British band Fairport Convention. In 1987, Paul Hartman took over as editor and publisher, expanded the coverage to include genres of roots music from many countries and cultures, and changed the name of the Baltimore, Maryland-based magazine to Dirty Linen. His wife, Susan Hartman, has served as co-editor for many years. Under the Hartmans’ direction, Dirty Linen grew from a photocopied fanzine to a glossy color magazine with international distribution and sold in chains including Borders Books and Music, Barnes & Noble, and Chapters. It is also available via subscription. There are six issues per year.” My thanks to Hartman for discussing his magazine, as well as his radio work and his love of music in general.

Tim O’Shea: You and your wife, Susan Hartman, have co-edited Dirty Linen since the late 1980s. Other than the increase in downloadable music and the dwindling number of music retailers, what have been the biggest changes you’ve witnessed in the folk and world music industry over these past 20+ years?

Paul Hartman: 1) Downloadable music is not the only format change we’ve seen over the years. In the late 80s/early 90s was the change from vinyl LPs & cassettes to CDs. Folk/roots music was a bit slower to switch over than mainstream music, perhaps due to the smaller manufacturing runs making it relatively expensive.

2) These days, anyone can record and make a CD. A decent laptop and software combined with an inexpensive duplication company makes it affordable for the self-produced artist to release a recording. Or even skip the CD part and make MP3s available online.

3) The Internet has made it easier to find obscure CDs. Even imports. Google is your friend.

4) More people want to learn and play music. More participation rather than just passive listening. Almost like going back to the days before TV and radio, sitting on the porch or in the living room and just having fun. Many music workshop camps have sprung up, such as The Swannanoa Gathering, Augusta Heritage Center, Lark Camp, Common Ground on the Hill, RockyGrass Academy, Rocky Mountain Folks Festival Song School, Milwaukee Irish Fest Summer School, and many more.

5) Speed. Everyone expects things to happen more quickly.

O’Shea: In a typical bimonthly issue, Dirty Linen covers and reviews an amazingly in-depth range of music. Clearly you can’t fit every new release or review into a bimonthly issue. How many releases are considered for inclusion in an issue on average–and do you have particular selection process in deciding content?

Hartman: We get about 75 CDs per week in the mail. We listen to at least 3 tracks of each one to determine if it fits our publication, whether we feel that it’s a good CD to share with our readers, and whether we think we can find a reviewer for it. This first pass cuts down the number of CDs by about 50%. We then try to match up the CDs with one of our reviewers. Many of the CDs we pick for review never get reviewed because of the volume of CDs we get, or we can’t find the right reviewer.

O’Shea: How odd is it to be in the position to have covered musicians like Richard and Linda Thompson, Steve Earle and Loudon Wainwright III, and now to find yourself covering their next generation—Teddy Thomson, Justin Townes Earle as well as Rufus and Martha Wainwright?

Hartman: Now you’re making me feel old!

The next generation, not only children of professional musicians, but others as well, shows that folk/roots music is in good hands and will continue to be played and evolve. It’s not a dusty relic on a museum shelf, fixed in time forever. People continue to add to and change the music.

Just a few of the younger artists are Carolina Chocolate Drops, Crooked Still, Blue Moose & the Unbuttoned Zippers, Julie Fowlis, Leela & Ellie Grace, and Maeve Gilchrist.

O’Shea: A little more than two years ago, Dirty Linen merged with Visionation, a company that (as detailed at your FAQ) “operates an online music store, a record company, and a music video documentary company”. As a result, since the merger, magazine subscribers have received a CD sampler with every issue. Are you involved in picking the cuts included in the sampler?

Hartman: Sue and I pick all the tracks and send invitations to the record companies or artists. We try to select a representative cross-section of the music we cover in the magazine, but the final track list depends on who accepts our invitation.

O’Shea: Can you single out certain artists that have benefitted a great deal by being included in an issue’s CD sampler?

Hartman: It’s hard to tell. It helps the artists get name recognition, which is hard to measure.

O’Shea: How long have you been running the Dirty Linen Classics column?

Hartman: A long time, from near the beginning.

O’Shea:  What do you find to be some of the most popular features in the magazine?

Hartman: Our last reader survey showed that the feature articles, recording reviews, and “tossing out the fish” (News column), were the most popular. And also the online Gig Guide. And our new online Newsfeed has had steadily increasing readership since we started it less than a year ago.

O’Shea: Has Dirty Linen‘s readership has been bolstered by efforts such as the monthly XM Satellite Radio show on Channel 15/The Village?

Hartman: We can’t quantify that because you rarely know where a new subscriber came from. He/she could have found the mag at Borders or Barnes & Noble, or at a friend’s house, or on the web, or heard about it on XM.

It’s also about branding — reinforcing the impression that Dirty Linen is a great place to turn to for information about eclectic music.

O’Shea: The strengthening of Dirty Linen‘s brand, is that something you’ve always focused upon, or has that been a priority in more recent years as media platforms have been increasingly and drastically redefined by technology?

Hartman: We’ve never been good at self-promotion — it’s more interesting for us to concentrate on the creative part of putting together a magazine. But you’d be surprised at how many people at events like the annual Folk Alliance conference (which is geared to people in the folk/roots music business) come to our booth not having seen the magazine before, nor even being aware of its existence. So obviously “build it and they will come” is not the best approach.

O’Shea: What’s the most enjoyable aspect of doing the show for you?

Hartman: Sharing the music with listeners. That’s the whole reason we publish the magazine, also. “Hey, here are some cool things we discovered. Maybe you’ll like them, too.”

O’Shea: Several sectors of the music industry are fairly ruthless, or so it would seem to outsiders like myself, but I’m struck that the folk music industry seem to support each other in a more familial way. What exemplified that was issue 141, when a quarter-page ad ran on page 5, in memoriam for Vic Heyman. Would agree that there’s a familial trend in folk music?

Hartman: Sure. A case in point is the annual conference of the Folk Alliance.

It’s the nature of folk music and tradition, there’s a community sense of “passing it along” that is welcoming of participation rather than being threatened by competition.

O’Shea: In a recent editorial, acknowledging the “double whammy of a bad economy and reduced interest in print publications”, you offered readers a variety of ways to support Dirty Linen. One suggestion was “Buy back issues. The music we cover does not have a ‘sell by’ date. Search or browse the back issues page of our website to find out if we’ve covered your favorite artists in the past.” Do you have particular back issues that you rank among your favorite that you edited and that you hope more folks would order?

Hartman: My favorite issue is always the next one!

The issue with Taj Mahal, Baaba Maal, and Marcia Ball was interesting, just because it’s fun to say those names in a row fast…

We did a story on Ani DiFranco fairly early in her career and then another one a few years ago (which is sold out).

O’Shea: In terms of world music, have there been any new trends emerging that have really engaged or surprised you in the part year?

Hartman: A trend that goes back several years has been the difficulty overseas artists have in obtaining U.S. visas. Some artists gave up on touring the U.S. because of that and the interrogations and searches at the border. I hope that trend will reverse.

O’Shea: In terms of the visa challenges, has the situation or policy improved since the new presidential administration. Or did the visa challenges predate 2001?

Hartman: Visa problems have come and gone over the years to varying degrees, as the rules evolved. It has been particularly acute the past 5-6 years, though. It is interesting that several Cuban musicians have recently obtained visas (Omara Portuondo of the Buena Vista Social Club, for example), so perhaps that is a sign of things to come.

O’Shea: What’s coming up for Dirty Linen in the coming months that you’d like to tease folks about?

Hartman: We hope to have a presence at more festivals in 2010 and onward. We’re looking into more online content, perhaps the entire magazine.

You may also wish to visit my radio show’s website — I do a weekly show on WTMD, which you can hear online at www.wtmd.org every Sunday 5-7pm Eastern time. It’s kinda sorta similar to what we cover in the magazine.

O’Shea: How hard is it to juggle the demands of a bimonthly magazine, a satellite radio show and an additional weekly show on WTMD?

Hartman: And we put together 3 sampler CDs per year. It’s not easy! You can’t do it in 40 hours per week.

And I still have to mow my lawn once in awhile…

O’Shea: Have you considered also distributing one of the shows as a podcast as well?

Hartman: I would like to have both available as podcasts. I haven’t researched the royalty/copyright aspects of podcasts that contain music subject to licensing, though. There is also the issue of hosting disk space & bandwidth for downloads of the files. Having podcasts would fit in well with our idea of sharing the music…

I posted the playlist for the next XM radio show here.

And my weekly WTMD playlists are here (click on “News, Concert Calendar, Playlist”).