Hit the Decks: A DIY Magazine about Art, Music, and Cassette Culture
I launched Hit the Decks in May of 2021 as a way to explore DIY culture in music. Each issue focuses on a different theme and includes multimedia art, such as interviews, feature articles, poetry, photography, digital downloads, art, drawings, illustrations, lyrics, and more. Below, please read more about current issues of the mag.
In the inaugural issue of Hit the Decks released in May of 2021, I focused on bands on my own roster, contributions from the community surrounding the label, and friends of the artists. Included within are interviews with Spencer Moody, Joe Jack Talcum, and lauren.napier, art from those three as well as Jay McQuirns, and little stray, essays and articles from Katie Haegele, Joshua James Amberson, and Sommer aka Tape Girl, Photography from Craig Wenner, Neal Langford, Taped Off TV, and Jess Moncrief. I also contributed a lot of my own work.
You can buy a copy of Hit the Decks #1 by clicking here.
In the second issue of Hit the Decks, The Community Issue, released in November 2021, I focused on submissions from the community at large surrounding my record label. Fans wrote in and contributed their own poetry, lyrics, essays, reviews, and photography, and artists from the label contributed their own work as well. Each issue of the magazine comes with a digital download of a Community Album with music from label artists as well as fan submissions. The magazine was originally launched with cassettes of the Community Album as well as an ultra-rare 5” lathe cut record featuring new songs from Spencer Moody and Marie Baldys.
You can pick up a copy of Hit the Decks #2 by clicking here.
For the third issue of Hit the Decks, I spent a month at a writer’s residency in Reykjavík, Iceland, immersed in the city’s vibrant and exciting local music scene. The magazine includes interviews with composer Iris Thorarins, electronic musician and DJ Þorður Arnarson (Dynkur), musician David Berndsen (Berndsen), and experimental musician Pan Thorarensen, creator of the Extreme Chill music festival and owner of the experimental record shop Space Odyssey. Also included are reviews of my favorite venues in the city, blurbs about the best live bands I saw during that time, as well as my favorite bars, restaurants, day trips, and secondhand stores. Lastly, the magazine will be released with a 10” lathe cut ocean blue record featuring a live improvisational recording made with Iris Thorarins at Gufunes Beach, featuring her voice, violin, ghuzeng, and the waves behind us.