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As Splendid has grown bigger and older, we've made a number of associations with various individuals and publications. It's nice to build your own little community, but there are pitfalls. For instance, it becomes increasingly difficult to properly review the output of people you think of as friends or friendly acquaintances. It's most challenging if you like their work; even if your admiration is 100% honest, you can't help but suspect that your positive comments will be perceived as a bit of an "inside job".
Can you see where I'm going with this yet? If not, let me spell it out for you. Michael Byzewski, Readyset...Aesthetic's editor/publisher, regularly provides artwork to Splendid. It's a connection that grew from our reviews of previous issues of Readyset...Aesthetic. Because of his contributions, our features don't look like nearly as much of a godawful mess.
As if that wasn't enough of a problem, our own Theodore Defosse interviewed Braid for #3, bringing the entire publication sufficiently close to Splendid that it's entirely impossible for us to give an entirely impartial review. So I'm not going to bother.
I like Readyset...Aesthetic. I liked it before we'd ever dealt with Mr. Byzewski. Yeah, it's peppered with spelling errors and plagued by a lack of apostrophes, but the content's solid. This issue opens with a solid trio of columns. Byzewski talks up a big batch of his print zine cohorts, while Chuck Klosterman turns in a rambling bit of brilliance all about being cool. Yahtzeen's Phil Hunt scores some knowing laughs with his "Indie Rock Lifestyle Guide".
As usual, the rest of Readyset...Aesthetic's content is divided, roughly 70/30, into articles about music and articles about art and design (usually with a rock tie-in). On the music side, we've got Theodore's aforementioned Braid interview, in which Bob Nanna does his best to seem clever as he tackles a batch of Theodore's oddly-phrased, intellectually charged questions. For those of you playing at home, the word "muse" does not appear in this article. Phil Hunt tackles Dozer and the Makers while Ed Mabe enjoys a winningly profane conversation with Nashville Pussy. Andrew Duncan squares off with Pedro the Lion's David Bazan and Dirty Three's Warren Ellis, and Byzewski has the delightful experience of interviewing the newly solo Nash Kato, who comes off as a bit of a dick.
On the artier tip, there's the always entertaining "Oh, hey, Nice Packaging" feature, in which designers talk about their favorite album cover art, and an interview with artist/Most Secret Methodist Ryan Nelson. Byzewski is always clearly in his element with these articles, and this interview is one of the zine's high points.
Naturally there are record reviews -- more than 200 of them, with an additional column featuring even more reviews at the end of the zine. The reviews are short, sweet and to the point -- At A Glance length, basically -- and mostly positive. Normally a mostly-Byzewski endeavor, this batch of reviews includes many contributions from Hunt and Duncan, fleshing out the range of tastes nicely (Duncan even likes the Promise Ring's Electric Pink EP, turning in one of the only positive reviews of it I've seen). Occasionally they're lazy, taking the "you'll like this if you're a fan of..." route, but most of the reviews do their best to make a good/bad assessment, which is all you can really do with 100 words.
And that's pretty much it, though special mention should go to Lon Jerome II's multi-purpose "Royalty Free Clip Art". Any time I actually get a graphic designer-type joke, I feel pretty good about myself.
-- George Zahora
Got a zine, book, DVD, comic or something else you'd like Splendid to review?
Mail it to:
Splendid
Attn: "&" Dept.
1202 Curtiss St., 2nd Floor
Downers Grove, IL 60515.
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