IN THE 6th ANNIVERSARY ISSUE OF COSMIK DEBRIS: For our 6th birthday, our original artist-once-in-residence, coLeSLAw, returned to bake us a cover (thanks, Slaw!). The issue features our annual Cosmik Conversations piece, a brew of snippets of every interview from the past year. We also bring you a conversation with Jason Noble of Shipping News, part 2 in our series on art rock, an 2-in-1 article that is a review of a concert and an explanation of why you should only drink shade- grown coffee, a look at a newly unearthed vintage B.B. King video, Rusty sneaks into an Ike Willis and Project/Object concert, and a few friends of the Cosmik family check out Mike Keneally at a Taylor Guitar workshop. Plus all the reviews you can snort, ornate columns holding everything up and, again, our smiling birthday boy about to make a wish and lose his teeth! All in the 6th Anniversary Issue of Cosmik Debris Magazine, now arguably the longest-lived, continuously published music magazine on the World Wide Web that features graphics, sounds and dancing girls. Remember, lawyers, we said "arguably!"

COSMIK RADIO!: Cosmik Radio is Megadeth followed by Sinatra followed by Yellowman followed by Iggy. Sick, huh? You just need a RealAudio Player to listen. If you don't have one, go pick one up. Cosmik Radio is just the kind of Net-Only audio that radio station program directors don't want you getting hooked on. So go ahead. Inhale!

COSMIK CONVERSATIONS #6 - It's our yearly collection of snippets from every interview since the last Cosmik Conversations. This year we've made it even bigger, giving you longer snips so the flavor sets in and makes you want to head right for the back issue list. Comes with your choice of French, Italian, Thousand Island or Ranch. Remember to chew.

SHIPPING NEWS - Not your typical band. Maybe that's partly because it took them forever to decide they were a band. Busy with other projects, these guys finally had to give in to the sounds the were making. Holly Day talks it over with Jason Noble.

THE GOLDEN AGE OF ART ROCK PART 2: - This month Professor Rusty Pipes takes the students on a journey through the history of "classical rock." Not to be confused with "classic rock," "classical rock" is the meeting of rock band and orchestra. The class have hands raised and the Prof has the answers.

JACKSON BROWNE, BONNIE RAITT, KEB' MO' & DANNY O'KEEFE - What brings these artists together for a night of music and activism in Seattle's Paramount Theater? Believe it or not... coffee. Well, actually, the destruction of the habitat of songbirds who are being displaced because the large coffee companies have chosen to abandon shade-grown coffee in favor of large, open-field grown coffee. Eric Steiner covers the concert and gives you the skinny on what's going down in coffee country.

B.B. KING CAUGHT ON VIDEO - Rhino's Jazz Casual series uncovers vintage performances by the blues great, culled from the television series from which this series takes its name. Article by Dan Forte.

FAREWELL TO JOHN HARTFORD - Many many years ago, John Hartford wrote a song called "Gentle On My Mind" that became a huge hit for Glen Campbell and has since been recorded thousands of times. The financial freedom that afforded John allowed him to live a most unique life doing what he wanted to do and playing the music he wanted to play. John Hartford passed away very recently at the age of 63 after a 21 year battle with cancer. DJ Johnson scratches the surface in an attempt to tell you what this great man was like.

WHAT?? MIKE KENEALLY?? AGAIN!?? - We just can't get enough of this guy, so we sent a few of our friends out to see what he was doing, which turned out to be a workshop for Taylor Guitars. Article by Don Marsh & Bill Brinkmoeller.

WHAT?!? IKE WILLIS?!? AGAIN!!!!!? - Yeah, well, after interviewing Ike, Rusty just had to check out the show, so off the went, not really expecting THIS good a time. He shoulda known...


CD & RECORD REVIEWS - Everything from rock to jazz to hip-hop and back again.

OTHER REVIEWS - This month, we have a few books and a review of Moulin Rouge. We were going to review a party at the Playboy mansion, but they've added more guard dogs at the west fence, and that's the only one climbable, dammit!!





PIGSHIT - This month several people in the music and entertainment industry remember that king of excitement and master of showmanship...um... Perry Como.

CLOSET PHILOSOPHY - It seems the Republicreeps can't hold onto their dicks in a public john. With the recent defection situation, things sho' have changed for the resident and his gang of tutors and damage control specialists.

COSMIK BLUES - Eric Steiner finds unexpected treasure at the mall CD store. Here's a hint... 'tain't Britney!

WALLEY@WITZEND - David remembers some important years (1968-74) at an important paper: The East Village Other.



CREDITS - The names and e-mail addresses of the people responsible for this thing.

COSMIK RADIO - Want an hour of music that fits the personality of Cosmik Debris Magazine? That's right, Sinatra segues into Megadeth into Peter Tosh into Man Or Astro-Man into... well, you get the picture. It's a little something we like to call Genre Whiplash. Or maybe you're in the mood for a trip into The Fog Machine, our mix of music of the ethereal variety. All you need is a RealAudio player. Come on in.

INTERNET RADIO STATIONS - Great radio is alive and well on the Net! Cosmik Debris presents links to take you where the good ones are hiding, from St. Louis to Dublin. You're no longer stuck with just the "classic rock," "young country" and "24-hour talk" that has your town held hostage.

OUR OWN WEBSITES - Many of the Cosmik Debris writers have websites of their own. We have some links right here.



NOW WE ARE SIX! That was the name of a Winnie The Pooh book I had when I was a kid, one I read and read over and over, and did book reports on that really worried my college lit professors. So being able to look around at the virtual stacks of Cosmik Debris magazines and say "Now we are six" has a special - albeit disturbingly twisted - meaning for me. I remember something that this one doctor said to me... he said "bite down hard on this piece of rubber so you don't bite your tongue when the electricity jolts you." Oh, "And try to relax," he said.

Golly, those were good times, but not as good as the times I've had in the six years that we've been publishing Cosmik Debris Magazine. Of course, things on the World Wide Web were much different six years ago. Graphics were primitive, sounds were limited to peeps and squawks unless you knew somebody, Al Capone controlled the entire south side and nobody wanted to talk about it. We started our little magazine as a combination of political ranting and political raving, with a few record reviews tossed in. Over a short period of time and several clandestine beatings, we softened our political stance and decided that music was really where it was at, and that's where we really concentrated, looking forward and seeing nothing else we shouldn't see happening, really, I swear. As our writers were released from the hospital one by one, some came back to us, some left for the greener pastures of... well, the Witness Relocation Program. But we soldiered on, and we DID make it through that first year. From there on in it was smooth sailing. When I say smooth sailing, of course, I mean right into the side of an ice burg, Titanic-style, but we've always managed to bail faster than the water can rise.

And so here we are. Now we are six. We've made it here because we have great people who like to write for us despite the fact that it doesn't pay the bills. We have personalities here. People who write because they love what they're writing about, and they write for Cosmik because they know we don't care if what they're writing about will only get a thousand readers or one hundred thousand. "Just write what you want to write." Nobody gets that offer elsewhere. So if you happen to notice that a writer you have read before has written a piece on a band you've never heard of, do yourself a favor and check it out. There's apt to be sound clips, and you might just fall in love with a band none of your friends know about, which means you get to be the hip one turning everyone on to something new. That's what Cosmik Debris is and always will be about. We still get our activist legs stretched from time to time, and we will certainly talk to a legend or two here and there, but only because it's someone the writer is genuinely stoked about writing about.

So this is the last year I can say "Now we are six," and everybody'll be glad when that goes. I'll be a little sad, but seven is a good age, too. At this moment, we've been told, we're the longest-lived full-featured music publication on the WWW. I've heard tales of some house music publications, but I've never found them. So we're cautiously saying "maybe we are." Using the word "arguably." Any way you look at it, we've been out here a long time. Six years is nothing in the grand scheme of life, but in the fast paced world of the WWW, everything's measured like dog years. We continue to avoid trends like flash, which I, personally, find as annoying as its name, and I hope this doesn't leave us in the dust. My hope is that our content will continue to be what brings you here year after year. Thanks for being part of this.

DJ Johnson
Editor

Did you miss an issue? We now have many of our back issues online, including sound clips and extras. Check out interviews with The Witches, Electric Frankenstein, the Vampire Beach Babes, Jeff Berlin, Curve, Michael Shermer, Steel Pulse, Transglobal Underground, Mark Helm, The Southern Rock All-Stars, Ottmar Liebert, Jason Noble of Shipping News, Phil Vassar, Joel Dorn, Mark Cline of Love Tractor, Texas Terri (of Texas Terri & The Stiff Ones), Mike Keneally, Chris Shinn of Unified Theory, Alley of Wise Monkey Orchestra, Mario Escovedo of The Dragons, The Clarks, Big Ass Truck, Richard Cheese, Paul Krassner, Tony Iommi, Ron Dante... and too many more to list!!