Number 3 down.

If you're looking at the time of this post and thinking, "wow, this guys gets up early!", think again.
Due to the insane last minute rush of our print deadline I have become a bit nocturnal over the last few weeks and I've not managed to snap out of it yet.
Yes, we have finally finished Issue 3.
The proofs have been signed off and we should have them in our paws by Wednesday or Thursday this week, which means... you guys should have them in about 10-14 days (unless you're in Cape Town, Outer Limits, Reader's Paradise, Reader's Den and Subterania should, hopefully, have them in by Friday!)

Wow, man it's been an unbelievably hard issue and three very long, very trying months as for quite some time we really thought we wouldn't make it to print. Finances have all but dried up and only through the help of a benefactor did we managed to go to print at all.
But, having said that, it is a wopper of an issue. We've pretty much filled every square inch of the thing with articles, stories, reviews, interviews and beeeyyooooddiful art.
I think I'm happy with it.
I say I think, because to be honest, I've lived with this magazine for three months and I've only ever seen it on a computer screen (barring the proof but proofs always look like shit) so until Wednesday, when I can actually hold the finished product in my hands, I can't really be sure if I'm happy.
Strange I know, but I'm convinced that even through all the technology and computers that we have learnt to use in the last couple of decades, human beings aren't really capable of experiencing things virtually, we need an actual, tangible product in our hands to make it real.

On our Reader's Survey we asked if people would buy Something Wicked in pdf format if it were considerably cheaper and about 8 of 10 people said they wouldn't.
Makes you think.

Personally I much prefer paper. It was definitely one of the things that influenced me in creating Something Wicked as an actual publication instead of simply online. I feel the magic for me, and I'm sure the writers and artists, is to see your work up there on a magazine rack in a real shop, printed on real paper - I still get a thrill when I walk into a random store and see a copy of the magazine, (though, to be honest, most of the time I have to hunt for it under a pile of FHM's or Cosmo's).

So there you have it.
Go buy your copy now!!!
Thanks :)

Gogol Bordello

Ok so, not, as some of you may have been hoping for, a Something Wicked related post but another arb peek into my life.

I was recently floating around a friends mySpace page and came across a band called Gogol Bordello. A truly multi-national Eastern European band from New York, probably best described by this quote from a review for their album Multi Contra Kulti vs Irony from The London Times.

"Asked to describe Gogol Bordello, the singer Eugene Hutz came up with 'gypsy punk cabaret.' But that's only half the story. Hutz, a Ukranian, is joined on this album by a Russian fiddler, a Jewish guitarist, a Slavic accordionist and an Israeli saxophonist."

They have been around for awhile now and some of you stranger folk out there may snicker at how slow I've been, but wow.
These guys are totally and completely off-the-wall insane and just to prove it I have embedded the video of their song Start Wearing Purple below.

I love it, but hey I've always been weird.
Anyway, it's late and I've been cooped up in front of this computer for over a week now.....