Because I work at home, and my wife will tell you I’m not a tidy fellow, I tend to schedule business meetings at coffee shops. Or maybe it’s a final nod to my old hometown, Seattle. Or perhaps I just relish excuses to abandon this room filled with books and records and art and photographs [...]

Is it comin’ around again? These “next-big-thing” waves tend to flow in cycles, you know. There was clamor circa 1995, when Gavin magazine’s now-relocated Americana chart made its debut, as did our 32-page first issue, and when Son Volt and Wilco were fresh outta the box after the split of Uncle Tupelo (along with the [...]

An advance copy of The Earth Rolls On arrived in my mailbox just before I left town for the holidays, as Grant and I were in the midst of pondering what to put on our next cover. Shaver was among the things on our short list, though, as always, we never really know which direction [...]

Our most recently concluded presidential lottery is the first for which I might Constitutionally have been eligible. It is, remember, no longer required that one be a landed white male to stand for that office, but one must still have mustered the theoretical wisdom of 40 years. Years ago I had just the arrogance and [...]

Change is in the air. In early September we gathered in Seattle to celebrate our fifth anniversary, hearing good tunes and toasting good times and remembering all it has taken to get where we are (wherever that is). Then it was off to our next adventure, which for Grant and me means packing everything up [...]

One day I looked up and we were five. I have no idea how this happened. One day when I was five I stuck a knitting needle in a wall socket and nearly set my bed on fire, so I know this to be a dangerous and exciting age. One day I looked up and [...]

I first got to know Kim Webber through a notorious AOL message board which had a little something to do with the name we chose for this magazine. Kim was part of a small contingent from Knoxville who had stumbled upon our online community, sometime around 1995 if memory serves. I’ve forgotten what her AOL [...]

Almost from the day we began publishing this magazine I have patiently had to explain that, no, No Depression was not an Americana publication. Americana is principally known as a radio format, a chart in the Gavin trade magazine, and while we certainly share artists with that chart, it should also be clear that the [...]

I remember nights like these when we were out in L.A., back before Grant moved to Nashville — waiting until the wee hours to write the “Hello Stranger” column, downing a coupla beers to hopefully help unloose a few words, grazing through the page-proofs looking for some kind of unifying theme. It’s been awhile since [...]

We have grown older in the four-plus years since No Depression began, and I do not mean to speak of my creaking knees, nor of my graying temples. No, those artists whose stories provide the core to each issue of this magazine are far less often newcomers to country music than I would have guessed [...]