Side-line
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| Side-Line Magazine | |
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|---|---|
| Publisher: | Seba Dolimont |
| Paid Circulation | 5,300 |
| Unpaid Circulation | 700 |
| Total Circulation (ABC Jan-Jun 06) |
6,000 |
| Language | English |
| Chief Editor | Bernard Van Isacker |
| Year founded | 1989 |
| Country | Belgium |
Contents |
[edit] History
[edit] 1989
Side-line Magazine was started in 1989 by two university students David Noiret and Seba Dolimont who noticed that there was a distinctive lack of media interest in the independent music scene, and especially a lack of coverage in the darkwave, dark electro, endzeit, gothic, gothic metal and electro industrial genres. As a result of their efforts, Side-Line was born. A magazine dedicated to provide exposure for artists of all underground forms of sound that are all too often placed on the side-line.
Initially Side-Line was written in French but aware of the lack of information and communication in the independent music scene, Seba Dolimont decided to change the magazine's language format to being published entirely in English. By then David had departed the team while Benoît Blanchart and Stephane Froidcoeur joined the editorial staff.
[edit] 1990 - 1999
Having acquired a very strong reputation through the years, the German label Celtic Circle Productions (CCP) approached Side-Line at the Popkomm music fair in Cologne (Germany), and offered to become the magazine’s publisher. The magazine also took on the added feature of moving to a glossy format with an attached CD compilation. After weeks of negotiations, Side-Line N°17 was released with a circulation of 7,000 copies.
Side-Line was immediately recognised as the leading English-written magazine on the underground genre and received support from the record companies and media throughout the scene. After 6 issues Claus Müller, chief editor of Germany's popular music magazine Orkus approached the magazine to start collaborating but after 2 issues already Claus and Séba realised that they were both working on moving grounds.
1999 resulted in an unexpected staff move for Side-Line which placed Seba Dolimont in the multiple roles of publisher, marketing director and his usual task of chief editor. A deliberate choice giving him and his team all the independence, force and energy they had been struggling for years.
By then the Side-Line team was also joined by journalist and webdeveloper Bernard Van Isacker who replaced Ronan Harris whose commitments to his music project VNV Nation forced him to resign. A very active website www.side-line.com was installed directly making a link between news related releases and various mail-order catalogues, a popular mailinglist was created, a forum and so on. By the year 2000 Side-Line had become the standard both on and off line with over 25.000 members.
[edit] 2000
After a market analysis, it was also decided to drop the attached CD compilation in order to wane away from the over-saturated compilation market and to also reduce the sale price of the magazine. The staff preferred to release only high quality CD compilations in collaboration with record labels through his numerous projects such as "Cyberl@b" (eclectic double CD compilation series featuring hits from electronic based artists), "Elektrauma" (featuring unreleased & exclusive material from elektro bands), "Gothic Enigma" (featuring dark romantic goth acts), "Venusa XX" (featuring female fronted electronic acts) and "Cryonica Tanz" (featuring promising club electro-industrial assaults).
[edit] 2005 - present
Today, Side-Line’s circulation is 6000 copies with over 5300 sold each time. The magazin's distribution network is equally spread throughout Europe and America. Metropolis Records, Isotank and Hot Topic distribute the magazine in America, plus an array of various record shops and mail order companies, which buy the magazines directly from the US office, based in California, Los Angeles (Lake Arrowhead). In Europe, the distribution network is also progressively being intensified with new sale points in the UK, Italy, GAS, Australia, Baltic countries, France, Greece, Spain, Scandinavia, Benelux, etc.
In addition, members of the magazine launched their own record company project Alfa Matrix on www.alfa-matrix.com in mid-2001 on which they release innovative electronic artists such as Front 242, Ayria, Unter Null and so on.
[edit] Editorial Staff
- Stephane Froidcoeur
- Benoit Blanchart
- Cédric Wattergniaux
- Bernard Van Isacker
