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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In December of 2016, I almost subscribed to <\/span>Classic Rock Magazine<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0I found myself buying a copy whenever they weren\u2019t sold out at the bookstore, so it seemed the logical thing to do would be to save a few bucks and subscribe. \u00a0I cued up the TeamRock website and was met with an announcement that the company was under what sounded like some sort of receivership and searching for a new owner. \u00a0No action could be taken as the website was frozen on this page. The last thing they suggested was checking back \u2018in the near future\u2019. I was a bit puzzled and the frozen web page ended all thoughts of subscribing, so I resolved to check back in the near future. \u00a0Subscribing to a magazine that was shopping for a new owner didn\u2019t seem to be a wise course of action anyway.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Early in 2017, I able to purchase a couple of more issues, but it wasn\u2019t until the March 2017 issue (#233) that the whole story was explained. \u00a0CRM editor Sian Llewellyn explained, as I had suspected, that shortly before Christmas of 2016, TeamRock had gone into \u2018administration\u2019. The people who publish <\/span>Classic Rock Magazine, Prog <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Metal Hammer <\/span><\/i>magazines were facing a Christmas holiday without employment. \u00a0TeamRock had notified their employees that there would be no severance pay, no magazines, no websites, no radio . . . nothing. \u00a0None of that sounds very \u2018Merry Christmas\u2019 does it?<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0So how is it that Issue #233 even went to print? \u00a0Perhaps we could call it another Christmas Miracle. \u00a0Llewellyn says, \u201cWhat happened next was simply astonishing on every level – incredible, humbling, emotional, unbelievable and a whole load of other adjectives that I don\u2019t have room to list here.\u201d \u00a0Under the banner, \u201c<\/span>Classic Rock, Prog <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Metal Hammer <\/span><\/i>are dead. \u00a0Long live <\/span>Classic Rock, Prog <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Metal Hammer\u201d, <\/span><\/i>the death and resurrection of these three music publications was explained as follows (the timeline courtesy of <\/span>CRM<\/span><\/i>):<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Monday, December 19.<\/b> \u00a0The forty-six staffers in London and another twenty-seven in Scotland are informed that TeamRock has gone under. \u00a0The publishers, designers, journalists and all of their support teams no longer had jobs, they would not be paid and they would not receive severance money. \u00a0Most retired to local pubs to ponder this bleak turn of events. Merry Christmas!<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0Tuesday, December 20<\/b>. \u00a0Singer Ben Ward (of the band Orange Goblin) and his partner Sandie heard the sad news and opened a JustGiving page explaining, \u201cThese are good, hard-working people, committed people who, through <\/span>Metal Hammer, Prog Rock, <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Classic Rock, <\/span><\/i>TeamRock radio, and more, have supported the rock and heavy metal scene in this country for decades, and now we, the rock community need to pull together to help give something back.\u201d \u00a0Over the next few weeks, 3,698 people responded to the site with comments and donations.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Wednesday, December 21<\/b>. \u00a0The administrators of the now defunct company re-employ a small number of staffers to get the next issue in print feeling that a new owner will want continuity in the publications if they are going to invest. \u00a0This explains how the next two issues came to be. The <\/span>Kerrange!<\/span><\/i> mag staff invites the former TeamRock staffers to their Christmas party. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Friday, December 23.<\/b> \u00a0The band Queen re-Tweets news of TeamRock\u2019s problems to their 1.1 million followers. \u00a0Rush joins in saying, \u201cWe are thinking of the very talented and passionate staff that lived to bring the music of so many artists to their fans.\u201d \u00a0Ward\u2019s JustGiving fund reaches ?66,000 and news about it reaches the pages of the London <\/span>Evening Standard.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0Wednesday, December 28. <\/b>\u00a0This was the last day for bids from anyone wishing to acquire the TeamRock holdings. \u00a0Everyone is told, \u201cDon\u2019t expect to hear news of any substance until the new year.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0Wednesday, January 4.<\/b> \u00a0Ex-employees are allowed back into their old offices to say their goodbyes and collect their remaining belongings. \u00a0It is described as a \u2018wake\/coffee morning\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0Thursday, January 5.<\/b> \u00a0Orange Goblin and Steak play a fundraising gig at London Camden\u2019s Black Heart adding another ?2,692 \u00a0to the JustGiving collection. Vendors and subscribers are bewildered as the \u2018final\u2019 issues of the three music mags hit the streets.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0Saturday, January 7.<\/b> \u00a0Future plc (the group that originally sold the magazine titles to TeamRock in 2013 for more than ?10 million) steps forward to buy the titles back. \u00a0They release a statement saying, \u201cWe have started picking up the pieces and are hoping to get the show back on the road as soon as possible.\u201d Former TeamRock staffers rub their eyes and pinch themselves to make sure they are not dreaming.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Sunday, January 8.<\/b> \u00a0<\/span>The Guardian<\/span><\/i> reports: \u00a0\u201cFuture Publishing buys the magazines, websites, and events including 30 year-old <\/span>Metal Hammer<\/span><\/i> for ?800,000.\u201d \u00a0Having sold the lot for more than ?10 million four years earlier, it sounds like Future plc has found a present under their Chirstmas tree. \u00a0Christmas Miracle or good business or a little bit of both: the deal ends a hellish month for all the former TeamRock employees who had been dismissed less than a month earlier.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0Monday, January 9.<\/b> \u00a0Quoting directly from <\/span>CRM: \u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u201cWork commences on the new issues of <\/span>Classic Rock, Metal Hammer <\/span><\/i>and <\/span>Prog<\/span><\/i> . . . So, we\u2019re back. \u00a0And at your service. And beyond grateful for everything the rock family have done for us over the past two months. \u00a0Thank you. For those who rock, and who have always rocked, we salute you!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The March 2017 magazine ran a full page \u2018thank you\u2019 naming Ben Ward, Sandie Soriano, Orange Goblin,Steak, \u00a0and all (albeit in very small print) of the thousands of people who responded to the JustGiving page posted by Ward and Soriano. \u00a0The JG page eventually totaled ?88,790 in just a month\u2019s time. When asked why they got involved, Ward said, \u201cThe page was Sandie\u2019s idea. \u00a0We honestly didn\u2019t think many people would notice, so we just kept sharing it on Facebook, and within minutes, it was being shared by all our friends and contacts, too. \u00a0Word of it really did spread like wildfire.\u201d When Queen and Rush weighed in, \u201cThat was just surreal. Being name-checked on the official Rush page was crazy. I got a lot of credit for what happened, but it was a group effort.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Why is this important? \u00a0In this day and age, traditional magazines are falling by the wayside as people increasingly rely on getting their entertainment news on some electronic platform. \u00a0To literally rise from the dead, these three publications have defied the odds with a lot of help from the very electronic medium that put them in peril in the first place. \u00a0I am not advocating any kind of retro-revolution in the print industry, but there are still many people out there who enjoy, if not prefer, gathering information from printed publications. \u00a0Imagine how you would feel if your favorite information source of any kind went dark with little or no warning. Imagine walking into your place of employment one day and being told, \u201cSorry, we are done. \u00a0Go home. Good luck.\u201d For the folks at these three publications, this sad tale had a happy ending.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The other twist here can be summed up in a couple of old adages: \u00a0\u201cDon\u2019t underestimate the power of a small group of determined people\u201d and \u201cYou can\u2019t make a difference if you don\u2019t try.\u201d \u00a0Okay, the second one isn\u2019t so old – it is my take on the first one, but you get the picture. It is high time for me to subscribe to <\/span>CRM<\/span><\/i> because I am happy for them and glad they are still around (or so I wrote when I first outlined the concept of this article early in 2017)! \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Procrastination being what it is, I kept picking up my monthly copy from Bookworld with great plans on getting a subscription to <\/span>CRM.<\/span><\/i> \u00a0Ironically, it was the closure of all the Bookworld outlets at the end of 2017 than kind of forced my hand and yes, I am still happy the magazine is still around, tempered by the sadness of watching yet another brick and mortar bookstore being shuttered. \u00a0On the positive side, Orange Goblin\u2019s part in the story spurred me on to find out about a band (or should I say \u2018yet another band\u2019) that I never knew existed. <\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It is nice to know that people are still willing to roll up their sleeves and make a difference instead of doing nothing. \u00a0We are going to need a lot of this kind of esprit de corps over the next few years. Let me add a couple of personal notes on the state of print media. \u00a0Before moving to Ontonagon in August of 1975, I began receiving my weekly copy of <\/span>The Ontonagon Herald<\/span><\/i> which greatly simplified my search for an apartment. \u00a0This means I have been a continuous subscriber for nearly 45 years. \u00a0When I find myself discussing local events, I am always amazed when people ask, \u201cWhere did you hear about that?\u201d and when I tell them, <\/span>The Herald<\/span><\/i>, <\/i><\/b>many will respond, \u201cOh, I don\u2019t get that paper.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0People, people, people . . . the local newspaper is your first and most vital link to your community and by local paper standards, it is a good deal! \u00a0I also subscribe to the <\/span>Ironwood Globe<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>The Milwaukee Journal<\/span><\/i> even though both of them arrive a day or two, respectively, later than the news. \u00a0Why? Because I like to be informed about what is going on in the world as well as the local area. \u00a0\u00a0(Writer\u2019s note: Once upon a time we also subscribed to the <\/span>Houghton Daily Mining Gazette<\/span><\/i> but switched to the Ironwood paper when the Gazette began treating Ontonagon County news as an afterthought).<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cBut what about Facebook or (insert the digital media platform of your choice)?\u201d \u00a0Sorry, I do use email a lot but my personal preference is to use the time that it takes to cruise or post on Facebook (and if you deny that Facebook has the ability to suck a lot of your free time into the abyss, then you and I will not be in agreement here) to do something more useful . . . like read the local paper! \u00a0The <\/span>CRM<\/span><\/i> story gives me hope that good old fashioned print media won\u2019t become a thing of the past. \u00a0Remember when they sang the sad song about the demise of vinyl records? Support your local papers before it is too late!<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 “I read the news today, Oh boy . . .”<\/em>