Sound Words Two New Monthly, Home-Published Magazines Focus On The Spokane Area Music Scene

The Spokane music scene has gone largely unnoticed elsewhere.

Or so say the publishers of two new monthly music magazines - Wyre and In Tune. The tabloid-size publications are striving to put Spokane on the musical map by spotlighting the city’s talent.

“The Inland Northwest hasn’t been focused on that much and there is a lot of talent,” says Mike Syllven, 31, who co-publishes Wyre with Tim Gregory. “There are stories to be made here. We’re trying to open people’s minds and have them take a look at what’s going on now.”

Rob O’Hara, publisher/managing editor of In Tune and former Wyre contributor, agrees.

“We’re here to promote the scene,” says O’Hara, 23, who, with his wife Susan, runs In Tune out of their Spokane Valley apartment.

“We’re catering toward the bands that are hungry.”

Syllven and Gregory also manage their magazine from their respective homes - Syllven’s South Hill apartment and Gregory’s parents’ home on the North Side.

Wyre and In Tune circulate across Spokane and into North Idaho. They’re generally found in music stores, bars and vintage clothing shops.

Wyre sprung up in October and has lasted four issues. The magazine’s two-man staff is now putting the finishing touches on the February edition. In Tune arrived at the beginning of the month. Its second issue arrives in February.

Funny enough, neither of the magazines’ publishers have experience producing publications.

Only O’Hara has actual writing experience. The Oklahoma-native, who recently moved here, interned at one newspaper in Oklahoma City and contributed to other publications as well.

But he quit when he realized the money was peanuts. Now he’s a computer specialist for the Federal Aviation Administration at Felts Field.

“When I was in college and interning, I wanted to be writer. I knew that’s what I wanted to do and I found out that I could get paid 50 cents per column inch (roughly 40 words) and I thought there’s got to be a better way.”

It was almost accidental that Wyre wound up on the press.

“When we first started, we kind of did it as a joke,” says Syllven. “We wanted to to have a calendar of our own.”

“We were gonna go out one night,” adds Gregory, 24. “We were like, ‘Well, where are we going?’ ‘I don’t know; there’s nothing to see who plays where.”’

“We started the idea last summer and it was like, ‘Let’s put a boot in the ass of the music community and shed light with what’s going on,”’ Syllven says.

The pages of Wyre and In Tune are what you might expect from a music magazine: all things bands. There are profiles and interviews and photos and record reviews. Wyre even offers a calendar of events for local happenings.

Both also feature items pertinent to musicians. The current issue of In Tune sports a feature on copyright laws. Wyre includes a directory of major-label artist and repertoire reps (the people who sign bands) as well as classified ads for musicians.

“We started it so people could use it as a tool. Musicians can get together. They can build more of a community,” explains Syllven. “If you’ve watched every one of our magazines, (you’ll see) it’s been growing, regardless of what’s going on in Spokane.”

The magazines aren’t Rolling Stone. There’s no color or flashy artwork. Resources such as money and desktop-publishing software aren’t plentiful. And it shows. Experience, or the lack thereof, is another drawback.

The stories and interviews are choppy and copy is often riddled with grammatical errors and misspellings. The layout and design is pedestrian and doesn’t always draw the reader in.

Some stories are plain filler. In Tune ran a brief on Ice Storm ‘96 - two months after the fact.

But it’s a learning process. “We’ve both learned immensely,” Gregory says of his experience with Wyre. “I had hardly any experience with computers before.”

“We realize we’re a fledgling paper,” says Syllven. “But we’re trying to make it into a real thing for us.”

Not surprising, Wyre was, at first, greeted with a lukewarm reception. After all, every publication has a first issue; most don’t last long enough for a second.

“People are starting to get to know who we are now,” Syllven says. “We’re getting calls. For a while, it was real quiet. We expected it to be.”

In Tune, on the other hand, was better received. Earlier this month, O’Hara threw a release party for the maiden issue at Ichabod’s North with local bands Oil Filter and Cotton Mouth.

“I don’t want to be thought of as a spin-off of (Wyre),” says O’Hara, “because from the response that we’ve gotten already, I think this will be around a lot longer.”

Indeed, competition exists between Wyre and In Tune, which can make business difficult for both publications in a small music market.

Both magazines are vying for the same readers and advertisers. As a result, they have virtually given away advertising space and paid production costs out-of-pocket, which is about $400 per issue each.

Now, the two will even duel in cyberspace. In Tune is already on the Web at www.nextdim.com/users/ flack. Wyre is just a couple of weeks away from launching its site.

So can Spokane sustain competing music magazines, when the music scene has been the quietest it’s been in several years?

“I don’t know,” Rob says. “I think there’s at least room for one.”

Only time will tell.

If both magazines fail, they won’t be the first. They’ll join a distinguished list of other music rags that tried and failed in recent years: Discourse, The Scene and This.

“If you look at the quality of most of the other so-called magazines floating around town, you can see it hasn’t been done this well before,” counters O’Hara.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 Color photos

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: ON THE FRINGE Though Wyre and In Tune are the most visible of the local music publications, others lurk in the shadows - where their publishers intend them to stay. One is a local fanzine called Cryptic Slaughter, which has survived for six issues. The main staple on the pages of this thick cut-and-paste, photocopied zine are punk rock, particularly the all-ages scene and politics. In the latest issue, you get to read about the journey of its publisher Matthew Caputo and his friend to the punk-rock mecca - Berkeley, Calif. Cryptic Slaughter, which appears sporadically, is also Caputo’s venue to spew venom at his nemesis or people who don’t share similar views, whom he commonly dubs fascists. Joe Ehrbar