FATEA Magazine's Roots ~ by Neil King, Editor in Chief

     

Thirty years after starting a project seems like a reasonable time to reflect. It was a simpler world when I started Fatea, it was born in the second fanzine boom of the later eighties. The first issue, printed on A5, proudly proclaimed itself as “All New Music, Mystic, Politic Fanzine” with article ratios roughly in that order and a bit of poetry and a quiz thrown in for good measure.
     The magazine was named after the mythical figure, Morgan Le Fey, or Morgana Fatea in the romanticised Italian version of the Arthurian legends, in which she was also a lute and/or harp player, take your pick, and therefore met all three aspects of the magazine. She was also my favourite figure that may or may not have really existed in history. Anyway, Fatea was serendipitously named after her.
     Music was my main area of focus. In those days of the post punk indie era, we tended to concentrate on the indie labels and the rump end of majors, and quickly established ourselves as a magazine that focused on what was new and coming through, without the build-them-up-to-knock-them-down attitude that was quite prevalent. We became a magazine that both readers and bands trusted and that got us in on the ground floor with bands like The Cranberries, All About Eve, and Ruby Blue, as well as more international acts including 10 000 Maniacs and Cowboy Junkies. You’ll notice from that list that we’ve always been merit hence the comparatively large number of female lead acts that we’ve supported over the years.
     I mentioned it was simpler back them. Fatea was a paper

magazine, initially A5, but migrating to A4 quite quickly. Record companies used to mail out vinyl records, with press sheets and Walker prints (like a photograph, but one that had been pre-screened so it could just be dropped into an article.) You played and reviewed them, indie bands did the same thing. Occasionally you would get a cassette and then gradually the vinyl started migrating to CD and this thing called the internet came along and it all started changing.
     Just before the internet came, the start of multi-media, almost exclusively on CD-ROM, and Fatea launched Music From A New Dimension, which turned out to be the UK’s only CD-ROM based music magazine in a format that allowed us to actually include the artists music in every issue, accidentally inventing the electronic press kit (EPK) along the way. We had carried artists music in Fatea proper, releasing a number of old style flexidiscs and a couple of cover mounted cassette albums thanks to Cooking Vinyl and Hannibal records.
     1996 was when it all changed. The internet really started arriving and whilst back then it was expensive to be a part of, Fatea had some good supporters and we were on the internet before most of the major magazines. The Fatea domain was registered and by luck it has remained a scarce name, which means that if you use it for a search you're pretty certain to find us.
     Back then bandwidth was really an issue, most people if they had home internet were on dial up so we had to keep images small, with music and video being right out of the question. So we stayed with our core of writing reviews and articles with releasing going on the back burner, it was all pretty basic. Family circumstances also meant that the paper magazine was no longer viable mainly as there wasn’t time to chase the advertising revenue.
     Fortunately, the crossover period was long enough for the online side to establish itself and for a brief while we got better access to bigger artists as the industry really didn’t know where the web was going. They knew enough to know they couldn’t ignore it, but really weren’t sure if they could work with the independents and sort of hedged their bets. This was the mid-nineties and back then the internet was seen in a lot more rose colour.
     Fatea had already begun a musical transition, gradually moving away from the indie/post punk bands, and gravitating towards the more acoustic genres, ironically because we started looking more at the artists that had influenced the likes of Joe Strummer, XTC etc. We had bumped into the likes of the Levellers, Rev Hammer and the Oysterband, discovered Sandy Denny, Fairport and others. But we also discovered the new acoustic artists that were really starting to make their mark at the time: Show Of Hands, Eliza Carthy & Nancy Kerr, as well as a host of singer-songwriters and narrative lead music.
     

The internet became cheaper, with increasing bandwidth Fatea could start playing the music of it’s chosen artists again, even show the videos. Twelve years ago we started the Fatea Showcase Session downloads, which was a way of getting the artists that we liked to a wider audience. The downloads still come out once a quarter and are free to download. As well as going into individual households, a lot of radio stations, particularly internet ones, use them as references as to what’s coming up.
     Seven years ago Fatea was involved in the launch of an internet radio station, still pioneering then. Whilst the station, Acoustic Spectrum, was short lived, a number of the shows that were first broadcast on that platform are still with us, including my own, Along The Tracks.
     I mentioned at the start of this blog that things were simpler back at the start, Fatea was just a fanzine then. Now I’m told we’re a platform. The magazine has even been described as a blog. We review albums by artists that weren’t born when the internet first came about, and I get the feeling it’s a lot tougher for independent music now.
     Somethings have become easier, actually making and recording music is comparatively easier and cheaper than it was and, to an extent, so is the videoing, but there is so much more to do. Now you have to be able to design a website, interact with your fan base across a whole range of social media, work out which of the hundreds of media outlets out you need to interact with, understand which of your virtual fans are also your physical fans prepared to go that extra mile to come to a gig, buy a physical copy of your material, rather than listen to it for peanuts on a rip-off streaming service that pays next to nothing.
     I’d say thirty years has made things both easier and more difficult for musicians. The experiences have changed, but there’s no reason not to enjoy the journey as either a fan of music or a maker of music and hopefully there will still be magazines (platforms) like Fatea with a dedicated band of reviewers who will help with a welcome boost and an occasional workshop to smooth the way.

     Neil King is the editor in chief of Fatea, an online platform that

continues to publish as a magazine, produces the Along The Tracks radio show for Blues & Roots Radio, curates the Fatea Showcase Session downloads, delivers workshops, and gets involved in the odd live event. He resides in the UK. To view the website and download your copy of Fatea Showcase Sessions click HERE

All photos provided by Neil King.