Scene Magazine celebrates 20 years on the streets in 2013. Each week this year, in this column, we're looking back at what we, and you, were doing.By late '94 we'd confirmed our electronica bent; and both reader and advertiser demands were growing.
Needing to catch the wave, we reluctantly said goodbye to the seductive gloss that had made dance and fashion artwork pop, and said hello to the disposable grime of newsprint!
Our first foray wasn't tabloid though — we elected for a square tabloid affair — and it was awful! The rationale was both economics and a desire to hold on to our smaller and more portable origins.
It lasted 15 tortured editions before we went the whole hog — and on the 4th January, 1995, The Scene hit the streets as fully-fledged, tabloid, newsprint, street press.
Advertisers included alternative dance club, Bleach, pioneered by Mark Gregory, who today runs Happy High Herbs (Fortitude Valley and Southport); and Outer Limits Productions whose edgy offerings will be covered in more depth in coming Capsules. For now, check black and white artwork for Strawberry Fields 2 and Oxygen at Grand Orbit!
Roger Wheelahan had joined us as our first real ad exec (see previous Capsule!) in our newly-occupied offices at 17A Skyring Terrace, Newstead, shared with Darren Clarke's Shawthing Entertainment and Suzanne Snape's The PR Company.
Most of the artists in 1995's Big Day Out Boiler Room spread # (#63) had already graced our front covers, including Southend, who months earlier had released a Top 10 ARIA hit with 'The Winner Is … (Sydney)'. See Tube below.