Rock of pages

Dear readers, you may not realise it, but you’re holding in your hands a miracle in A3. [Though not on hotpress.com you aren't! - web ed]
Publishing a music magazine, you see, is a hazardous business.
In commercial terms, the particular demographic waters through which this august journal navigates are a hostile and treacherous place – infested with shadowy pirates and unblinking sharks, and where the husks of countless fellow-travellers can be seen strewn like fish bones down along the sea-floor.
You’re a tough lot to please, you see. What with all that thinking for yourselves, and refusing to conform to handy psychometric categories; and all that changing your minds about stuff, and developing tastes without our say so. I mean – Jack Johnson! Give us a break.
If I were the Captain of this particular ship (and, once their laughter subsides, see how quickly the HP staff don their life jackets at that prospect) each successful fortnightly docking would see me on my hands and knees planting smackers on the deck.
Luckily we have much safer and hugely experienced hands plotting our course.
Which is reassuring because once you start to drift, you’re scuppered.
When he first launched Alternative Ulster (Belfast’s first stab at an indie mag since Blank), publisher Jonny Tiernan admits to having been an out-right land-lubber. Three subsequent years of storm coursing, uncertain currents and even mutiny, and the one-time psychology student claims to have well and truly earned his sea-legs.
“I got a loan from my mum and dad to cover the first few issues and the launch gig,” he smiles. “We had a sense of mission about what we were doing. We still have that but whereas in the past we’d have done things just for the craic, now you have to be ruthless. We simply have to generate capital in order to keep going. You can’t relax.”
Growing out of a website and radio show, early editions of Alternative Ulster were notable as much for the up-and-at-em enthusiasm of the contributors, as their determination to treat local acts with the kind of reverence (and even a little bit extra) normally reserved for Odyssey-filling galacticos.
“We were lucky in that we started at a time when there were an awful lot of bands emerging that we could champion and get behind,” says Jonny. “ There were also lots of writers and designers with bags of talent but who didn’t really have an outlet. We relied an awful lot on people’s passion and goodwill – we still do. But it snowballed very quickly.”
Anyone who has ever been involved in a similar venture will realise that passion and goodwill, while crucial, don’t pay the printers. Jonny is quick to acknowledge how significant the arrival of Arts Council funding, a year into the magazine’s life, was in allowing Alternative Ulster to develop and thrive.
“It’s been hugely important,” he admits. “When we started we simply couldn’t plan ahead – just put it out and hoped for the best. Now with the funding through we can look at things a bit more strategically and concentrate on taking the magazine to the next level.”
The problems that have beset free-sheet The Vacuum (court cases, withdrawal of dough, accusations of, um, Satanism) illustrate the uneasy relationship that can exist between a high-spirited publication and a buttoned-up funding body. According to Jonny, however, Alternative Ulster’s editorial has remained unaffected by the Arts Council’s cash.
“It’s not changed anything. The magazine has done essentially the same thing since day one. When we put the Suicide Girls on the front cover, it may have been a problem, but it suited our readership. We’ve never had to worry about it. I think we’re lucky because it’s the Arts Council rather than the City Council who are funding us and they’ve been really positive and supportive.”
That any magazine survives to its third birthday is a cause for celebration. In the case of Alternative Ulster, it’s also encouraged a broadening of ambition. And Jonny’s convinced he now needs a bigger boat.
“We’ve readers in London, Glasgow, the South, even some in the States,” he enthuses. ”So we’re re-branding and changing the name from Alternative Ulster to just AU. Most buy it because we’ve Snow Patrol or U2 on the cover and they don’t see us as a parochial magazine. I think it’s one of our great strengths that we’ve interviews with the likes of Franz Ferdinand running beside features on Fighting With Wire or Duke Special.”