Whatever happened to SECONDS magazine?

i loved that magazine.

Hmmm. Vaguely remember it. I think I bought one issue, but I've no idea who was in it (probably Genesis P-Orridge or something).

I loved it as well. That was Steven Blush's baby. He got a lot of flack for "American Hardcore" but I felt a lot of it was silly. He's a really nice guy and I like his stuff.

As for Seconds, I found this quote in a 2003 interview with Steve:

J: With Seconds magazine, you covered both hip-hop and metal early on. Do you feel that maybe you were part of something that was interesting and not proud of what it turned out to be?

Steven: Yeah, the very first issue of Seconds Magazine was the Beastie Boys first ever cover right as “Licensed to Ill” came out and it had Metallica, the Butthole Surfers, and DC Go-Go Funk. I remember so many bands; I was there at the roots of this kind of movement. I’m now very confused by it. On one hand it’s this kind of a Frankenstein monster that got out of control. On the other hand I was backstage at OZZFEST and there’s about 50,000 people there. Everybody’s there to see these bands and I’m backstage and all the bands want to hang out with me because I’m the guy from Seconds and I’m the guy they were reading when they were coming up. That was very deep to me. When I went on the American Hardcore lots of people came up to me saying when I was 17 I read that article and I still have it at my mom’s place and I used to show them to my friends. That’s what hardcore was and that’s what I tried to do in publishing.

Ultimately I just lost interest. I just felt the underground that we propelled was no longer there. I know when we were about to do our 4th Marilyn Manson related cover it was time to get out. That was a band we helped break. They were nasty, foul and on the edge – come out of Punk, Satanism, Metal and all those good old American things.

Source: C-Rap.com

I'll email this thread to Steve; maybe he will want to chime in.

Thanks for the good words on Seconds - heads up to Bryan O'Neill for the email...
After the 80s Hardcore Punk scene, that DIY thing got me to start my own magazine.
I worked my ass for 15 years, publishing 52 issues from 1986-2000, and we did help break a lot of the bands that are considered important now, but ultimately, I just grew tired of laying out issues on my kitchen table and praying that that my checks didn't bounce.But last year, Creation Books put out ".45 Dangerous Minds: The Most Intense Interviews From Seconds Magazine" (available thru Amazon, etc)', and all other info on all 300+ interviews, back issues, etc, are available on www.secondsmagazine.com.
My 2001 book "American Hardcore" tells the story of that early 80s scene I came out of. My friend Paul Rachman - director of noted rock videos like Bad Brains "I Against I," Alice In Chains "Man In The Box, Temple of The Dog "Hunger Stike" - and I played our American Hardcore doc film this past January at the Sundance Film Festival, and that film will see a theatrical release this Fall on Sony Picture Classics.
I have two books coming out soon, most notably "American Hair Metal," a visual tribute to those other glory daze - out in time for X-Mas on Feral House.
So, that's what happened to me. Very little freelance writing, though I do serve as contributing music editor at Paper, and wrote a piece about the film for the April/May issue of Moving Pictures. Anything else, feel free to reach me directly.

sb

I loved Seconds, also. There's one issue with, I think , Stockhausen AND Lee Perry interviews that I recall buying and going "Wow. What a magazine." The Perry interview was especially cool.

That's cool that you can still buy the old back issues. Looking through I see that the oldest cover I remember seeing/buying was this one:

http://www.secondsmagazine.com/images/covers/c10.jpg

Seconds predated the whole Lollapalooza concept by a good half a dozen years or so. I happen to feel that there are a lot of people like me - heshers who loved hip-hop and alt-rock - who were around during that time and Seconds spoke to us all.