ICE (#205 – April 2004)

Queen of the Damned may be a damned wretched movie, but there's a scene in it that sticks in my head: Lestat, centuries-old vampire now leading a Marilyn Manson-esque goth-rock band, stages an enormous, Coachella-like performance in front of thousands of adoring fans, and as he looks out into the cascading waves of people, he sees that some move in fast-motion while others stand silently, slowly, gaping at him with a mixture of contempt and awe—these are the other vampires and ghosts who have identified his presence and who want him to know they are here too.

Similarly, and much more pathetically, I can walk into a CD shop and identify immediately whether a CD Nerd is there, or has been recently. Old CD issues suddenly cropping up in the "Used New Arrivals" bin two days before a newly-remastered edition comes out? That's the unmistakable footprint of a CD Nerd. Gold UltraDisc suddenly available, mere hours before an upgraded SACD version of, like Blood on the Tracks arrives at Tower? CD Nerd Was Here.

Otherwise undetectable by the public, we CD Nerds are everywhere – we are your coworker, your husband, your neighbor, or (more egregiously) the paunchy pedant lingering outside Tower or Best Buy on Tuesday mornings, chomping at the bit to get our hands on the latest and greatest version of a given album.

It is a sickness.

It is a madness.

It is one of life's greatest joys.

To what do I owe my own New Release Tuesday illness? No one else but ICE Magazine.

ICE is by no means the coolest, but it is the most crucial music magazine on the market. MOJO is the Bible, yes. Even Spin can get us in heat. But it is only ICE that unjudgmentally gives us the information we need to make it through each long, lingering week. Only ICE tells us what to really look forward to, independent of the media trends that might have you otherwise believing in bands-of-the-moment whose CDs you will be selling back all too soon. Only ICE leaves it up to you what music it is that you're interested in this month, and only ICE has the balance to inform you of what's being released that is closest to your heart, in addition to whatever it is that tickles your iPod fancy du jour.

What is ICE? (It's SUPER nerdy.) Well … it's upcoming CD release dates and information!

Okay, okay, don't swear off being my friend just yet. I'm inarguably a slave to CDs, ever since the fateful day in 1987 when my audiophile-gearhead coworker at my first high school job implored me to invest in a CD player. I haven't turned back since, not for even a second. I was notorious back then for having the most compulsively robust CD collection among my peers, and even now, nearly 20 years later, I meet few who live up to my standard (and the few that do generally have bad B.O.).

ICE covers all the bases, and with absolutely none of the needy posturing you'll find in Rolling Stone, Spin, or Pitchfork. Their writers simply report what's coming out: mainstream, indie, jazz, country, even bootleg (in my favorite section, "Going Underground"), no attitude, no frills. You decide what you're interested in. As in my youth I frequently fantasized about what the MAD Magazine offices must be like (Sergio Aragones doodling on the wall, Al Jaffée sharing unprintable obscene fold-ins with his cohorts), I now imagine the ICE offices, plucking open package after package of promo CDs, from Sony right on down to Crystal Cat, relishing the rare opportunity to know what's coming out in advance.

I should work for ICE, but I'd be terrible about maintaining any sense of objectivity. What I love about this magazine is its ability to present everything on the near horizon for CD releases and online exclusives, without missing anything major, and without imposing any sense of priority. With any invidvidual issue of ICE, it is up to me whether next month's "most important" release is from Bob Dylan, John Sebastian, Franz Ferdinand, or some bootleg Clash. And I appreciate being deferred to, because I've earned it, and it's a luxury Spin will never afford me.

As for any given issue of ICE … well, they're perishable, like any given newspaper or monthly periodical. But for CD Nerds, this magazine is the crucial publication. I couldn't live without it any more than Al Franken could live without New Republic or Helen Keller could live without Braille. Most people pick up my copy of ICE and put it down almost instantly, deterred by the perceived boring-ness of it. But then, most people are those figures in fast-motion in Queen of the Damned: they don't count, for they are the ones who got into Nick Drake only when Volkwagen used him in a TV commercial, or who primarily shop (*shiver*) used.

Simply said, you can not be ahead of the curve without ICE. I sometimes wish I could dispense with it, and just join the masses who merely buy whatever strikes their fancy whenever they happen into a CD shop, but then, at any rate, all my New Release Tuesday mornings, as sacred as Christmas, would be dashed to bits.

Review by Wipempy Tearle