In a city like Los Angeles, where entertainment is the industry, it is easy to get lost in the commercial, swept up by the mainstream, and drowned beneath the superficial.
Some, however, are doing their part to guide confused denizens to a safe haven of purity. Among them is UCLA alumnus Jay Babcock, editor of Arthur Magazine, the self-proclaimed review of life, arts and thought.
“What we want to do is boost what we think is worthy of the public’s attention, rather than what is being fed to them by the commercial machine,” Babcock said. “We want to use whatever weight we have to try and push away from the mainstream, the dying culture.”
Babcock is the only full-time staff member of the magazine, which features guest writers profiling different underground artists as well as more well-known celebrities.
Their first issue, from 2002, featured an excerpt from BMX rider Mat Hoffman’s autobiography, followed by an interview with the “crotchtastic” Peaches, sprinkled with glossy photography.
“We are interested in the counterculture. What happens now is of interest, as well as what happened before,” Babcock said. “That’s why we like to feature young artists like Devendra Banhart as well as older ones, whether it’s Yoko Ono or Iggy Pop.”
It all started six years ago with an awakening, after which, it was only a matter of time until the magazine had spread its love throughout an underground world.
Babcock got a few loans, pulled together some close friends who were willing to work for little pay, and got started on his work of passion.
“It just sort of dawned on me and my writer/musician friends that the whole pop culture magazine field was shrinking and becoming more homogenized,” Babcock explained. “And so it became the place for us to do what we thought was our duty as journalists and observers.”
Finding music-and-culture journalism to be more focused on sarcasm and irony than creating real alternatives, Babcock decided to use Arthur to provide a connection between subcultures of today and yesterday.
“The punks, the hippies, every underground group forms a single coherent counterculture across the decades. Anti-corporate, anti-militarist, leave the world a better way than it was, ever expanding personal freedom,” Babcock said. “Standard values that aren’t represented in the mainstream.”
Of course, the classic example of this anti-establishment culture began in the ’60s, and it’s quite possible that if it weren’t for psychedelics, much would not have happened. The magazine embraces this.
“A lot of the most engaging and expansive culture came out of periods when there were a lot of psychedelics flying around, and if you had a public that was engaged in that stuff as well, it seemed like things could move forward a little and away from the dead end the mainstream was heading toward,” Babcock said. “We acknowledge that in the music, but we’ve also had Dolly Parton on the cover. If you look close enough, anything can be psychedelic.”
In an attempt to move beyond commentary and present cultural alternatives, the magazine has been curating a series of concerts at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica. Through the series, which continues this Sunday, Babcock aims to feature lesser-known groups in an environment where the focus is on the music.
“The music isn’t a background at McCabe’s,” Babcock said.
Among this Sunday’s performers is Wooden Shjips, a psychedelic rock group that appreciates Arthur Magazine for its stance on music in culture today.
“It’s one of the best publications around, and we’re honored to play one of their shows. I think, given the corporate state of media today, their independence and efforts to promote alternative culture and ideas is extremely important,” band member Ripley Johnson said.
This series is one of many the magazine has put on. Recently, it hosted a gathering by the L.A. River featuring multiple bands, as well as different poetry readings and film series, all with a familiar feel.
“These are not giant corporate events,” Babcock said. “It’s not snobbish, it’s not elitist, it’s not expensive, we’re just trying to do events all the time, always at a real local level.”
According to Babcock though, no matter how overwhelming commerce may become, salvation in the form of individuality will be a $5 issue charge away.
“We are just a little magazine,” Babcock said. “But you do what you can.”