POZ is Dead, Long Live POZ

- Music

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admin
9 years ago

PropertyOfZack began as a “blog with daily coverage and commentary of the underground music scene.” It was founded in late 2009 by Zack Zarrillo and Emily Coch and in the past several years has grown to be a staple in the diet of many music fans. The site’s “Tours You Should Know About” and “Albums Out This Week” posts kept readers apprised on what was on the horizon and it’s podcasts “Off The Record” and “Simpler Sound” spurred discussion within the community. POZ was a place to turn to for not only news, but dialogue, insight and the occasional blink joke. But all good things must come to an end.

Earlier this week, in a post entitled “RIPOZ”, Zarrillo announced that the website would be ending. Thomas Nassiff of Bad Timing Records/Absolute Punk spoke further on the sudden departure of the beloved website in a post entitled “Blogging’s Dead. We Got Jobs.” Kind of self-explanatory. Long story short is by the end of the week there will be no more POZ.

After that there will be a hole in many a morning route and something missing from most Twitter feeds. There will no longer be a point in the day where you habitually check POZ for updates. Zarrillo’s voice and the voices of the rest of the POZ writer will surely arise elsewhere and continue conversations on other platforms, but until then the music community will be a little quieter.

In the meantime, what do we read? Here are some ideas:

The Runout
The Runout was founded in 2014 by Bryne Yancey, former editor for Punknews.org and Alternative Press. During it’s inaugural year, the site churned out wealth of posts on everything from punk rock to wrestling to comic books. While the latter (known on the site as “On Wednesdays We Wear Ink”) is a bit of an outlier, the content no matter the topic is always smart and accessible. Whether the writers are tackling a topic as simple as touring or as complex as victim blaming, they are consistently delivering posts that will inform, intrigue and/or entertain you as a reader.

Or go back to the very beginning and read through the entire backlog from Runout’s successful first year. Also remember to donate and help fund the writers behind each post via the Runout’s Patreon account.

Windows Down Magazine
Windows Down Magazine was started in 2010 by Kim and Gloria “Jack” Mejía-Cuéllar while the two were still in undergrad. Five short years later, Windows Down is covering acts as big as All Time Low and Andrew McMahon. Via both their seasonal issues and their Tumblr-esque website, the two publish a mix of set lists, interviews, photosets and op-eds. Content is frequent, sometimes even daily and features the likes of Mayday Parade, Vacationer, Real Friends, Frank Iero and Citizen. In the age where pop punk is arguably dead and publications are going under, it’s impressive to see a young magazine plugging along despite the raging current.

AbsolutePunk
AbsolutePunk has been around for ages now and thankfully doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. The site, which began as a humble message board, has since evolved into one of the most comprehensive news feeds in music. Posts are written by members of site’s community, which includes AbsolutePunk’s founder Jason Tate, and cover everything from news to reviews to rumors to really anything even remotely related to music. Contributors pull content from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, magazines, mailing lists and more. No source is too speculative or too obscure. No band too big or too small. Of course, there are always favorites, but AbsolutePunk truly reports on everything, be it Something Corporate or 5SOS. There’s something reassuring about a site that isn’t snobbish about its music tastes and doesn’t apologize for liking “She’s Kinda Hot.”

Chorus.fm
Speaking of Jason Tate, his personal blog is another good source of all things and music. Two years ago, Tate launched the site as a place for him to “play around with new web-design” and “write about topics maybe not so related to music and not feel any pressure to do anything besides just open up and be [himself]” and in sort to “just write.” Tate may be writing for himself, but he’s also still attracting an audience, which is probably due to the fact that he’s been doing this for a while and knows what he’s talking about. While he doesn’t always post on music, Tate does always write intelligently and even re-blogs articles of equal caliber. Not to say that he isn’t above posting about the new season of Orphan Black. He is still human. He’s just a well-spoken human with a better personal blog than most of us.

Hi, My Name Is Mark
HMNIM proves that blogging isn’t dead…if you’re a internationally recognized bassist from a band responsible for an entire genre of music. Run by blink-182’s Mark Hoppus, HMNIM is both a place for Hoppus to promote his brand and a place for him to post blink covers, personal photos, upcoming movie trailers, favorite songs and all manner of other things. Hoppus does take the odd post to address more serious matters, but on a whole HMNIM is proof that no matter how famous you are, you can still be entertained by dumb stuff on the internet. Just like the rest of us.

-Zoe Marquedant