the canterbury scene and beyond
facelift magazine
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Facelift magazine was a small independent UK music fanzine which ran between 1989 and 1999. It aimed to cover 'The Canterbury Scene and beyond...'
Facelift began life as a tatty photocopied 24-page fanzine relying on reprints of old gig ads and the odd original article, with a print run of 100. At its peak it averaged about 80 pages, and a print run of 1000 copies distributed by mail order into around 35 countries worldwide, as well as through specialist distributors such as Wayside (US) and Impetus (UK). With a glossy front cover and professional DTP layout throughout, its strength became the original interviews with all key artists of the genre.
The magazine set out its stall to cover the music and influence of bands such as Soft Machine, Caravan, Hatfield and the North, National Health, Gong and solo artists such as Robert Wyatt, Steve Hillage, Kevin Ayers. Moving a little further afield it would include related musicians such as Allan Holdsworth, Bill Bruford and musicians from Henry Cow. It was never a head-in-the-sand retrogressive magazine, most of the musicians mentioned above are currently producing music, and Facelift always rated promoting the current activities of 'Canterbury' musicians just as highly as dwelling on the past.
Exactly what the Canterbury Scene constitutes, is an argument for another website. The "beyond" byline meant that the scope of the fanzine was in fact much wider than the editor, its contributors or its readers first envisaged.
why has this website appeared in 2006?
Well, mainly it's as a courtesy to past subscribers, many of whom paid up and beyond the nineteen issues which appeared mainly in the 1990s. I do still have a database of past subscribers and can refund any oustanding subscriptions in back issues if nothing else. See the Subscribers section.
Secondly, I have an attic full of boxes of back issues which I'd like to clear. Since Canterbury music fans are generally fanatics, there's a good chance there are readers out there, new and old, who might want to fill their bookshelves up and empty mine a little. Please see the Back Issues section for details of what's in each issue and Buy sections to find out how to purchase.
Thirdly, I still have a wealth of material which was meant to be published in a final Facelift issue which never appeared. Most of it is self-referential (if not reverential) stuff which was intended to celebrate 10 years and 20 issues of the magazine, which in the end reached neither milestone. See Issue 20.
I should say that I don't intend this to be a 'live' site - I might find one or two other old things to put on it from my own archives, but for recent news I thoroughly recommend websites such as GAS or Calyx. If you find this website rather 'text' based, than that's very much in the spirit of the fanzine - Facelift was always more based on hard information than decent design! But I do expect to add a few links and images in the immediate future.
I've also left the extracts from old issues 'warts and all' - much of the information within it is no longer up to date, although I believe it was largely accurate at the time. Unless I've unwittingly published something offensive (!), that's how it's likely to stay.
This website should really be dedicated to the musicians, in particular those interviewees such as Lady June and Pierre Moerlen who have since passed away. But I'd also like to dedicate it to Facelift's mass of unpaid contributors, many of whose work is reproduced here. If this is you, get in touch!
Phil Howitt, January 2006
