[troutman]

Too bad - an important voice in the local Arts scene. I suppose we can still get our club news from BeatRoute and Exclaim!

http://www.calgarycassettes.org/2011...ssues-1-6.html

Some of our younger readers may not remember VOX - it was the monthly (mostly) publication that came out of CJSW, acting as a program guide and also a barometer of the scene. Plus, even from Issue #1, it had some of the best writing to ever come out of this city.

The magazine kicked off in September of 1983, and ran for about 15 years. In 1998, in one of the most disastrous management/governance moves that CJSW has ever made, the paper was sold to the Vancouver-based Georgia Straight and relaunched as the ill-fated weekly Calgary Straight. This move proved only one thing: don't mess with Ian Chiclo. The Straight could never compete with FFWD and folded... we can't even remember when.

We like to sometimes think that Beatroute carries the spirit of VOX, but then we actually read Beatroute and realize - nope. That spirit is still out there, but rather than being concentrated in one place as it was with VOX, it's diffused through all our city's publications.

http://www.ucalgary.ca/alumni/stories/ichiclo

There had been two failed attempts at weeklies in Calgary, so people told Chiclo and his team that it couldn’t be done. “A year in, a business owner said why should he advertise with us when we’ll be gone within a few more months. His business is actually the one now closed,” says Chiclo. He adds that what set FFWD apart was a long-term vision. “It’s been a long, slow process. We planned that it would take five years to establish ourselves, and 10 years to really get going.”