Craig Kapilow is a busy man. By day, he's a senior account executive and associate music editor at Boston's Weekly Dig. By night, he spins at highly marketable DJ nights, thus building relationships with venues around town -- many of which are clients of the paper. One of the longest running events, taking place each Saturday night, was profiled in the Aug. 19 edition of the Boston Globe (see below). Here Kapilow answers a few questions about his multiple roles at the alt-weekly and his side-career behind the turntables.

Continue ReadingDig’s Associate Music Editor Plays Extra Roles Promoting Paper

Owner, publisher and editor of the Sun since 1966, Steve McNamara addresses his sale of the paper to Embarcadero Publishing in this message to his readers. He writes, "Being editor and publisher of the Sun has been a dream job, way better than working the oars at the dailies in North Carolina, Miami and San Francisco where I started out." And he's leaving his legacy in good hands. About the paper's new owners, McNamara says, "In the newspaper business there are some real egomaniacs and general nut cases, but these guys are at the other end of the scale."

Continue ReadingMcNamara Says Farewell to Pacific Sun Readers

Two AAN newspapers serving different parts of the San Francisco Bay Area became part of the same organization today as the owner of the Palo Alto Weekly, Bill Johnson, purchased the Pacific Sun of Marin County. The sale coincides with the 70th birthday of Sun owner, publisher and editor Steve McNamara, who purchased the paper in 1966 and grew it into an award-winning newsweekly. McNamara said, "Once the decision [to sell the Sun] was made, it seemed natural to pass the responsibility to my old friend Bill Johnson and his associates at the Palo Alto Weekly." Said Johnson, "Steve and I have known each other and shared our challenges and ideas with each other for the last 25 years, and this seems like a natural outcome of that relationship."

Continue ReadingPacific Sun Sold to Owner of Palo Alto Weekly

They need to make a living but can't afford to let the conformity demanded by some day jobs sap their creative spirit. Independent Weekly's Leslie Land, Tucson Weekly's Marc Desilets and others explain the migration of musicians to the classified sales departments of alternative newsweeklies. What's the appeal? Good pay, good vibes -- altogether a decent daylight gig for a breed that Cincinnati CityBeat's Chuck Davis has dubbed "rawker-ad-hawkers."

Continue ReadingReal Musicians Have Day Jobs

The alt-weekly rolled out an alternative to the Democratic National Convention Wednesday night with a progressive multimedia art and political event called The Sideshow. The paper's convention coverage includes tongue-in-cheek interviews with stars of The Daily Show, which is taping all week in Boston. Dig editor Joe Keohane is quoted in TIME Magazine saying he doesn't think John Kerry ever mastered the political dialect of Boston, a city that likes talkers.

Continue ReadingBoston’s Weekly Dig Offers Convention Alternatives

The last issue of The Local Planet, an AAN-member paper in Spokane, Wash., was distributed July 8. A year ago, publisher Matt Spaur's wife, founding editor Connye Miller, died, and Spaur said he no longer had the interest or energy to keep publishing. During the "feisty" paper's four-year run, it "poked at Spokane's conservative establishment and took readers on irreverent romps through the region's political, music and dating scenes," The Spokesman-Review's John Stucke writes. Spokane is home to another AAN member, The Pacific Northwest Inlander.

Continue ReadingOne of Spokane’s Alt-Weeklies Stops Publishing