Music

Calgary alt-weekly Fast Forward Weekly shuts down

by Mark Teo

Today, Calgary alt-weekly Fast Forward Weekly announced that they’re shutting down.

Canada, by our count, only has three remaining independent alt-weeklies—Toronto’s NOW, Halifax’s The Coast, and Vancouver’s The Georgia Straight. It’s a number that’s depressingly low, especially for music fans: The role of the alt-weekly was to promote local stories, and local stories that mainstream media didn’t. And when it came to music—Canadian music—local alt-weeklies were the conduit to local scenes: They helped introduce us to new bands. To soon-to-be-important bands. And in a country as vast as Canada, they helped us discover bands that, otherwise, we might not have ever heard.

So, yes: We care about the alt-weekly. Calgary lost an important media player today, and Canada did, too.

Fast Forward Weekly editor Drew Anderson announced their closure today on the alt-weekly’s website. The 19-year-old publication will run its final issue in two weeks.

I still think there is a great need for alternative media, particularly in a city like Calgary, where oil and gas rules and conservatives keep winning bloody elections. Fast Forward Weekly has always been a voice in Calgary’s media wilderness and while being part of it was sometimes disheartening, it always felt important to be a source of dissent. I hope you agree that Calgary is worse off for our closure, no matter if you agree with us or not. Nobody covers Calgary’s arts scene the way we do, whether it be our listings or the constant stories on theatre, exhibitions, music and more. At the very least, Calgary’s inner-city streets will be a bit more drab without our colourful covers.

Our readership never dipped, proving that Calgarians are hungry for the kind of journalism and cultural coverage that Fast Forward provides, but the ad dollars just weren’t there to support it. We have won more awards and honours that we can count thanks to our talented writers, editors, illustrators and photographers, many of whom worked hard to make this publication what it is for very little compensation. We also acted as a springboard for many young talents.

That last comment hits me especially hard, because full disclosure: I served as Fast Forward‘s music and film editor between 2010 and 2011, and the paper shaped me, and my approach to media, immensely. (And its fearless approach to journalism has led me and its current editor, Josiah Hughes, to certain controversies, but that’s a story for another day.)

But Anderson’s statement is correct: Fast Forward nurtured Albertan writing talent, and if you look at any publication—or our publication—its reach is readily apparent. Josiah Hughes, its current editor, is one of my favourite people in the world, but he’s also one of my favourite writers in the world: For AUX, he’s launched hoax clothing lines, collected a hilarious list of faux-protest scenes in videos, and curated lists of emerging Canadian electronic talent. Jesse Locke, another long-time Fast Forward alumnus, has also contributed to AUX, and he’s been a wonderful portal into Toronto’s local scene. Heck, we even tried to get Sloth Records’ mainstay Devin Friesen to write for us, because we’ve long been admirers of his criticism at Fast Forward. And that’s only a small sampling.

But don’t mistake this as an exercise in navel-gazing. AUX has been impacted by Fast Forward, and we’re sure that many Canadian publications could say the same thing.

It’s hard to stomach that Fast Forward‘s readership never faltered, but their revenues did. That’s a common, but very serious, problem in media—and not only alternative media. Still, we need the type of alternative-media coverage that publications like Fast Forward provided, and we will miss it dearly.