:: About

You’ve got imaginary questions, we’ve got sarcastic and somewhat informative answers.

Q: What’s up with the name? Isn’t it an album or something?

Coke Machine Glow is the name of a Gordon Downie album, yes, and it’s also the name of his first (and, so far, only) book of poetry.

I bought the domain—at the time because it was the only choice in a list of ten not already taken—in 2002 for use as a split personal site (er, blog, I guess) with Bryan Bodell before it eventually became this. The name just never changed; though we did attempt to think of something a little less plagiaristic at a few points, nothing stuck. So, for better or worse, here we are.

Q: But…won’t you get sued?

Coke might eventually say something. Or Downie will get pissed off that the name of the first album/book under his own name has been co-opted for a music e-zine. Who’ll sue us first? All part of the fun.

Q: So is the site’s name all one word or what?

One word, yeah: Cokemachineglow. You can capitalize the “g” in glow if you want. Go nuts.

Q: There’s enough shitty music review sites already, why should I bother with yours?

We get this one a lot. We like to think our staff collectively offers a unique twist on indie music criticism, with a somewhat democratic approach (hence the combined ratings, joint reviews, counterpoints) that makes our site more community driven. We’d like to think it results in a easy-going, friendly-in-a-complete-stranger-kind-of-way atmosphere—something that makes our site stand out amongst the hundreds of other "wannabe Pitchforks" and MP3 blogs, and something that makes us worth coming back to.

Q: Why are your reviews so long?

Some of them are, yeah. Newell’s written his share of novellas.

Here’s our stance on verbosity: we could probably write less and start covering albums that no one—including ourselves—cares that much about, or we can write a bit longer on records that strike us because that’s why we’re writing about music in the first place. Yes, this is a review site, we realize our "job" is to recommend good music and warn you about garbage. And if you don’t feel like reading 1000 words on a record, we’ve got a bunch of lists and album ratings that accommodate you, as well. But we’re not aspiring list-makers, as such…

Besides, if your issue with our reviews is less the length than the quality of its many, many paragraphs, drop us a line. Or if you’re just too intimidated by the length to get that far, click on the writer’s name at the end of the review and ask them for the shorthand version.

Q: I can definitely write better than this, hire me.

That’s not really a question, but click on the contact button in the navbar and then click on "Write for CMG." Read over that link and then click on the e-mail provided to send us your application. If you don’t read the guidelines and it’s clear from the application, you won’t be taken into consideration. So read the guidelines.

Q: Can we send you our record if we’re not on a label?

Absolutely. And we will listen, but as we point out in our sending promos page (where you can also find information on how to get that record to us), that doesn’t mean we’re necessarily going to review the record.

Q: Where’s CMG based?

Technically Halifax, but our writers span from Vancouver to Los Angeles to the UK to Australia to Zach Braff’s face and beyond. CMG is international.

Tech Stuff:

Cokemachineglow.com is powered by Textpattern. Special thanks to Mark Hurty (webmaster of pals Daytrotter) and Peter Anderson for panic relief and technical support.