Click here to download a PDF of the issue.

This is my tenth issue as editor, so you’ll forgive me if I take a moment to celebrate the milestone…there, all set.

Anyway, this month we’ve got some really great stuff in store – a gear guide on headphones, a vocal warm-up guide for rock singers, new gear announcements and reviews from NAMM, and of course a bevy of record reviews and live show coverage.

The centerpiece of the issue, if you couldn’t tell from the cover, is DOM. The man, the band, the legend. Being a national magazine with headquarters in Boston, it’s always a treat for us to feature a New England band on the cover (DOM and Dom are both from Worcester, MA). The guys first came on my radar a few months back, and with their recent win for Song of the Year at the Boston Music Awards, they’ve solidified their status as a synth-rocking force to be reckoned with.

It didn’t hurt that we also had that ridiculously awesome photograph of Dom (the man) rocking out on his pink paisley Fender in the forest. What also didn’t hurt was that while the band was gracious enough to honor our interview and photo shoot requests, there is still an air of mystery surrounding this, shall we say, unique collective of musicians. I miss that about my rock stars. With a 24-hour news and tabloid culture being shoved down our throats, our rock stars are no longer larger-than-life icons. They’ve been humanized, and that kinda bums me out. Twitter tells me every time someone sneezes, ripping away that wondrous shroud of mystique that used to cloak our rock stars. DOM refused to give us last names for their members, and that made me smile. Call it what you want – mystique, or a band afraid of the IRS learning their real identities – but it’s refreshing.

In other news, by the time this issue hits the streets, my hope is that Trent Reznor will be holding an Oscar for his work on The Social Network. If you’re at all interested in his inspiring creative process, pick up the Blu-ray or DVD and head over to the bonus features. It’s pretty genius stuff.

-Benjamin Ricci
Editor

P.S. – There were no major errors reported back to me from the February issue. Either I’m getting better at catching mistakes, or it takes you all so long to tally up the typos each month that you’ve given up. Here’s hoping it’s the former…