Page Two

Here we are, quite to our astonishment, offering you the first issue of 1999, 12 months away from the year 2000. So long a landmark date in the science fiction I grew up reading, 2000 always seemed like it was so far in the future that it defined the future. When we got there, the world would have changed. Now, in a couple of years, we'll be regularly dating stuff 2001, 2002. My son will think of the 2000s as the norm, barely remembering the late 1900s. It seems so odd.

Equally odd is that this change will mean, contrary to what I always thought, nothing. Y2K fears and millennium predictions aside, when we wake up on January 1, 2000 (or January 1, 2001, depending on your preference as to which begins the new millennium), life will be pretty much as it was the day before. Every morning we are flung headlong into the future. This won't change; there will be no closure, no answers.

Last Monday, December 21, we produced most of the Chronicle you read last week. Tuesday, December 22, we produced much of this issue, though we finished it off Monday, December 28, making sure it was current. We've crammed a lot of work into a relatively few days but the quality of this issues belies the rush.

We rarely reprint material from other publications (though we did last issue as well) but Phoenix New Times staff writer David Holthouse's piece on an Austin resident, Meat Puppet Curt Kirkwood, was so powerful and recommended to us by so many people, we're making an exception. Chronicle music editor Raoul Hernandez supplements the piece with an interview he conducted with Kirkwood recently at the Austin Rehearsal Complex.

Embarking on the new year, we now begin the countdown towards SXSW '99. The official kick-off event of SXSW Music is The Austin Chronicle's Austin Music Awards and you, our readers, decide who is to be honored that night. The Austin music poll ballot begins running in this issue and will run throughout January. The poll is your chance to be heard -- it reflects the taste of those who frequent the clubs and buy the CDs, and not the critics who get to mouth off all the time. Here is an election where your vote can make a difference, plus you can fill out as much or as little of the ballot as you like and it will still count.

We've also started collecting data for the annual Musicians Register. That issue not only travels around the globe but is used all year. If you are a working band or musician, make sure you get entered. Check for the form in this issue.

Our offices will be closed by the time you read this for the rest of the week. We will reopen on January 4, 1999 for business as usual.