Tone Glow in 2021: What to Expect
The tentative future of Tone Glow throughout 2021
Happy new year, and thank you for reading Tone Glow throughout the past year! This is the editor, Joshua Minsoo Kim, and I wanted to send out this issue to give you an idea of what to expect from Tone Glow throughout 2021.
Before any of this, I do want to note that Tone Glow is a bit of a miraculous thing—looking back on everything that happened throughout 2020, it’s a bit crazy to think this all actually happened. Of course, part of why this was possible was, well, money; if you’re not aware, all writers for this publication—as well as photographers (we’ve had 2), banner-makers (we’ve had 4), and transcribers (my friend TJ)—are paid out of my own pocket. Having calculated it just now, I spent a little over $10,000 on Tone Glow since starting its Substack iteration in December 2019, and about $8,000 of that has gone directly to writers. Of course, I don’t get paid; this is a money-losing venture, and I knew it’d be from the start.
The reality is that Tone Glow is, of course, a passion project—a passion project I want to invest the most amount of time and energy and money into, at least right now. But alas, money is money, and given that I still have $50,000 in student loan debt, donations are really gonna be needed to keep this thing going. Which is why I’m shamelessly going to ask that if you enjoyed reading Tone Glow this past year, and are interested in it continuing, please consider donating via Ko-Fi. Many people have already donated already, and for that I’m extremely grateful—there’s been about $3,000 in donations! Thank you.
With all that said, the month of January is going to be a bit of a toss-up. I’m largely going to spend this month transcribing/publishing interviews from 2020 (including Ana Roxanne, David Grubbs, and Colin Mochrie from Whose Line is it Anyway?) both on Tone Glow and Tune Glue. There’s going to be a break from the Writers Panel and Download Corner to give everyone (especially myself) a “break.” This week, though, we’ll have a feature on some albums released in December that we wanted to write about. Also, I’m planning on switching up the Download Corner format this year, but more details on that to come. And most importantly, the amount of issues that we’ll have this year will decrease; after January’s all done, we’ll probably switch back to publishing every other week.
There will still be quarterly album/song round-ups and special features here and there on top of the regular issues. Tune Glue, our other publication focused on interviews with non-experimental musicians and artists of all mediums, will also continue. If you’re an artist or label or PR person who is going to ask for interviews to be conducted, I’m gonna be honest and say that the chance of lining up an album release’s promo cycle with an interview is gonna be… less likely than in 2020. Anyways, onwards and upwards. Thank you for reading, and here’s to another year of good music. And for your Sunday listening, here’s one of my favorite album openers :+)