In the Summer of 2009, a crack team locked heads, to initiate an underground, cultural paper aimed towards informing an anti-hype audience about A-class talent within the arts.
Showcasing the new generation’s best throughout its leafy, colorful-content heavy pages, Bristol-based monthly, Crack is the quick fix paper for good music addicts. First founded by mates and entrepreneurs Jake Applebee and Thomas Frost, this smashing publication is ambiguous and ambitious in equal measures. Working with a network of graduates and freshly-scouted talent, Crack relies on the energy of its much cherished family of contributors, a team of freelance writers, photographers and trend scouts who dictate what you like, before you’ve even heard about it. Priding the paper’s high-caliber of content on having a sense of humour and not taking entertainment too seriously, the Crack family throw down regular launch parties, release exclusive mixes from their favourite DJs and distribute the zine all over the country totally for free, just because they can. i-D online placed its tongue firmly in cheek, grabbed some glow sticks and trekked to their ends to get down at the home of house music.
What are you excited about at this exact moment in time? Our London launch party at The Nest, this Saturday with Trophy Wife.
Describe a day at Crack? Coffee, e-mails, tea, table tennis, more e-mails, lunch, and then the most pressing task on the never-ending ‘prioritisation’ list of things to do, tea, table-tennis, home.
Tell us about the team… There are four full-time members in the office. Tom is the Editor and Jake is Creative Director. We also have Luke Sutton who is our Marketing Manager and Geraint Davies who is Assistant Editor.
What has been the most exciting party to date? Our one year birthday party in a private members club in Bristol with Tall Ships was a pretty special. We also had everyone up to the empty offices in our building afterwards with PA systems in the spare rooms to continue the party. The clean-up after that was less than fun!
Who would be your ultimate band, artist or DJ to book? Radiohead supported on DJing duties by Ricardo Villalobos and Crack’s resident-DJ-hombre, ginger-hero Phileas Thugg doing a special gymnastics splits performance.
Tell us your ones-to-watch for the year ahead… Other Lives, Real Estate, Tall Ships, Nzca Lines and Pardon My French.
Name your top five things to do in Bristol? Suspension Bridge (standard), Motion warehouse nightclub goes from strength to strength, Magic Roll for top eats, Gloucester Rd high street on a Saturday and of course… Tesco Stokes Croft.
What’s next? To continue growing and improving the product and getting more and more quality, creative people involved.
Text: Milly McMahon
