It’s not the 24 days straight of rain…
…It’s the fact that for once in my life my great love and a great job can both be in the same city that yes, I am leaving the Stranger. As I’ve told people at the paper many times in the past 24 hours, it was a heartbreaking decision to quit—one that made me perform the most dreaded of Maerz actions, getting all mushy and upset at work—as I truly believe the paper is the best place I’ve ever had the chance to work. The writers, the editors, the art production people, the artists, the sales people, the accountants, the management…it’s a highly qualified, fun, engaging group of people and I am very lucky to have worked here for almost four years. It’s the dysfunctional family I was promised and I thoroughly enjoyed every second of it. That’s not even mentioning how much I love being involved with the Seattle music scene—a music scene that rivals any other city in the country for excellence, enthusiasm, invention of new ideas, and just a shitload of stellar people working their asses off to make it shine.
But at the end of the month, I’m off to San Francisco, the city I moved here from in the first place, to both live closer to my boyfriend and to be the music editor of the SF Weekly. There are a lot of really great people at that paper too, and I’m thrilled that they’ve hired me to join their staff. It should be a lot of fun, and I’m hoping to see a lot of Seattle bands tour through the Bay Area.
I’ll be here until the end of the month, after which Dave Segal will be the new music editor. Dave was my editor at AP magazine before I moved to Seattle, and he definitely knows his shit—as anyone who’s read his stuff already knows. He’s an excellent writer and editor, and has opened up the city to whole new genres of music that were never covered to any degree of depth before. I have utmost confidence in his abilities.
So before I write a book on the Slog, I’ll save the rest of my thoughts on all this for a farewell piece, and say thanks to the Stranger and Seattle in general for making my run here so difficult to give up (it took me a year of being engaged to realize maybe it’s time to live closer to my man). Oh, and I will not miss the 24 days straight of rain.
Jen, you'll be missed. I know you must get a lot of flack, but for once it seemed like this town had a writer truly emersed in the music scene because she loved music and not because she liked to write about the gossip she caught while nursing a hang over at the Cha Cha.
You championed plenty of off the wall performances and out of the way venues, and I hope that's something that Segal, despite his love of the overtly fey musical genre of Twee pop, will continue to do.
Congrats on the move.