welcome to chickfactor.com, the official website of chickfactor magazine, which was printed on paper from 1992 to 2002 and has been online ever since. that’s right, belle and sebastian wrote a song and named it after us. we are currently planning CF2012, a mini tour of chickfactor parties to celebrate our 20th anniversary that will definitely touch down in london, new york, d.c. and portland, oregon.
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gail o’hara is the cofounding editor of chickfactor magazine; she is the editor in chief, ceo, photographer, show booker, enchanté records honcho, art director, etc. gail prefers watching the stage to being on it and likes taking the pictures not posing. she has worked for such publications as washington city paper, spin, timeout new york (where she was music editor for 4 years), ew, and ellegirl. she is co-director and co-producer of strange powers: stephin merritt and the magnetic fields (2010). she lives in portland, oregon.
pamela berry is the other cofounding editor of chickfactor; she exited politely in the mid-’90s to focus on her singing career. pam also started slumberland records with mike schulman & friends back in 1990, changing the d.c. musical landscape forever. she’s sung with black tambourine, veronica lake, bright colored lights, glo-worm, belmondo, the shapiros, castaway stones, seashell sea, the pines, and many others. pam is a craftmaking genius, the world’s greatest mum and a subtitling wiz. she lives in london.
janice headley is our new webmaster!
ld beghtol is the co-art director and helps with designing enchanté records as well. ld is a great writer and singer and musician and he sang on the the magnetic fields’ 69ls. he is vastly knowledgeable about far too many things, has a severe ukulele fetish. he lives in bushwick (that’s brooklyn).
shawn belschwender is a comic genius, as we have said repeatedly. shawn and I did old-school pasteup together back in the day at the washington city paper, when I’d barely touched a computer. he currently lives in chicago. click on clowntimecomics.com to see more of his work.
ashley salisbury is our legal counsellor and used to write for chickfactor under the name edna. she currently is a rambling drifter with a teeny dog called beans, has extremely rigid eating habits, a real pottymouth, and a couple manic cats. we’ve been friends with her for more than a decade even though she likes hole.
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chickfactor and cf.com contributing writers:
andrew beaujon used to play in eggs. he currently works at tbd.com in washington, d.c.
isaac bess is a karaoke king who works for ioda in san francisco. all the girls have a crush on his hair.
erica braverman is a photographress who used to do a fangirl mag called spilt milk with her big sis rebecca.
rebecca braverman lives in boca!
joe brooker is a lloyd cole enthusiast, fan of inexpensive lager, and a lecturer on the most joycean types of literature. he’s a fine songwriter and guitar player, as he often demonstrates whilst playing in a fine south london folk band called the pines.
carrie brownstein is a guitar god, dog enthusiast and npr columnist. she is also part of thunderant and a new girl supergroup.
clarissa is a mystery. we hardly ever see her. she sends her missives in from the road, and for that we are grateful.
liz clayton is a former zine editor — of wind-up whatever who has long contributed to cf. she is a flawless photographress, and if you don’t believe me look at kittyempire.org. she is also the queen of her own editorial services company, lingua fresca. she lives in bed stuy and drinks way too much coffee
lara cohen is the former editor of the influential runt magazine and was in the 90s powerhouse act nik-l-nip. she’s a tiny intellectual who lives in detroit.
gerard cosloy is a mata founder who also runs the labels parallelism and 12xu, plays guitar for air traffic controllers, and is a former zine editor (conflict). he also writes about sport in can’t stop the bleeding. he lives in austin, texas.
stephen duffy is the leader of the lilac time, and the original singer of duran duran. he’s also a thinking woman’s crumpet and one of the best people on earth. he also writes some truly magical songs. he lives in london, when he isn’t bossing robbie williams around.
gaylord fields is a fabulous wfmu dj (please don’t call him “the great gaylord”!), a fabulous chickfactor contributor, and a fabulous copy editor. he is impeccably dressed, and a huge flirt. he lives in jersey.
daniel handler is a funny man, novelist, children’s book million seller, accordionist extraordinaire, a cocktail connoisseur, a larger than life human, probably the best dad ever, and a strangely overeager cf writer. he lives in san fran.
tim hopkins is a lager-huffing english gent of whom we are fond. he’s one of the chappies behind our fave afternoon event, the hangover lounge. check out more of his shenanigans at freaky trigger. he lives in peckham.
chelsey johnson is a literary sensation waiting to happen. smart, sharp, and norwegian-looking, ms. chelsey just finished a stint at the iowa writers workshop (they don’t just let any suckers in, you know), had a story read by cynthia nixon for npr’s selected shorts. currently teaching at oberlin.
michael jones is a tech geek extraordinaire, who is finally taking his electronoise skills seriously, reading the wire religiously, minidisking anything in earshot, and messing around with the clientele’s dreamy dreamscapes. he lives in crystal palace, and is a great writer.
lisa levy is the dorothy parker of the cobble hill. she is working on a book so hasn’t been doing as much silly tv criticism for us these days, but we still love her.
paul lukas is a very funny guy who does beer frame magazine, and writes a column called inconspicuous consumption about strange products. he, also, has exquisite taste in films, household objects, and bars. he lives in brooklyn.
dawn sutter madell is a longtime cf contributor who has agreed to let cf.com reprint some of her magazine’s (moxie) articles. dawn is a great writer and artist, and co-runs a music supervision company called agoraphone in manhattan. she has a dog named punch and a wee trixie. she lives in brooklyn.
lois maffeo needs no introduction. her simple folk-pop numbers were the stuff that got chickfactor all excited in its early days. she’s the ruling queen of the stage banter scene—do not even try to heckle her, she will always win. lois lives in olympia.
james mcnew fronts new york city’s best band: dump. he also is a multi-instrumentalist type guy in yo la tengo, an internationally recognized simpsons nerd, and a man with a crazy handbag collection. he’s an old-school master of mixtapes and dubbed vhs. he lives in brooklyn.
stephin merritt is the internationally acclaimed grumpy songwriter behind the magnetic fields, the 6ths, future bible heroes, gothic archies, not that I need to tell you any of this if you are reading the factor. he is bicoastal.
peter momtchiloff is a twang-damaged philosophy expert working for the oxford uni press when he isn’t playing lap steel in every goddam band in london (smith garrett, gospel oak, would-be-goods, speed of sound). peter is one of the greats, and cf’s lucky to have him. he lives in oxford, well, duh.
david nichols is an indie legend. cannanes, crabstick, huon, and scads of others were just excuses for him to tell jokes, even if they did make some damn fine noise. nichols wrote a book on one of the best bands ever, the go-betweens, and writes for loads of other places, and seems to study a lot. he lives in australia.
peter paphides has written the funniest things ever printed in time out london. he used to edit a zine called perturbed, and he currently is in charge of the london times pop stuff.
lydia vanderloo is a longtime cf contrib and commiserator, a former small factory manager, college radio gal, and mom. we don’t mind that lydia can only write one or two reviews now because she has more important responsibilities that talk and require constant attention. lydia lives in manhattan.
elisabeth vincentelli is a manic french teenager trapped in the body of a new york post theater critic; she has helped chickfactor with its french pop coverage, and she loves kylie almost as much as she does neko case. but not quite. she lives in brooklyn.
harvey williams is a fluffy-haired brian wilson extremist who just happened to play in some seminal sarah records act or other. he works, so he claims, for the bbc, and he can be seen plinking piano keys in a solo fashion on occasion. he lives in london.
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other writers in the cf.com archives include tree fort angst and glo-worm mainman terry banks; novelist and filmmaker sam brumbaugh; philosophy professor and lo-fi costellofile franklin bruno; purple ivy shadows crooner chris daltry; trendspotter and fab dj keith darcy; pam’s old pal david gionfrido; stinky fire engine man wayne davidson; lorelei axman matt dingee; teacher and singer dr. sarah dougher; wfmu dj and other music critic robin edgerton; former net editor robin eisgrau; zine editor and pam pal emily; another boy writing under a girl’s name, erika; half japanese documenter and kickstand member jeff feuerzeig; joe show I mean joe gaer; wedding present hottie david gedge; magnetic fields’ drummer singer pianist manager etc claudia gonson; ex-veronica lake feller r.s. kelly; one third of the legendary new zealand act the clean, mr. hamish kilgour; guitar experimenter and ex-love child alan licht; enchanté recording artist and poet connie lovatt; clientele ringleader alasdair maclean; studio wiz, velocity girl boy, and saturday person archie moore; theater director, videomaker, and boy-band fanatic roger mrazek; velocity girl boy brian nelson; he needs no intro: stephen pastel; a boy posing as a girl: phillippa; advice columnist joanna raczynska; richard circumstantial evidence; velocity girl boy kelly riles (is there a pattern here?); musical chairs honcho ian schlein; slumberland boss and grumpy gus mike schulman; adorable shaker egg player dan searing; former veronica laker tim sendra; mad scene singer lisa siegel; former coworker suzanne; rock critic turned photog natasha stovall. CF
