Good day everyone,

It is with a heavy heart that I say goodbye to Cord Magazine for the time being.

I began Cord about four years ago when I was only working freelance and had a nice, flexible schedule with which to create and maintain the magazine. I had a partner and a few great people on staff, a lot of plans laid to take the magazine from a web-only publication to a print publication, and plenty of hit-the-ground-running support from the industry due to a few years prior as a photographer and writer for various publications.

Cord was a great thing to have. It offered up a lot of opportunities for me to see shows, travel, and meet people I would otherwise never have met. It helped improve my writing skills, my photography skills, and my web design skills, not to mention my interpersonal skills with virtual strangers. Since becoming employed with a regular job, however, and even moreso in the last half a year since having a proper career, its become harder and harder to maintain on a regular basis and with an ever-evolving staff. People come, people go, and I was fine maintaining it on my own, but it's an awful lot of work for one person who is managing a number of other tasks, and with another contributor out the door recently, it's time to put the magazine indefinitely on hold.

Cordmag.com will remain online, and you can continue to get in touch with me at the andy@cordmag.com email address. The archive will remain for now, and I may use it on occasion as a place to upload thoughts or photographs. I hope you all will have a trip through the archives to read up on some of the fun features we did over the last four years.

I will still personally be available on a freelance basis to photograph shows, band bio photos, or anything else you might need photographically, as well as design work, bio writing, or personal critique. I welcome any shows or music you may have still to pass my way, and would love to remain in touch with all my good music industry friends who I've met over this time.

This is a very sad decision for me to make. As many of you know, concert photography has been a huge part of my life since 1999, and with Cord, my intent was to maintain visuals, not words, but it hasn't turned out that way. If I could simply attend shows to take photographs, I would love to do that, but unfortunately, this is not the way the concert world works.

I thank you all for your amazing support and readership over the years - your kind words, submissions, accommodations, and offers. I may resurrect the magazine or something like it in the future. You have likely not seen the absolute last of me.

In the wonderful words of Denver Dalley from his project Statistics, which was one of my best experiences and interviews through Cord:
"And this will be my final broadcast.
You could say we’re switching formats.
I’m signing off for one last time, so thanks..."

Thanks and best, all. I mean that.
-Andy Scheffler
Editor, Cord Magazine