Careless Talk Costs Lives (magazine)

Careless Talk Costs Lives (usually known as Careless Talk or CTCL) was a British music magazine, published from January 2002 until November 2003.

Careless Talk Costs Lives was formed by two veterans of the music press, journalist Everett True (real name Jerry Thackray) and photographer Steve Gullick. True had previously been a writer for the NME, assistant editor of Melody Maker and editor of Vox magazine. He was a key media cheerleader for Nirvana in the early 1990s, and introduced Kurt Cobain to his future wife Courtney Love. Also, as The Legend! he was the first artist to release a single on Creation Records. Gullick had been a successful photographer for NME and Melody Maker, and had also shot many record covers.

Disgusted by the state of mainstream music coverage, True and Gullick conceived a magazine to “bring down the UK music press” with particular venom reserved for the once iconoclastic, now insipid and marketing-driven NME.

The first issue was published in January 2002, with the Scottish band Mogwai on the front cover. It was fortunate that this coincided with a popular resurgence of guitar-based music, in the wake of the success of US bands such as The White Stripes and The Strokes. The focus was solidly on indie/alternative music, although there was an ongoing debate about the need for such classification. True tended to describe the content as reflecting “the music that we like”. Relatively new acts such as Bright Eyes, Electrelane, Oneida, Scout Niblett, The Gossip and Yeah Yeah Yeahs were featured heavily, although there was also coverage of more established artists such as Nick Cave and Marc Almond. The magazine also gave exposure to Detroit acts that had risen in the slipstream of The White Stripes, such as The Von Bondies and The Dirtbombs. True's penchant for female-fronted bands also showed.

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