The Squid's Ear celebrated its first anniversary back in January with a concert at the Issue Project Room in Manhattan's East Village. Ron Anderson, Anthony Coleman and Gary Lucas played energetic, beautiful and unusual solo sets. At the time, we thought we were on the heels of putting out a new issue marking our first year of publication as well.

Ah well, what can we say? We could complain about having to work freelance gigs to support ourselves while we build what is destined to be a vast empire writing about and selling adventurous music. We could lie and try to cover what feels like time wasted when we should have been working. Or we could just invite you to keep reading for another year, as we continue to strive to provide thoughtful and interesting interpretations of the best music in the world.

But what plans we had! Wonderous new features were slated to be unveiled as we passed our first birthday. The first of those is our new Forum, running the popular PHPBB forum software, making us a bit more interactive. More is in store, but you, gentle reader, shall have to stick with us to see what that will be.

We're proud of what we've done, however, and deeply indebted to the writers who have made this, we hope, a stop along the route of trying to keep up with under recognized sound art.

It's an unusual model we've built, but one we like. Our initial arguments about whether we should be a quarterly or bimonthly magazine were eclipsed by practicality and we landed right in the middle, putting out five "issues" in 2003, and at the same time updating the site weekly with cd reviews and New York City performance reviews. We suppose we're a weekly that comes out as often as it can. And for that effort, we were proud to be awarded the Dr. Johannes Rosenberg (post) Award and Medal for Services Rendered to Contemporary Music, which carries with it a grant 50,000 East Marks in unmarked notes (sadly uncollectable).

And so, you think, is there anything you can do? Without doubt. We're hungry for more writers, people interested in covering regional scenes around the world, writers with unusual ideas for feature articles or just people to help us keep up with the tide of cds we get for review. If you're more a consumer than a writer, please consider making our shop, Squidco, a regular stop on your cyber strolls. Money coming into the store helps keep the magazine alive. And please, don't hesitate to write us at sales@squidco.com for information on ad rates.

If nothing else, write to us at ear@squidco.com and tell us what you think. What have you liked? What have you hated? What would you like to see more of? We get a little lonely, but we like what we do. And we ain't going away, so you might as well make us what you want us to be.