Just the FAQs

RootsWorld, Box 1285, New Haven CT 06505

Please note: this file is full of contradictions. - CF

Who Are These People? (The Masthead)
Can I Buy Records From You? Where's Your Catalog?
How Do I Submit A Recording For Review? (and will you review it?)
How Do I Subscribe?
How Do I Advertise on RootsWorld?
Will You Link To My Site?
I Want to Voice a Complaint About a Review

RootsWorld is primarily a world and roots music magazine, Hollow Ear a more broad based cultural magazine, both available only online. I also offer advertising for artists and labels, but the first mission is to bring our readers good information and knowledgeable opinions about the world of music and culture.

It is unlikely that we will review your record
As is the case with most music media, I get most of the recordings from the record labels or artists who produce them. Please understand that this is a very small operation (one editor and a bunch of volunteer contributors). I want to discourage you from sending a recording for review unless you are sure it is well within what we do. Please read ALL of the following:

1. I get hundreds of CDs every month. Yours will be in a pile with the rest of them, possibly for many weeks. Go on the assumption that we will NOT review your record. Read the rest of this section, please.
2. I have a pretty clear editorial bias, both by genre and by quality. Look at the reviews here and be sure that you meet the obvious criteria I set before you waste your hard earned money sending a copy of "Pillory: The Healing Art of the Ambient Celtic Sufis Of Mesopotamia." Please do not send me any music that will, in your words, "change my life."
3. You will know if your record gets reviewed if it appears in the magazine. I can't send everyone a letter telling them I received or reviewed their record (or didn't), but if there is an e-mail address clearly noted on your recording, I will do my best to e-mail the review to you when and if it is published.
4. Don't ask me via e-mail what I thought of your recording. I can't critique every recording ever made. I do the best I can. Please don't ever call on the phone to "check up on a record." The results could be disastrous.
5. I will not even consider demo tapes, homemade pre-release CDRs, white-label 'advance releases' or any other unfinished product for review. It will not be opened or listened to. It is a waste of your money and my time to send them. I will not tell you what I thought because I will have thought nothing about it. Don't ask me to help you decide whether your recording is worthy of release. I am not your editor or advisor.
6. Assume we will not review your record.
7. Unsolicited recordings will be given away, sold on the used CD market or tossed in a dumpster, at my sole discretion. You have been warned.

In 2001 I started CDRoots, a retail web site for selling a very select group of recordings not easily available in the US. Not everything reviewed in RootsWorld is in the catalog, not everything in the catalog is reviewed in RW. Not everything cdRoots sells gets a good review, either! Within normal human limitations, I try to keep these two things as separate as possible.

You can find a lot of the record labels and artists on the WWW and we supply that information where we can. Try our sponsors, or take a look at Dirty Linen's Big Ol' List of Labels. If it's not there, it's probably not on the web. While there are massive numbers of "we sell everything" retailers on the web and in the shopping malls, we recommend supporting your local non-corporate "mom and pop" record store. If they know you are interested, they can get it. Support independent producers, distributors, labels and especially independent retailers.