The ICE melts

It’s official — ICE magazine has shuttered its door after 19 years.

I subscribed to the magazine in the early 1990s, after a year or so of buying it from the newsstand every month. ICE was pretty essential when I was working at Waterloo Records. I didn’t commit every release date to memory, but it was handy to know when big titles were approaching. If a customer asked when something was coming, I could usually tell them off the top of my head, thanks to ICE.

I used ICE to plan my shopping excursions. I even have a script that runs when I log into my shell account to remind me of specific release dates, culled from ICE. (Yeah, I’m a nerd that way.) To say the end of ICE leaves a big hole in my music consumerism is to understate the matter.

ICE subscribers have been handed over to Billboard for the remainder of their balance. I received my first issue of Billboard over the weekend. It made the passing that much more palpatable.

Billboard subscriptions are pricey, so I imagine I’ll receive less than a month’s worth of issues before I have to renew. I just might — I already visit the Billboard web site religiously. When noodle magazine went under, the subscriber list went to the Advocate, and I’ve renewed ever since.

After three months of no new issues of ICE, I need some variety with my bathroom reading.