A good friend of LAUNCH’s named Larry Lyttle once said: “A dried grape is called a raisin, right? A dried plum becomes a prune. But no matter which way you call it, a dried apricot is still just a dried apricot.”

Now this is food for thought: There are those who would say the ancient wordsmiths--faced with their first dried apricot-- simply lost interest in their craft at that very moment and turned their attention to the sport of verb conjugation. But there are others who would argue that those very same wordsmiths actually reached a simple, yet profound revelation with that first bite of orange-colored apricot dryness.
 “It is what it is.”

So often, we at LAUNCH are asked to describe what this thing  is:
“It’s like a magazine produced on a disc.”
“A floppy disc?
“No. A CD. It looks just like a CD you would buy in a record store.”
“So the magazine comes with a CD?”
“No, the magazine is  a CD. A CD-ROM that you play in your computer”
“So it’s on the Internet?”
“Well, yes. But...”

People get so hung up on the delivery system. You just want to say, “Look, it is what it is.”

LAUNCH is entertainment, which is delivered in a couple of different ways. LAUNCH is  on the Internet in the form of LAUNCH Online (catchy, huh?), and it’s a stand-alone entity--connected to LAUNCH, the CD-ROM--with tons of great stories about acts like Alisha’s Attic, Blackeyed Susans, Darlahood, Dishwalla, Primitive Radio Gods, Nada Surf, Billy Bragg, Cake, Pigeonhead, Stereolab, Spring Heel Jack, Future Sound Of London, Tangerine Dream, Superdrag, V-Roys, Yum, Yum, Gravity Kills, Kula Shaker and a whole lot more. There’s just a huge source of information there, from daily news updates, concert reviews and interactive interviews, to sound bytes, music samples and articles that would never fit on a single CD-ROM. And this is only the beginning. Just sit back and watch as LAUNCH Online develops into one of your most valuable and comprehensive entertainment resources on the Web. It’s happening before your very eyes.

Meanwhile, this LAUNCHdisc  gives you the kind of multimedia experience that would take weeks to download from the Web. Can you imagine waiting for the entire Vibreaker, complete with 60+ music samples by Sneaker Pimps, Matthew Sweet, Dru Hill and U2 to download onto your hard drive?  Or pining for the blazing LIVE performance of “Lakini’s Juice” to come squeaking out of your speakers? Or hanging on while the Cardigans performance of “Been It” skips along your phone line? You could age a few days while Fountains Of Wayne and the unreleased track “Half A Woman” squeezes through some ancient modem in a faraway land. Imagine! The Jurassic Park  sequel The Lost World  will be out of theaters by the time you find out what special effects wizard Stan Winston has to say, and L.A. could well be buried under some futuristic lava if you had to wait for the online delivery of our interactive interview about the upcoming thriller Volcano. 

But here’s the good news. Bypass all of the Web’s quirks and enjoy these multimedia stories, in real time, in LAUNCH No. 12. Then, for more quality time and detailed information about each of our featured acts, slip backstage at LAUNCH Online through the purple Web button at the bottom of your screen. Here you get unlimited access to an information resource, a link to a plethora of downloadable game demos and a more complete picture of the stories on the current CD-ROM.

By using the two outlets in sync, you get more news, more music, more movies, more games, more fun, more entertainment.

And no matter which way it’s delivered: It is what it is. LAUNCH.

The Editors