‘Noise’ maker

“The feeling I got from Boston was so strong,’’ recalls Maxwell, more commonly known by those in the local rock scene as T Max. A guitarist, Maxwell had moved from New York to Martha’s Vineyard in 1974 to make music with his folk-rock band, Mr. Timothy Charles Duane (the moniker came from the members’ first names). But he soon felt stranded on the island and headed here.

“I would go to different clubs and notice the same people at different shows, and say, ‘Wow, this is a connected scene,’ ’’ says Maxwell of the nights spent seeing local bands like La Peste, Mission of Burma, Gang Green, and countless others. But he noticed something else about Boston, too. “I saw how hard it was [for the scores of smaller local musicians] to get press. I just figured, there’s so many bands looking for something. I can give them something.’’

That something would become the Noise, which tonight, as part of an ongoing series of anniversary shows, celebrates its 30th anniversary as New England’s longest-running music ’zine with a show at the Middle East (another celebration is planned for Precinct next month).

When Maxwell launched the publication back in 1981 as a black-and-white round-up of local rock news — that modest color scheme stubbornly continues to this day — he could scarcely have imagined that, some three decades later at age 59, he’d be publishing both a monthly print and online edition of a mag that’s grown from a circulation of 1,000 to roughly 5,000 readers.

“It was started with no money at all,’’ says Maxwell. “The bass player in [the Machines, another of T Max’s groups] had access to a Xerox machine and I knew how to lay pages out. So we just started writing the little bit that we knew about the scene. It was just seven pages stapled together in the beginning. On one side of paper. We hadn’t figured out how to get the writing on the other side yet.’’

Noise senior associate editor Francis DiMenno, who met T Max through late music impresario Billy Ruane, has written for the magazine for 26 of its 30 years. He remembers being struck by the Noise’s do-it-yourself approach. “I was born in ’57 and we grew up with punk rock graphics,’’ says DiMenno. “We saw these handcrafted posters and handcrafted magazines and said, ‘Oh good, somebody’s doing something.’ And if you’ve got somebody who’s willing to publish what you wrote every month, it makes you committed to sit down and actually do the work.’’

DiMenno remembers submitting his first live reviews to the Noise. One of them was a review of a show by Plan 9, whose entire set at T.T. the Bear’s Place in Cambridge consisted of exactly one song, a tune called “5 Years Ahead of My Time.’’

“I wrote a review of it and the Noise printed it!’’ recalls DiMenno. “They didn’t say, it’s just one song, why did you have to go on for 500 words? That was the beauty of it, that they didn’t edit your copy. In fact, at the time I would type it directly on my typewriter and [T Max] would photocopy it and stick it right into the magazine in the same typeface. That’s how primitive it was.’’

The Noise was free from day one, and Maxwell left it everywhere — inside music clubs, at record store counters, band rehearsal spaces — and devoted his energy to publishing and distributing the magazine, a practice that continues to this day. (And by distribution, he means loading bundles of new issues into his ’99 Subaru and, with the help of his girlfriend, driving them to locations as far away as New Hampshire and Maine.)

It’s no small feat that, despite a quantum leap forward in media technology that’s made the ’zine seem like a quaint relic, the Noise has consistently managed to cover its expenses. A fluid stable of volunteer writers and photographers helps keep the overhead low. “I give my writers so much freedom, they don’t even have to pitch me,’’ he says. “They can write live reviews of anything they see. And as far as CDs go, anything that gets sent in gets reviewed. Doesn’t matter if I hate it, we’re gonna review it.’’

Longtime Noise contributor Joe Coughlin is as blunt in his assessment of the publication as he is in his reviews of the music he sees and hears. “I actually didn’t care for it, and I still don’t in a lot of ways,’’ says Coughlin. “[T Max] will let anybody write. That’s good for aspiring writers, but it’s not great for readers all the time.’’ Still, he notes, “I don’t think any other city has a 30-year, local, one-guy show like that. It’s a miraculous little thing.’’

T Max has routinely invited letter-writers who complain about copy to take a shot at writing for the Noise. This put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is challenge has contributed to the Noise’s freewheeling tone as a vociferously vocal, messy mass of contradictions. It can be lively and contentious; petty and passionate; a platform for rock ’n’ roll proselytizers and a snake pit of histrionic invective. All of which makes for entertaining reading.

“I’ve gotten some serious threats [from bands awarded negative reviews],’’ says Coughlin of his frequently fractious exchanges with readers and bands. “I’m sure they don’t love everything they hear either. But it can get downright creepy sometimes. I’ve gotten hate mail from the other writers!’’

“I’ve been on both ends,’’ says Jen D’Angora, music scene veteran and lead singer for the Boston garage-soul outfit Jenny Dee & the Deelinquents, this month’s Noise cover stars. “I’ve gotten slammed, I’ve gotten praised. You never know what you’re going to get, and that’s what makes it interesting. You get a totally different take on your shows and your music through the lens of the Noise.’’

Thirty years on, the Noise reads like a haphazard history of the Boston music scene as it has unfolded since, well, before many of the musicians who now grace its pages were born. Maxwell claims he’s never considered pulling the plug — on either his guitar or magazine. “I am human and decrepitude is going to set in at some point, but I still enjoy doing it,’’ he says.

It’s a forum where even the publisher’s not immune to what he proudly characterizes as his “hands off’’ approach to content. Take Maxwell’s self-released folk-rock opera, “Why Do We Go to War?’’, for example. A Vietnam veteran reviewed the record, and took T Max to task for not having experienced the toll of war first-hand.

“It wasn’t a glowing review,’’ Maxwell recalls. “But I published it as it was, and I use it as an example when bands come whining to me because they got a bad review. I’ve said, ‘You wanna see my review in the Noise?’ ’’

Jonathan Perry can be reached at roughgems@comcast.net.