Tris McCall
Tris McCall is a music journalist, novelist, and rock musician from Hudson County, New Jersey, described by The New York Times as "the plugged-in, Internet-era muse of Jersey City."[1][2] In 2010, he became the music critic for the Newark Star-Ledger.[3][4] As of 2017, McCall has released four solo albums; songs intended for two future albums are previewed alongside his short stories in a web project called McCall's Almanac.[5]
Tris McCall
1971 or 1972 (age 51–52)
Music critic, writer, rock musician
1995–present
Melody Lanes, Jersey Beat
Tris McCall
Ed Fausty
Fiction
August 2012
Schrafft Books
Print (paperback)
302 pp.
Writing career[edit]
Music journalism[edit]
Beginning in the late 1990s, McCall built a reputation as a prolific music blogger focusing on northern New Jersey clubs and bands. Perceiving that print publications in Hudson County were failing in their music coverage, McCall attempted to fill the gap with his web site, with low expectations that his viewpoint would be popular.[3] He "half-fantasized" that the web site would either "morph into a print publication," or that an opportunity to write for a print publication would result from the endeavor.[3]
By 2007, McCall had begun writing about New Jersey independent music for New Jersey On-Line's NJ.com website.[28]
McCall was hired in 2010 by New Jersey's largest newspaper, The Star-Ledger, joining its editorial staff as the newspaper's music critic. In an interview at that time, McCall explained his interest in music journalism: "Most of us begin writing about music because we love it so much. We can't wait to tell our friends and neighbors about what we're hearing. That impulse never fades, but if you do it long enough ... you start to develop secondary reasons for doing pop journalism. Me, I am interested in examining why people respond to what they respond to. I hazard guesses. Sometimes I'm wrong, but I hope I'm always provocative."[3] In his role as a professional critic, McCall also expressed an interest in covering "musical projects that don't necessarily intersect with the culture industry," explaining, "Over on the other side of the Hudson, they don't really get this: why wouldn't you want to be on MTV? Why wouldn't you want to turn your music into a professional career? Sometimes we forget that we often make music because it's a rewarding thing to do — even if nobody is listening."[3]
Local politics and activism[edit]
The New York Times, in its 2005 profile of McCall, wrote of his understanding of "the sense of impassioned, aggrieved, engaged localism that defines New Jersey."[1] McCall had become locally prominent for his online activism as a blogger about New Jersey arts and politics, and the Times described his blog, the Tris McCall Report, as one in which McCall provided opinion journalism about "local elections, the closing of a favored rock club" and the like, as well as news gathering in which McCall took the role of a local reporter, interviewing local elected officials with "earnest questions about tax abatements, arts district designations or property revaluations."[1][29]
According to the Times, in McCall's writing, issues such as the proposed demolition of an "artists' loft building" assumed "World War III proportions."[1] In 2003 and 2004, McCall had written about controversies surrounding the development of the Powerhouse Arts District in Jersey City, New Jersey, including the eviction of a local arts center in a building that was to be demolished in 2007.[1][30] In 2012, McCall appeared in a documentary film about the building and its resident artists, 111 First Street.