March 1981 was notable for many things, from which the launch of E&MM stands out like a polar bear in a snowstorm. The Editor sets the record straight.

Unbelievable as it may seem, Electronics & Music Maker was launched onto an unsuspecting world exactly five years ago, in March 1981. The electronics, computing and music industries had already caught a glimpse of what we in the publishing trade call a dummy issue, though sadly, many leading music business figures were absent from the grand London launch party, due to a small oversight on the part of E&MM's original management, who set the launch date for the week of the Frankfurt Musikmesse.

Despite this somewhat inauspicious start, E&MM March 1981 was an impressive magazine that betrayed few signs of being a new title venturing into virgin publishing territory. At that time, musicians could choose only between International Musician and the long-since deceased Sound International as a monthly source of musical information and guidance. From the start, E&MM was a valid alternative to those conservative 'less gear, more beer' magazines. Even if, in its desire to be all things to all men, it sometimes cast too wide a net to embrace such peripheral — some would say completely irrelevant — topics as a build-it-yourself car battery monitor, an industry profile on a plastic box manufacturer, and a CB radio column by a man who signed off with the words 'till next month, stay clean and green, 10-10, The Elf'. And yes, all those items appeared in the first issue of E&MM.

By way of a contrast, that inaugural edition also contained a review (the only one) of the latest Yamaha polyphonic synthesiser, an introduction to synth programming techniques, and a news page that had details of both the Fairlight and the Synclavier II. None of those features appears dated five years on, and none would seem out of place in this issue of E&MM.

Some of the authors' names are still familiar, too. Ian Waugh, the man who foxed so many with his JMS 'Name That Tune' competition just two months ago, was writing a column called 'America' from his bedsit in Middlesbrough; somehow, he always managed to get hold of the US brochures before anybody else did. Ben Duncan, still a regular contributor to our sister magazine. Home & Studio Recording, was passing on heartfelt advice to would-be DJs in another regular column. And Vince S Hill, now Akai UK's hi-tech product specialist but still an occasional E&MM feature writer, was beginning his guide to Electronic Music Techniques — he was credited in the staff list with the post of 'Electro-Music Consultant'.

The then Editor, and the man whose brainchild E&MM was, smiled confidently from that first issue's leader page, outlining his magazine's manifesto for the years to come, and signing his name — Mike Beecher — at the end. Below his piece was a selection of encouraging letters from such luminaries as Desmond Briscoe of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop (whose facilities E&MM visited for the first time in that issue) and Fred Mead of Brodr Jorgensen, now Roland UK.

Followers of advertising would recognise some of the company names taking space in the embryo E&MM, though by no means all of them. Yamaha had a full-colour page on the inside back cover, while the Korg division of Rose Morris had a half-page promoting a tuner. But whatever happened to Tangerine Computer Systems, Lamina Keyboards, and Baydis Transformers of Herne Bay, all eagerly plying their wares in E&MM Volume 1, Number 1?

E&MM looked a lot different in 1981. To begin with, it was printed on paper only slightly higher in grade than an Andrex economy roll. Editorial colour was completely non-existent (there weren't even any blue or red bits), but the publishers did lash out an extra £200 to pay for the front cover to be printed partly in silver ink.

Talking of the cover, the magazine's logo was the first of three incarnations including the current style, and was dropped barely six months after the launch date, for the very good reason that nobody could read it. Catching the eye on the news-stands in March '81 were two DIY keyboards, the E&MM Spectrum monosynth (designed by Chris Jordan, now of Music 500 fame) and the Matinee organ, an unwieldy teak-covered leviathan with two keyboards, pedals, and — horror of horrors — a preset rhythm box all included in the price. There were two special offers: one for some surplus wirecutting tools that didn't work (as a letter from Outraged Of Berkshire in Issue 3 testified), the other for an album of music by the aforesaid Radiophonic Workshop.

Sad to say, vast increases in the cost of that paper (now significantly upgraded, of course) have meant that E&MM now costs almost twice as much as it did in March 1981, when just 65p bought you 'The No 1 Monthly For The Electronics & Music Hobbyist'.

But for us, E&MM's current staff, five years older but not necessarily five years wiser, the highlight of this melange of the sublime, the ridiculous and the downright incomprehensible, lies on the magazine's last page, nestling between the advertisers' index and a short piece describing the E&MM logo. It's a poem, as far as we know the only piece of non-prose writing ever to appear within these hallowed pages. The author clearly wished to remain anonymous, signing himself simply as 'Stichos', which is what you'll be in after reading the verse.

Before we go any further, it should be pointed out that copies of the first E&MM are now extremely rare and fetching considerable sums on the black market, as the magazine completely sold out within days of its arrival on the bookstalls. Even the E&MM office has just the one copy, proof that the magazine was as well tailored to the needs of the musicians of five years ago as it is to those of today.

Will the fifth anniversary issue go on to be a collector's item? Hang on to this issue and find out.

But enough of all this. Here, for those who missed it the first time because (a) the newsagents had sold out, (b) they had far better things to do with their time than play music, or (c) they weren't actually born in 1981, is the poem that launched a thousand issues — well, at least 60 — by neatly chronicling the development of man's love affair with music.

...What indeed?