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That said, I buy Just Jazz Guitar when the UK gets a new issue. Good lessons and nice interviews. The editing is pretty slapdash, but it's not a textbook, so it doesn't bother me.
Flying Pig! That takes me back.
I do think it a shame that the guitar mags don't do more original interviews.
There are fewer now, whereas way back when every month there'd be a series of i/vws conducted by Neville Marten et al.
Guitar Techniques I find interesting
Issues of Guitar Player from the early '80s probably represent the zenith of guitar journalism for me. George Gruhn talking about the vintage market, Tommy Tedesco telling you about his latest session (and how much he earned!), Tom Wheeler was editor, long-form, intelligently researched interviews with everyone from Billy Gibbons to Emily Remler. Reviews were a tiny part of the magazine.
I was exposed to names I'd never heard of by GP (Ry Cooder, Lowell George, Roy Buchanan, Arlen Roth, Alan Holdsworth, Wes Montgomery, the list goes on). It was a true education in all things guitar.
These days it's thinner in terms of pagination, narrower in the range of artists it covers and shallower in its journalistic depth.... A real shame.
Loads of full song transcriptions, with lyrics each month. I've a bunch of these in my music file.
Subscibed to total guitar for ages - really loved it when it first came out as it featured a lot of the rock/indie music i was into but cancelled when they changed the steer.
Cant stick it these days as its gone all heavy with long haired bearded tattoed nobbers.
Quite like guitar and bass player though.
Let me illustrate why I don't buy Guitarist any more.
Here is an excerpt of a review of an SG with a list price of £1,399 from Guitarist:
"Gibson's production consistency still falls a little short of most other premium USA-made brands - the finish, for example, is noticeably mottled, yet that in itself adds to a slightly vintage, less modern-precision vibe. And although Gibson is now, on certain models, putting its fret ends over the fingerboard-edge binding, here, it's old school: the plastic still forms the fret end, with plenty of potential for a gap to open up and for your top string to slip into it.
Gibson uses the Plek machine set-up, too, yet the frets here are hardly mirror shiny; there was a little buzz on the higher top-string positions also, and the rosewood 'board looks dry and pale in colour."
So here is a guitar £1.4k guitar that has several basic faults that you wouldn't find on a £200 VIntage VS6 and costs more than an S2 series PRS and what score do they give it?
Two stars?
Maybe be generous and give it 2.5?
Nope the standard Guitarist four stars.
Total bollocks.
And then one day.........
A drummer called Richard Desmond (yes - Seriously. Him.) started a brand new mag called International Musician. On the front cover was 2 x Fender Picks attached with a bit of tape. The magazine was brilliant and a total revelation (pre-internet remember).
So next time you see somebody slagging off Richard Desmond because of something his Newspaper has said, or because some of his top shelf publications were a bit tasteless......I say: Give him a bit of slack.
Actually, Channel 5 put on Columbo occasionally, so perhaps I'm being too harsh.