Entertainment For Lively Minds
Is this the most pretentious magazine ever? - updated
No, it's not what you think. But now that I've got your attention...
I'm a hopeless fan of vintage American guitars of the 50s and 60s and will take any opportunity to read about them. So naturally I was interested to see a new (to me) US magazine hit the shelves recently. It's called Guitar Aficionado and as you'd expect from the title it's full of cool stuff about old American guitars.
But wait a minute, all is not as it seems. Guitar Aficionado also carries the frankly bizarre strapline "Guitars, Cars, Watches, Wine & The Deluxe Life".
That's right, as well as articles about the rich and famous and their collections of rare and expensive investment instruments (some of them quite well-written, to be fair), the latest issue of the mag also features write-ups on obscenely expensive Aviation watches (whatever they are), gold cufflinks and Porsches, as well as a guide on how to make a Manhattan cocktail (of course). Oh, and an article titled "The world's best chocolate". Huh?
I've been trying to work out exactly who this magazine is aimed at. My best guess so far is 50-something airline pilots with more disposable income than they know what to do with.
Seriously, is this what rock and roll has come to in its dotage?
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guys with addictions to indulgences
one of which you have
I'm pretty sure
the assumption is that if you like (and have the money to buy) one of the listed "indulgences", you're the kind of cool dude who will enjoy them all.
I fail the test on all counts there, I'm afraid. And so do all the guitar players I know.
Strange assumption that one
Indeed my experience would suggest that such things are almost mutually exclusive. People with that kind of money have had one focal point for most of their lives. It's almost a pre-requisite. That powerful motivation, when it's fulfilled, sadly renders them rarely able to genuinely appreciate anything more worthwhile. A magazine like that, liable to provide nothing more than a dim and distant reminder of better days.
Focus Group Madness
I give it six issues.
Summed it up
in three words Burt.
Even though I suspect it's already done more than 6 issues, your pithy précis still holds water.
I read another issue where they'd dispatched the motoring writer to England where he somehow managed to blag a test drive in the latest Aston Martin Vantage on (I think) the roads around Gaydon in Warwickshire.
His review was hilarious and went something like: "Gee, these English roads sure are narrow and the right-hand drive car doesn't help either. I hope I don't hit any of the old buildings as I pass through the tiny villages".
"Gee, these English roads sure are narrow..."
Wasn't signed D.Hepworth, by any chance was it?
Manhattans
my favourite cocktails. To save me a bit of dough can you let me know their perfect recipe?
Just for you Jimmy
How to make a Manhattan:
2 ounces Woodford Reserve bourbon
1 ounce sweet vermouth
2 dashes Peychard's bitters
Combine in a mixing glass with 3 or 4 ice cubes.
Stir, strain and serve straight up in a stemmed cocktail glass.
Bold mixologists should also investigate these two variations on the classic Manhatten recipe (it says here):
Substitute dry vermouth and add an olive garnish to make a dry Manhatten, or use equal parts dry and sweet vermouth and a lemon twist garnish for a perfect Manhatten.
Got that?
Bottoms up!
Collectors eh?
Especially pens. Trying to find the issue with Greg Lake on the cover but this is the latest edition.
http://www.penworld.com/#/24-6-cover-high-res/4556743161
If you think that's pretentious
give *Wallpaper a try
(*yes, it has an asterisk in the title)
I always preferred...
Sugar Ape
yeah but
when Tyler 'crème' Brûlé was editor, it always had something worth reading in it ... (much like Vanity Fair looks like a total celeb-suck disaster but it often scores with some top flight writing, the budget for which would probably make Dev Hell green with envy ... or red with debt)
I agree
and I always pick Wallpaper* up when I'm on the Eurostar. Actually, I don't think there's anything wrong with pretension. It usually broadens my horizons
I always read Tyler 'crème' Brûlé
on the back page of the FT Life & Arts section on a Saturday.
I like it! Its my lifestyle or at least it gonna be from now on
I'm there ..cancel my word subscription in crossing over to the GA. Hope they have a pod cast...
http://www.guitaraficionado.com/category/blog
That is a *beautiful* guitar Gere is playing...
Anybody know what it is?
No but, in the 1980s, Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead
played a guitar with exactly the same design on the neck. It was a custom-built model known as the Ibanez 'Cowboy Fancy' - not that I'm suggesting Gere is playing an Ibanez!
I think
it's a 00-42 Martin, circa 1902.
Gere is a serious guitar collector and recently auctioned 100 of the best ones for charity.
He has some amazing stuff, including Albert King's personal original Gibson Flying V, which was the second prototype made.
Have to disagree, Patrick.
Yuckity yuck. Nothing worse than fussy inlays and binding on a guitar, for me. Bleurgh.
Yes, and no ...
I'm a "purity of line" man myself, but the few times I've handled one of these fancied-up models, I've fallen in love with them (the flirts!) against all my better instincts. A nicely-done inlay, while doing nothing for the sound, is certainly a pretty thing to behold. And to hold.
(Jerry Garcia had appalling taste in guitars, with the most gruesome inlays)
The best acoustic I've ever played...
...was a 1950 Gibson J-45 (EDIT: sorry, it was a J-50. Must've been: natural finish). I'm not sure they come any simpler, and it was just gorgeous. Beyond gorgeous. Richness of sound, purity of design, no fat on it at all. So beautiful.
So when I see all the fancy-pants inlays and bindings, I tend to get turned off. I like instruments as tools, not as deliberate art. Prefer them to become art through being used as tools, if that makes sense.
That said, I'm a Jazzmaster (ahem) aficianado, and I'll be the first to admit that it's not Leo's most simple design. And mine (a home-build with a neck done by a proper luthier, because I'm not that good) has slightly non-standard inlays (black blocks), and black binding on the neck.
I just can't really be doing with all the schmancy stuff. Even a Hummingbird is too much for me, as nicely as they tend to play.
I don't like twatted-about acoustics.
Why bother? Spend time making the guitar to make it sound nice. Not titting about with bits of abalone so it sparkles a bit. My two Takamines are very, very simple. And sound lovely.
A bit of curly maple on an electric, mind..
Acoustics
I've got a few nice acoustics, and they are all very plain. A Martin HD28v, which has a bit of herringbone binding is probably as flash as I go. A Lowden O10. A Faith 12 string. But the one I play most, probably because it's my gigging guitar, is a L'Arrivee OM-01, like a D18 but slightly thicker body, and plain, plain, plain. Looks and sounds gorgeous.
It's like the ones you find in
airport lounges. Super-glossy, crammed with things about high-end lifestyles and luxury goods and amazing hotels and all about 100 pages thick. Nine times out of 10 I was unaware such magazines existed.
But this one being American means the circulation is probably about five times that of The Word, so should be just fine.
Lifestyle
An awful word.
See my comments on 'Words that should be banned'
Can just about accept it as a noun, but not as an adjective. In a previous life, a hotelier was promoting her property to me and I asked what kind of hotel it was. "Oh it's very lifestyle." WTF does that mean? Presumably it got written up in a 'lifestyle magazine'.
If only these magazines were limited to departure lounges. I know we're not the only county to have the equivalent of Cheshire Life, but because certain businesses think we are all married to footballers round here and spend our days having our hair done (and that's just Wayne Rooney, etc) we also have glossy freebies with titles like 'Living on the Edge'. (That's a reference to Alderley Edge. Please contain your mirth.)
In said previous job, I was selling very expensive holidays and so had to advertise, and read, far more of these mags than was good for the digestion. For me, it was a depressing window on a shallow world without values. More depressing still, is that it seems to be an expanding world. I'm going to have to stop now before I set myself up for a grump all day.
Airport lounges...
...you're right Five: I found a stack of exactly this issue at the Luton-Paris departure gate a month ago - available for free.
it's an expensive-ad-funded freebie. But who it's aimed at I can't imagine. There might have been a couple of well regarded writers in it, but they were writing flannel. Why get Ashley Khan to write 800 words of entry-level biog on Wes Montgomery? Anyone on this forum could do it; whereas AK could do something much more insightful, if given the brief.
I lasted barely 5 minutes with it before stuffing it in the seat pocket. Depressing.
Frighteningly, this is a grotesque representation of where the Word will end up if it keeps on with these advertorials and test-drives...
It's not free normally
The cover price in the States is $8.00 and I think I paid A$12.00 for it here.
Wow!
I read the title of this thread and immediately jumped in to mention Guitar Aficionado, the largest pile of wank this side of a teenager's sock drawer, only to find that it was the focus of the thread. A year or so ago I saw a copy at an airport, and having an insatiable appetite for guitar porn I picked it up, thinking it was a competitor to Vintage Guitar. I flicked through it for a few minutes and then left it in the seat pocket for some other poor sucker. Vacuous, bourgeois crap.
"Vacuous bourgeois crap"
...let's hope that phrase never becomes a strapline for The Word (in the grand tradition of 'Entertainment For Lively Minds', 'at last Something To Read', 'Intelligent Life On Planet Rock' etc.
Actually, perhaps the next one SHOULD be 'Edited by the Editors' Editor!'
Rock 'n' Roll
is heritage for many people of a certain age. It's their National Trust and favourite war stories combined. They want the comfort blanket of preserving rock 'n' roll for posterity and laying it down, like their expensive bottles of wine, in an air-conditioned imagined museum, its layout visualised in their mind with an adoring soft focus combined with added colour memory filters while they simultaneously enjoy the empathetic thrill of spotting the same ClearAudio turntable in Lyndsey Buckingham's home as resides in their own, momentarily worrying unduly about the potential ramifications for the Mexican house maid if they were to tread the world's best chocolate into the Oriental rug that luxuriates below the Creazioni coffee table in the 7th (of 12) bedroom they've set aside for their home recording studio where they occasionally retire on a Saturday evening with buddies from the golf club in order to recreate Side 2 of Abbey Road, giving up after half an hour to play Beatles: Rock Band instead on the XBox in front of the wall mounted 60" plasma TV screen, its remote control including a split screen setting that allows them to check via CCTV that the Porsche is still safely ensconced in the garage.
That's a page
right out of your diary, eh, Mister Bisto?
(*winky*)
Sadly
I can only lay claim to treading chocolate into a rug as the one parallel in my universe. I can't even claim it was the best chocolate. That said, like Richard Gere, I do have a guitar in my house. I also have a hamster. I don't think he likes being considered an aficionado of hamsters. Nor do I for that matter. Oh dear, where is my mind going on this?
Obviously from the same stable...
...as this.
http://images.cigaraficionado.com/cao/Covers/225-CA201112.jpg
On the whole, no matter how pretentious, I'd rather read about guitars than cigars.
How many of these titles?
Will one day feature as guest publication of the week in HIGNFY?
(My money is on *Wallpaper)
You all know my favourite mag of this genre.
From Lenny's top shelf (NSFW) -
Famous Masturbators Of Filmland
Masturbation Afficionado
Homes & Masturbators
Teen Masturbator
Masturbation Digest
New York Review Of Masturbators
Better Masturbating
Ladie's Home Masturbation
Masturbation Illustrated
Country Masturbation
Guns & Masturbation
Popular Masturbation
The Family Masturbator
The New Masturbator
Everyday Masturbator
Masturbators & Masturbating
Razzle
You forgot
The Word - Entertainment for lively hands
Students - the future of the country is in your hands
Any ideas as to what the students had been reading to prompt such behaviour?
Hahahahahahaha
I LOLd. There was a similar notice posted in my College when I was at uni. Amusingly, said college was peopled largely by evangelical Christians. Which just goes to show, resisting the lure of the flesh can lead to a lot of time in the shower.
"Please enquire at the
Library Help Desk if you have any questions."
I was thinking along the same lines
They only have themselves to blame. They should never have refurbished the toilet floors in black crushed velvet with matching corduroy wallpaper in the first place.
That reminded me of Peter Ustinov...
...in his inaugural speech, reading out a letter from a student congratulating him on being elected the new "rectum" of Edinburgh University.
Guitar Aficionado - update
Credit where it’s due.
The last few issues have seen a huge improvement in Guitar Aficionado. The wanky, peripheral stuff about wine, watches and cars has shrunk to a minimum and the guitar articles now dominate.
It’s still a little elitist, covering pretty much only the rarefied high end of the collectable guitar market, but it’s much more accessible/readable these days.
Pete Townshend knows a bit about guitars
"I don't sleep with my guitar, or polish it after every show I JUST PLAY THE FUCKING THING"
"I don't sleep with my guitar, or polish it after every show"
I imagine he employs someone to do that sort of thing for him.
The bloke he employs is Alan Rogan
a lovely man who also works for Hank Marvin and Angus Young when Pete is not touring. He tells a great story, too.
He may have smashed a few in his time but Pete certainly knows the intrinsic value of a rare and valuable American guitar and has owned literally hundreds of them over the years.
When the Who play live now, he has around half a dozen Gibson J200 acoustics on stage at around $5,000 each, plus the same amount of Fender Custom Shop Stratocasters (Eric Clapton signature model) at the same price.
http://www.thewho.net/whotabs/gear/guitar/history.html
Is this an offshoot of Cigar Aficionado?
Is this an offshoot of Cigar Aficionado which has been knocking around for years. Vehicle for high-end "luxury goods" advertising.
But what a great word "aficionado" is. It's got groove, it's got meaning.
Cigar Aficionado?
I'm picturing Alan Partridge saying "Rolled on the thigh of a virgin!"
What's Next?
Sink Plunger Aficianado
Lard Aficianado
Yoghurt Aficianado
Laptop Aficianado (Oo-err Missus)?
More likely to be Fine Wine or Whisky, I Suppose.
Allt om whisky
here's a nice magazine: "Allt om whisky". It's ideal if you:
a) have an obsession with fine whiskies that borders on mania
b) can read Swedish
I'm afraid that I tick both those boxes.
O/T on the subject of Lard
do you think there is a line of 'Be Good To Yourself' Lard - at the other end of the scale from 'Value' Lard?
Wiatrose have their own 'value' line called 'Essential', at one time including (I kid you not) 'Essential' Fillet Steak!
Goose Fat
Is the rich man's lard. Something to do with a high boiling point, which makes your fried stuff crisper. Also the rarely seen Jewish delicacy, Schmaltz, which is rendered chicken fat. If you want to deep fry your Matzo balls proper, you should use Schmaltz.
Schmaltz is most often used in Chopped Liver (Yum!)
A bit rich for frying (good for roast potatoes), but Matzo Meal is great for frying fish. There used to be a few fish restaurants in London that fried in Matzo Meal if you asked.
Two Brothers in Finchley used to fry in MM, also the Nautilus in Fortune Green NW6 (if it's still there).
An offshoot
I'm sure of 'Cigat Aficianado' and 'Wine Aficionado' both of which are catalogues of luxury goods thinly disguised as magazines, for the same sort of Top Gear watcher , I'm sure, who discusses with great authority the specs of the new Ferrari 450 without ever having seen one, let alone driven one, before driving home in his Astra.
(Has anyone spotted the running joke in 30 Rock about this sort of magazine? Every week Tracy Jordan is reading one, but with an ethnic bent. last week it was 'Black Yachts'.)
Reminiscent of the Eponymous Harry Enfield Character
reading 'Only Me' magazine LOLZ
I get a bit tired of the retreds of various guitar brands
in the monthlies.
Clearly Fender & Gibson pay a lot of money to keep their gear in the public eye, but the constant reworking of Strats, Teles and Les Pauls gets repetitive on a monthly basis.
The vintage magazines are similarly focussed to the 'holy grail' late 1950s Les Pauls and early Strats. I flick through on the newstands but rarely buy these magazines now.