Old Music Mag Interviews - SO much better than nowadays

[xilddx]

I used to read Guitar Player and Musician magazines back in the '80s and '90s. I've lately been buying a few up on ebay from that period and reading old interviews with some of my favourite musicians.

One I just got was Guitar Player from Feb 83 containing interviews with Zappa and a young Steve Vai who was in Zappa's band at the time. What has struck me is the sheer depth, length and quality of the interviews (combined, the Zappa and Vai interviews would take up a whole issue of BGM), the columns are amazing, and the general attention to detail - proofing seems to be excellent. The interviews are just magical to read, incredible knowledge to be gained, and they are so inspirational. Comparing these old mags to the current BGM or GP and BP, they just eclipse modern music player journalism. I have learned SOOOOO much just from this issue!

I've just bought a bunch more and I can't wait to read them!




EDIT: I bet this will delight someone on here! Jaco cover Guitar Player 1984! [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Guitar-Player-Magazine-August-1984-Jaco-Pastorius-/400442764812?pt=Magazines&hash=item5d3c3fae0c"]http://www.ebay.co.u...=item5d3c3fae0c[/url]

Edited May 16, 2013 by xilddx

[skankdelvar]

You're right. The IV's were much better. Technique stuff's light years ahead of contemporary UK offerings. The nerdy detail is the only thing that's better these days, but that's all on the forums anyway. Used to love some of the columnists - Teisco Del Rey, Tommy Tedesco, Rik Emmet.

Remember when GP introduced the ' warts'n'all, no holds-barred' gear reviews? Slaggings galore, pissed-off mfrs and ads getting pulled. A very short-lived exercise involving mucho back-pedalling, u-turns and eggy faces. Since which events, no mag has ever dared follow suit and 'tell the truth'.
[color=#FFFFFF].[/color]

Edited May 16, 2013 by skankdelvar

[Bilbo]

Ex-GP subscriber here but no more. What about Musicians Only, a tabloid style music paper from the 1980s? Beat Instrumental Instrimentalwas another I read.

[tonyf]

In my teens in the late 80's and into the 90's, I used to love going into WHSmiths and buying Guitarist and Bass Player. In those pre-internet days, it was a real high point of the month. That thrill of something new to read, pictures and reviews of gear that caused a real lust fest. Interviews too. Mind blowingly informative at the time but I guess somewhat pretty pedestrian by today's online standards.

Nipping into the local music shop to pick up Making Music too. Free but always pretty informative and a real cross section of articles, ads and reviews. I guess part of it was also the ritual of "1) grab Making Music 2) browse the musician's wanted board and 3) mess about for the next four hours playing everything in the shop until 4) walking out not having spent a penny".

Happy days.

Did I tell you that I remember when all round here was green fields? You youngsters would never believe me.

T

[RhysP]

[quote name='Bilbo' timestamp='1368713794' post='2080553']
Ex-GP subscriber here but no more. What about Musicians Only, a tabloid style music paper from the 1980s? Beat Instrumental Instrimentalwas another I read.
[/quote]
Beat instrumental was really good, as was International Musician & Recording World.
I still have a few late 70's issues of these & they are several orders of magnitude better than the drivel contained in music mags these days. Most of the guitar magazines around at the moment are more like bloody Smash Hits than anything else.

[Wil]

The only time I ever really bought bass mags was in the 90s. Seem to be filled with nothing but ads and biased reviews these days, but forums are where it's at anyway.

I fondly remember reading an interview with the bassist from the Super Furry Animals in Bass Player, lamenting that he could never go into a music shop and order a set of ground-down roundwounds without the fear of subsequently being chased by a dog catcher.

[jezzaboy]

I have spent an absolute fortune on music mags since the early 80`s. Could have bought a pre CBS P bass with the money.

I must stick up for Guitar & Bass magazine here. Good interviews, vintage gear stories and decent reviews.

[Dave Vader]

[quote name='tonyf' timestamp='1368713920' post='2080557']
In my teens in the late 80's and into the 90's, I used to love going into WHSmiths and buying Guitarist and Bass Player. In those pre-internet days, it was a real high point of the month. That thrill of something new to read, pictures and reviews of gear that caused a real lust fest. Interviews too. Mind blowingly informative at the time but I guess somewhat pretty pedestrian by today's online standards.

Nipping into the local music shop to pick up Making Music too. Free but always pretty informative and a real cross section of articles, ads and reviews. I guess part of it was also the ritual of "1) grab Making Music 2) browse the musician's wanted board and 3) mess about for the next four hours playing everything in the shop until 4) walking out not having spent a penny".

Happy days.

Did I tell you that I remember when all round here was green fields? You youngsters would never believe me.

T
[/quote]

Yes, I used to love Making Music, I had a pile of them somewhere, but i think they all got thrown out in one of my many house moves.
Music and Equipment Mart also used to have a really great technique section too.

I still have a few old mags with tabs/transcriptions I wanted to keep, and a fair few with Rory Gallagher interviews as well, haven't read a guitar mag since the 90s though, the internet turned up and made them redundant.

Oh, that's not quite true, somebody bought me a copy of one last year as a jokey Xmas present, it was disappointing, I figured it was because I'm 20 years older now, but seemingly not.
You did used to get a note for note transcription of about 4 songs, plus the bass lines, and various other useful licks and riffs and technique bits though, dead handy.

[xilddx]

[quote name='skankdelvar' timestamp='1368712713' post='2080524']
You're right. The IV's were much better. Technique stuff's light years ahead of contemporary UK offerings. The nerdy detail is the only thing that's better these days, but that's all on the forums anyway. Used to love some of the columnists - Teisco Del Rey, Tommy Tedesco, Rik Emmet.

Remember when GP introduced the ' warts'n'all, no holds-barred' gear reviews? Slaggings galore, pissed-off mfrs and ads getting pulled. A very short-lived exercise involving mucho back-pedalling, u-turns and eggy faces. Since which events, no mag has ever dared follow suit and 'tell the truth'.
[color=#ffffff].[/color]
[/quote]

Tommy Tedesco's column 'Studio Log' was superb! He even said what he earned for the session What an amazing musician he was. I don't remember those reviews mate, I'd love to read some!

[xilddx]

[quote name='jezzaboy' timestamp='1368714506' post='2080570']
I have spent an absolute fortune on music mags since the early 80`s. Could have bought a pre CBS P bass with the money.

I must stick up for Guitar & Bass magazine here. Good interviews, vintage gear stories and decent reviews.
[/quote]

G&B is the best of all the UK mags by a mile.

[Dingus]

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1368709161' post='2080445']
I used to read Guitar Player and Musician magazines back in the '80s and '90s. I've lately been buying a few up on ebay from that period and reading old interviews with some of my favourite musicians.

One I just got was Guitar Player from Feb 83 containing interviews with Zappa and a young Steve Vai who was in Zappa's band at the time. What has struck me is the sheer depth, length and quality of the interviews (combined, the Zappa and Vai interviews would take up a whole issue of BGM), the columns are amazing, and the general attention to detail - proofing seems to be excellent. The interviews are just magical to read, incredible knowledge to be gained, and they are so inspirational. Comparing these old mags to the current BGM or GP and BP, they just eclipse modern music player journalism. I have learned SOOOOO much just from this issue!

I've just bought a bunch more and I can't wait to read them!




EDIT: I bet this will delight someone on here! Jaco cover Guitar Player 1984! [url="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Guitar-Player-Magazine-August-1984-Jaco-Pastorius-/400442764812?pt=Magazines&hash=item5d3c3fae0c"]http://www.ebay.co.u...=item5d3c3fae0c[/url]


[/quote]

Yes , yes , yes ! In the 1980's I used to get Guitar Player every month without fail and it was indeed written to a level that no magazines even aspire to nowadays . It was full of genuinely knowledge - expanding information and thought - provoking veiws , and I learnt [i]so much [/i]from reading it that I still think about today . And the adverts were a scintillating and sumptuous glimpse of a world of gear that I could only dream about at that time . I'm getting a bit emotional now . In the U.K we had International Musician And Recording World magazine , and that was pretty good too , as well as the gear pages in the back of Sounds , and that was probably the best all round music paper ever , in my opinion .

[steve-soar]

I have loads of Guitarist, Music UK, Making Music (nearly all of them, including the Mark King first issue and 1st anniversary Mark King issues).

Them's were da days.

[xilddx]

[quote name='Dingus' timestamp='1368716837' post='2080638']
Yes , yes , yes ! In the 1980's I used to get Guitar Player every month without fail and it was indeed written to a level that no magazines even aspire to nowadays . It was full of genuinely knowledge - expanding information and thought - provoking veiws , and I learnt [i]so much [/i]from reading it that I still think about today . And the adverts were a scintillating and sumptuous glimpse of a world of gear that I could only dream about at that time . I'm getting a bit emotional now . In the U.K we had International Musician And Recording World magazine , and that was pretty good too , as well as the gear pages in the back of Sounds , and that was probably the best all round music paper ever , in my opinion .
[/quote]

I got all emotional reading it the other night too. I got very excited

[Dingus]

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1368717085' post='2080642']
I got all emotional reading it the other night too. I got very excited
[/quote]

One thing about reading Guitar Player back in those days was it was full of musicians and references to music that I had never actually heard . I used to read Jeff Berlin's Bass And Beyond column for years before I ever heard a record with him on ( I know some out there might see that as a blessing ...) , and so many other players were similaly unknown . It's easy to forget that nowadays you can read about a player or a piece of music and get on Youtube and be watching and / or listening to things within thirty seconds . In those days unless you had the money to buy expensive import records you were often left to imagine what these people sounded like , unless they were session musicians who had played on chart records you had heard this side of the Atlantic .

[xilddx]

[quote name='Dingus' timestamp='1368717596' post='2080658']
One thing about reading Guitar Player back in those days was it was full of musicians and references to music that I had never actually heard . I used to read Jeff Berlin's Bass And Beyond column for years before I ever heard a record with him on ( I know some out there might see that as a blessing ...) , and so many other players were similaly unknown . It's easy to forget that nowadays you can read about a player or a piece of music and get on Youtube and be watching and / or listening to things within thirty seconds . In those days unless you had the money to buy expensive import records you were often left to imagine what these people sounded like , unless they were session musicians who had played on chart records you had heard this side of the Atlantic .
[/quote]

Exactly! I was learning little bits of Larry Coryell and Al Di Meola without knowing what the f*** it was supposed to sound like. That sort of thing gives you some personality in your playing, little nuggets of technique and phrases and chords that you learn from a page, and if you get excited by them you start expanding on them based on what pleases your ears, a note here, a space there ...

I got much more pleasure from reading GP the other night than most of the stuff I read on the web.

[Dave Vader]

[quote name='Dingus' timestamp='1368717596' post='2080658']
One thing about reading Guitar Player back in those days was it was full of musicians and references to music that I had never actually heard . I used to read Jeff Berlin's Bass And Beyond column for years before I ever heard a record with him on ( I know some out there might see that as a blessing ...) , and so many other players were similaly unknown . It's easy to forget that nowadays you can read about a player or a piece of music and get on Youtube and be watching and / or listening to things within thirty seconds . In those days unless you had the money to buy expensive import records you were often left to imagine what these people sounded like , unless they were session musicians who had played on chart records you had heard this side of the Atlantic .
[/quote]

I have been very disappointed with a lot of records as a result of this phenomenon.
Also I've liked stuff i expected to hate, so it's quite balanced.

Sadly, seeing the name of a band that reminds you of being 13, and you are convinced you were into sometimes leads you to buy records you otherwise wouldn't. Especially when it turns out you had never heard them and just read about them in a magazine and thought they sounded like the sort of thing you'd like.

Al Di Meola however, when I finally got my hands on his records, didn't really disappoint.
Unlike the later mags that came with CDs of the stuff that was transcribed in them, that meant I knew what it sounded like before I threw my fingers at it, and came up with something completely wrong, but utterly sublime, and therefore mine, and totally original. Once you knew what it should sound like, those experiments vanished.

[Dingus]

[quote name='xilddx' timestamp='1368718090' post='2080665']
Exactly! I was learning little bits of Larry Coryell and Al Di Meola without knowing what the f*** it was supposed to sound like. That sort of thing gives you some personality in your playing, little nuggets of technique and phrases and chords that you learn from a page, and if you get excited by them you start expanding on them based on what pleases your ears, a note here, a space there ...

I got much more pleasure from reading GP the other night than most of the stuff I read on the web.
[/quote]
[quote name='Dave Vader' timestamp='1368718390' post='2080670']
I have been very disappointed with a lot of records as a result of this phenomenon.
Also I've liked stuff i expected to hate, so it's quite balanced.

Sadly, seeing the name of a band that reminds you of being 13, and you are convinced you were into sometimes leads you to buy records you otherwise wouldn't. Especially when it turns out you had never heard them and just read about them in a magazine and thought they sounded like the sort of thing you'd like.

Al Di Meola however, when I finally got my hands on his records, didn't really disappoint.
Unlike the later mags that came with CDs of the stuff that was transcribed in them, that meant I knew what it sounded like before I threw my fingers at it, and came up with something completely wrong, but utterly sublime, and therefore mine, and totally original. Once you knew what it should sound like, those experiments vanished.

[/quote]

Whenever I pick up a bass , at some point I always play a little ditty which resulted from me trying to play the transcription of " Joe Frazier " by Jeff Berlin in the November 1983 issue of Guitar Player , despite having never heard it at the time . Needless to say , it bears so little resemblance to Jeff's version that I could put it out as a record and if Jeff sued me for copyright he wouldn't have a hope in hell of winning the case .

[Silvia Bluejay]

Haha, I still have a stack of Kerrang! and Raw magazines from the late 80s-early 90s, and they bring back all kinds of great memories, musical and otherwise. There are some articles in them that puzzle me now, because they are pervaded with a sexist attitude which should have been in the dustbin of history even by then - but we're talking about heavy metal, after all...
I don't think I could ever eBay those mags. With the mag came awesome, large posters too - and I've grown old with those bands, most of whom are only a little older than me

Edited May 16, 2013 by bluejay

[Dingus]

[quote name='bluejay' timestamp='1368721391' post='2080725']
Haha, I still have a stack of Kerrang! and Raw magazines from the late 80s-early 90s, and they bring back all kinds of great memories, musical and otherwise. There are some articles in them that puzzle me now, because they are pervaded with a sexist attitude which should have been in the dustbin of history even by then - but we're talking about heavy metal, after all...
I don't think I could ever eBay those mags. With the mag came awesome, large posters too - and I've grown old with those bands, most of whom are only a little older than me
[/quote]

I distinctly remember buying the first ever copy of Kerrang ! with Angus Young on the cover . You should have seen the looks local newsagents gave me when I asked if they had a a copy of Kerrang ! " A copy of what ? !!! " Quite an unusual name for a magazine if you have never heard of it before . Buying a copy of Busty Slags Bending Over magazine would have been far less embarassing , by comparison .

Edited May 16, 2013 by Dingus

[steve-bbb]

all this nostalgiarising has prompted me to dig these out of the cupboard for some bedtime reading (not the guitar book though - PM me if you want to make me an offer if youre into masochistic sight reading - i have the SV passion and warfare score too - sorry was from my cheese wire strumming days )



edit - whats the best mag for metal??

dont know ... but i do have issue number one of Kerrang somewhere too

Edited May 16, 2013 by steve-bbb

[kevin_lindsay]

The old Guitar Player magazines were fantastic. I recently bought the early 80's issue with Andy Summers on the cover. Really in depth.

[Cat Burrito]

We can blame the internet. These days it's much easier to find out information on our idols / celebrities. Growing up in a small town in the 80s magazines like Kerrang and Sounds really did offer a window into another world. These days it's all pretty much out there so interviewing is harder to get a scoop.

I'd add a healthy dose of nostalgia for staring at LP records for hours and knowing who the Sound Engineer on my favourite records actually was - even if I didn't know back then what that meant!

[Silvia Bluejay]

[quote name='BurritoBass' timestamp='1368725571' post='2080788']
We can blame the internet. These days it's much easier to find out information on our idols / celebrities. Growing up in a small town in the 80s magazines like Kerrang and Sounds really did offer a window into another world. These days it's all pretty much out there so interviewing is harder to get a scoop.
[/quote]

This. And also, possibly, the fact that our attention span is much shorter now that we are used to taking in so much information at the same time from so many different sources, and in-depth articles are probably - sigh - wasted on us

Edited May 16, 2013 by bluejay

[WalMan]

I ended up binning a load of International Musician (back to issue 1) and Beat Instrumental a couple of years back.

This last weekend I totwo BIG boxes full of Guitar Player & Guitarist mags round to my parents to be shredded/recycled for charity (they get p/kg for paper). They've not gone just yet so if anyone wants any, let me know.

Finally I have boxes of old BGM (plus the UK predecessor) & BP mags that are either going the same way, or to a secondhand mag trader in London if I can find the energy to sort out what I have there.

For all of them it seems criminal to just take them to the dump, so if a trader will buy yhem or it helps out a charityso much the better. I shall crack eventually as I could do with the house back!!

[RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE]

Good thread this . Back in the late '80s/early nineties I used to get Guitar for The Practicing musician. It always had columns by Randy Coven, Stu Hamm, and others.
I was just learning bass back then, and I used to get it for the tab.
Had a load of kerrangs till the early'90s . It was a handy mag for gig info before the Internet . Sounds was okay for a couple of years nwobhm.

Have all bassist mags(90s) in the loft. One issue rated the boss me8b quite highly , but the Bass whammy got a lukewarm review.
Got quite a few of the old bass player magazines from the 90s . They used to make big feature issues from time to time.( effects,5 strings etc.)
I thought tat they overdid it on the 5string thing tho'. They made it sound so daunting.