Bass Player Magazine RIP

[jezzaboy]

I used to buy Bass magazine but stopped getting it as I only knew 2 or 3 players that were in the mag. I recently bought the Guy Pratt edition. I only knew 2 or 3 of the players in it! This may be due to my taste in music of course. And I don`t think much of their reviews, lots of pictures and not much info about the product.

 

I might give the new mag a whirl when it appears.

[TheGreek]

3 hours ago, skankdelvar said:

It would seem from my good friend @NancyJohnson 's post above that the Bass Player crew have taken this rather badly. Were further confirmation needed I have been passed an unredacted copy of the BP FB post as originally drafted:

Bass Player Family

When we launched Bass Player almost 30 years ago we were motivated by a festering resentment at the way that guitards had three or four magazines for themselves but we bass players didn't merit more than a single page shoe-horned into the back of Guitar Player in among all the other bits of articles that started at the front then unaccountably broke off and continued after the classified ads in the weird way that we Americans lay out magazines unlike anyone else in the world because they do it wrong and we do it right, kinda like football is football and soccer is soccer.

We digress. BP was meant to show the world that bass players are the most important people in the band and not at all sulky passive-aggressives who can't get laid. And over the years, we've succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. No one ever laughs at bass players these days.

Now on the eve of our 30th anniversary we have been stabbed in the back by those treacherous sons of bïtches at the hedge fund. All you need to know about these guys is that only one of them plays a musical instrument and it's a PRS. What's worse is we've been sold to a bunch of effete limeys who sip their tea with their little finger  stuck out and curtsy to each other when they meet. Was it for this that thousands of our best young men crossed the Atlantic to join the 8th Air Force and save the Brits by raining death and destruction on Germany? All we have to say is 'Semper Fi'.

Could it get any worse? Turns out the upstart English magazine is in bed with those anti-American, Rickenbacker-hating dirtbags at the 'TalkBass rip-off website' BassChat. All you need to know is that the owners of BassChat wear bowler hats and say things like

Anyway, the murderous English redcoats who are taking us over will completely screw the pooch so please cancel your subscriptions now and protest this unwanted takeover by burning the Union Jack flag. We wish the new editor well but it will be a clusterf*ck of biblical proportions and in the end it's all down to Donald Trump and his fascist goons and nationalism. Make America Great Again? We think not.

Bass Player
 

...and they expect me to subscribe now...??The author of this can use his advert infested magazine as a suppository pill and go forth and multiply.

'God save the Queen, actually'.

Edited September 27, 2018 by TheGreek

[Misdee]

The standard of journalism and overall presentation in Bass Player Magazine in its heyday was in a different league from BGM. Sorry to say, but I can't escape the feeling that BGM is a thinly-veiled excuse for promoting the goods and services of its advertisers and sponsors. This robs it of objectivity and compromises its integrity.

[Cato]

I think there's a real problem that extends beyond specialist musical instrument magazines whereby the reviews of any consumer goods in any mainstream publication just don't seem honest any more.

You almost never see a product get slated these days, presumably because the publishers are worried about upsetting the advertisers.

Whereas if I come on a forum like BC and ask about an instrument I'm interested in, I'll get a fairly wide range of (often contradictory) opinions and experiences but at least if there is a potential issue with that product people here aren't too polite to mention it.

On the downside (as far as the site's owners are concerned) it's unlikey that Rickenbacker will be placing any adverts on BC in the near future...

Edited September 27, 2018 by Cato

[skankdelvar]

5 minutes ago, Cato said:

On the downside it's unlike that Rickenbacker will be placing any adverts on BC in the near future...

If someone at BC will slip me a few bob I'll write a florid puff-piece about RIC with a fawning pen portrait of utter flange respected industry figure John Hall thrown in. That should be bait enough for BC's ad sales people to dangle before the King of Torts.

Ker-ching!
 

Edited September 27, 2018 by skankdelvar

[silverfoxnik]

This thread - and Basschat generally - is a better read than BPM in my opinion, though I must admit, it's a long while since I last read a copy.

Hopefully, BGM taking BPM over will improve it.

[louisthebass]

It will be interesting to see how this all pans out. BP and BGM were good mags in the first few years of their initial existence until adverts took over, and the quality of some of the player interviews (imo) started to decline.

Stopped buying BGM regularly last year, and will only pick up a copy if there's something that might interest me...

[Bridgehouse]

Wait, there are magazines for bass players?

 

Who’dathunkit

[visog]

17 hours ago, silverfoxnik said:

This thread - and Basschat generally - is a better read than BPM in my opinion, though I must admit, it's a long while since I last read a copy.

Hopefully, BGM taking BPM over will improve it.

Oh come on! BGM wasn't that bad!

[Misdee]

I would definitely put more store in the opinions expressed on BC than those in BGM. Its a lot more interesting, too.

[arthurhenry]

Will the UK magazine now be called Bass Player? I have a subscription to the US mag, so I guess I'll still receive "Bass Player" even if It's still called "Bass Guitar Magazine" in the UK!

[arthurhenry]

On 27/09/2018 at 16:15, fretmeister said:

Surprising that Ed Friedland is being a bit twatty about it - unless of course he's just got the sack.

No appreciation of the brand? I rather imagine that the Future guys bought it because they liked the brand!

 

"For me, Bass Player has always been about the voices within. The contributors and editors shaped a new dialect, a way of communicating about the bass. Over the years, a culture was born, nurtured, cultivated, matured, established, and to a degree, institutionalized. The current owners have no sense of what they have, no appreciation for the brand. I’m sure the Bass Guitar crew will do the best they can with the limited resources made available to them, but for the most part... you can expect something very different. Better? Always a matter of opinion."

Ed's further reply:

Ed Friedland Sure, they appreciate it so much they cut the budget in half, gutted the staff (who ARE BP) and relegated it simply providing 20% of the content of another magazine. Cancelled the 30 year anniversary activity, BP Live....I suspect some people might call that “appreciation” but not me. Whatever. Enjoy the Future.

[Bridgehouse]

2 minutes ago, arthurhenry said:

Ed's further reply:

Ed Friedland Sure, they appreciate it so much they cut the budget in half, gutted the staff (who ARE BP) and relegated it simply providing 20% of the content of another magazine. Cancelled the 30 year anniversary activity, BP Live....I suspect some people might call that “appreciation” but not me. Whatever. Enjoy the Future.

But unlike the Murphy’s - he’s not bitter

[Rich]

14 hours ago, arthurhenry said:

Ed's further reply:

Ed Friedland Sure, they appreciate it so much they cut the budget in half, gutted the staff (who ARE BP) and relegated it simply providing 20% of the content of another magazine. Cancelled the 30 year anniversary activity, BP Live....I suspect some people might call that “appreciation” but not me. Whatever. Enjoy the Future.

 

[arthurhenry]

The fact that this topic is not permanently at the top of the "General discussion" page, with new comments added every few minutes is perhaps indicative of how the internet has diminished the significance of publications such as Bass Player. For me the magazine has been the authority on bass since 1990 and names such as Chris Jisi, Greg Olwell, Jonathan Herrera and Jim Roberts are almost as synonymous with bass as Jaco, Stanley and Victor. In its first couple of decades the depth and quality of its articles was unsurpassed. Instruments and amplifiers were taken apart and examined component for component in product reviews, Instructional content was lengthy and extremely detailed and artist interviews were deeply insightful. Despite economic downturn, the rise of the internet and out of touch publishers, which all took their toll on the quality BP was able to offer, a passionate core of staff and contributors meant the magazine maintained its superiority (in my opinion) over its various UK counterparts with their rather home-made, lightweight feel (subjective of course!) It is not actually "R.IP." for BP yet, as the title will continue; though seemingly it will just be a slightly different version of Bass Guitar Magazine. I'll keep my subscription for the next year and see how things turn out. Presumably I'll be sent BP from the US, when I could buy BGM from WHSmiths, but it will be interesting to see how they differ. 

[yorks5stringer]

Interesting how BPM could not continue in a market where there are many more Bass players than in the UK, yet BGM seems to  get by over here?  Both markets have the bass-centric internet sites as competition: with Talkbass over there and Basschat over here.

People complain about the adverts in both publications but the publishers would say they are a necessary evil?

[skankdelvar]

5 hours ago, yorks5stringer said:

Interesting how BPM could not continue in a market where there are many more Bass players than in the UK, yet BGM seems to  get by over here?  Both markets have the bass-centric internet sites as competition: with Talkbass over there and Basschat over here.

Good point, well made.

5 hours ago, yorks5stringer said:

People complain about the adverts in both publications but the publishers would say they are a necessary evil?

Without the ads the mag's cover price would be higher. How much higher would probably depend on the mag's internal economics or those of the mag's ownership group.

I think people are mostly OK with ads as long as they're tastefully executed, there aren't too many of them and they're spread out fairly evenly. Compacted blocks of nasty little quarter page B&W ads for string-winders and snake oil Learn-In-A-Day courses tend to pïss people off.

[NancyJohnson]

38 minutes ago, skankdelvar said:

I think people are mostly OK with ads as long as they're tastefully executed...

I'd be happier/less unhappy with the adverts if only there was a degree of content change month to month.  Nowt worse than flipping a page to see the same shot of Robert Trujillo gurning from a Warwick advert every edition.

[yorks5stringer]

Must admit I find the 2 page spread of a toothless septuagenarian in the Thomann ad quite off-putting.

[T-Bay]

51 minutes ago, skankdelvar said:

Good point, well made.

Without the ads the mag's cover price would be higher. How much higher would probably depend on the mag's internal economics or those of the mag's ownership group.

I think people are mostly OK with ads as long as they're tastefully executed, there aren't too many of them and they're spread out fairly evenly. Compacted blocks of nasty little quarter page B&W ads for string-winders and snake oil Learn-In-A-Day courses tend to pïss people off.

I have to admit to being the other way round, the big shiny ads are just annoying but the hilarious snake oil type ads you mention are worth a laugh if nothing else.

[Guest]

Does this not reflect how the industry has declined generally? It tracks with the shift from a lot of people making a living from music when BP was founded to the vast majority of people buying kit being casual/hobbyist now, and the general decline of recorded and mainstream music using instruments. Just as consumption of discussion about instruments has moved online, and making of music has shifted from large studios to one’s home studio (or home), so the requirement for hard-hitting, honest and divisive music instrument journalism has declined. Does BGM need to provide hard-hitting music journalism when, if you want to know something about a bass or amp, you merely have to ask here? 

[skankdelvar]

35 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

I'd be happier/less unhappy with the adverts if only there was a degree of content change month to month.  Nowt worse than flipping a page to see the same shot of Robert Trujillo gurning from a Warwick advert every edition.

Quite so. Advertisers with a long term presence should rotate their copy to avoid counter-productive overexposure. Some of them do, some of them don't.

[T-Bay]

25 minutes ago, FDC484950 said:

Does this not reflect how the industry has declined generally? It tracks with the shift from a lot of people making a living from music when BP was founded to the vast majority of people buying kit being casual/hobbyist now, and the general decline of recorded and mainstream music using instruments. Just as consumption of discussion about instruments has moved online, and making of music has shifted from large studios to one’s home studio (or home), so the requirement for hard-hitting, honest and divisive music instrument journalism has declined. Does BGM need to provide hard-hitting music journalism when, if you want to know something about a bass or amp, you merely have to ask here? 

There has also always been the inherent conflict of interests where the very people doing the reviews may be reliant on the advertising income from that supplier. I am sure some maintain a distance but the reality is that a very poor product is not likely to be genuinely reviewed if the revenue stream from advertising could be adversely affected.

[skankdelvar]

1 hour ago, T-Bay said:

There has also always been the inherent conflict of interests where the very people doing the reviews may be reliant on the advertising income from that supplier. I am sure some maintain a distance but the reality is that a very poor product is not likely to be genuinely reviewed if the revenue stream from advertising could be adversely affected.

I recall that circa 20 years ago the then new editor of US mag Guitar Player announced that he was instituting a policy of brutally honest reviewing. GP's judgement would be unsparing. And sure enough, the next issue contained a couple of reviews which administered a savage beating to the products concerned. 

As one might expect, all hell broke loose and manufacturers began to pull advertising. Poor old GP had walked up to the cliff edge and now found it very difficult to back away without looking like it was the plaything of vested interests. GP's next move was to continue to publish 'bad' reviews but allow the manufacturers a right to reply. This was walking back from the cliff edge into a swamp of disagreement, harsh words and bitter recrimination.

In the end they fudged a compromise whereby they would publish reviews of stuff which they thought was 'good' but send sub-standard products back to the manufacturer without reviewing them. In the end, the smoke cleared but the wounds remained raw for some years.

Frankly they'd have been better off following the standard model of reviewing duff gear in such a way as to very visibly damn with faint praise: 'The tuners worked adequately in normal use but big bends revealed some instability ... an instrument clearly built down to a price ... slightly uninspiring pick-ups ... good for slide or a spare guitar in an emergency'. Those competent to read between the lines could recognise the difference between 'So good I went out and bought one' and 'Ho-hum' and everyone was happy.

 

Edited September 30, 2018 by skankdelvar

[Barking Spiders]

On 27/09/2018 at 16:17, TheGreek said:

More importantly - Is there any info on whether "the magazine" (whatever it's name) will be putting on the LBGS next year? 

is that a festival celebrating different sexualities?