Guitar Magazines: RFD, C/D, S/D

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Kind of a subculture unto themselves.

― sundar subramanian, Monday, 3 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Actually subculture's probably the wrong word. A discursive approach? An aesthetic?

― sundar subramanian, Monday, 3 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't really read them any more. I used to read Guitar Player religiously back in the early 90s (protect me from all that nasty rave music) when it went through a weird stage of focusing on a lot of indie guitar heroes like Sonic Youth and Johnny Marr. Now the only gearhead type magazine I've found myself reading is, frighteningly, Sound On Sound.

But only cause it's the only thing there ever is to read in the bloody studio...

― kate, Monday, 3 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I stopped reading them sometime between the grunge and nu-metal - i.e., when rock artists stopped using guitars as things-in-themselves with possibilities and started using them strictly as signifiers. (Why would anyone buy a transcription that consisted solely of repeated open chords [grunge] or repeated downtuned rhythm figures [nu-metal]?) Plus the interviews got really boring about that time as well. ("I try not to show off, instead I try to play something to fit the song, that's what it's all about". Don't you belong in 'Folk Roots' then, not 'Monster Shredder Monthly'?) I do like to collect back issues from the 80s though. Amazing how all those hair-metallers talk about Aeolian modes, string-skipping arpeggios, and their roots in Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt, none of which made it onto their records or live shows. In fact, that was the big mystery for me early on - "Why do these guys talk about 7ths, 9ths and chord voicings so much, and all I hear them play is A and E root-fifths all the time?"

Also, the record reviews were priceless. 'Johny Hates Jazz aren't known for their guitar pyrotechnics, but there's a fantastic reverbed note (courtesy of A. Sessionman) that bends up a whole tone, then down again, at 3:06 of track 7. A few more tasty licks like that and the band could be rock contenders!"

― dave q, Monday, 3 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I had a subscription to Guitar Player from about '91-'94 I think. GP never really emphasised the pop metal thrashers too much while I was getting it (I think it's the first place I read about Ornette Coleman actually). Dave q is right on though; the idea of mixing this mode with that mode to make up thrash solo x (to say nothing of Winger and Firehouse and Mister Big) is so ridiculous given the harmonic constraints of the genre. I think the whole thing was just a marketing scheme to impress the young boys. All you need for your hair metal band is a singer that the girls can love, a guitar player the boys can love ("whoa, he said phrygian!"), a bassist that can hit the A string in rhythm (it'll be mixed so low you can't hear it anyway) and sing some backup vocals, and a drummer that doesn't mind playing along to a metronome. Can you imagine the sorts of people these magazines employed to actually transcribe all those Nuno Bettencourt solos? Yikes! I haven't looked at one of these in ages; what do they write about now? Are seven-string guitars the new Floyd Rose?

― Kris, Monday, 3 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Guitar Player has always remained decent, but they've really bent over backwards to collect the youth market, hence the in-depth articles on nu-metal crap.... But remember Mike Varney's scouting column? God, that guy was living in the 80's well into the late 90's, picking middle- American shredder dudes, who would pose with the Floyd Rose-equipped Charvel, hand stretched in an improbable fusion chord... It was so bad, and so out of touch... He was actually in The Nuns, too, which is just amazing to me.

― Andy, Monday, 3 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Mike Varney! wow... that's a blast from the past--when I was a wee teen, this A&R agent came 'round the guitarshop where a lot of us punkkids hung out and we had a talk about me being a leetle guitarkid for some label, six years later, around the time of the rebirth of R&B, I ran into the same guy, now looking for leetle ingeneues--the weird thing was that the first time I ran into him he represented Interscope and Shrapnel and stuff, and then six years later he was with Interscope and Arista... How could the same guy who was looking for the next Steve Vai be qualified to look for the next Erykah?

― Mickey Black Eyes, Monday, 3 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Mike Varney was in the Nuns?!? That scouting column was hilarious; there was always some dude who listed influences like Bach, Paganini, and Edward (always Edward) Van Halen. I doubt his mother calls him Edward!

― Kris, Monday, 3 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I never subscribed but I had teachers give them to me and I wasted time reading them in libraries and stores. I occasionally still look at one. Dave q and Kris are pretty spot on. Still, there does seem to be something a little worthwhile in the idea of a music press that tries to seriously approach pop music as music, that actually interviews musicians on the sounds they make.

It seemed almost like its own underground at times: there would be all these technical rock musicians you'd only know about if you read the magazines. The critical approach was a little curious - I remember at least one magazine would give records two ratings, one for its overall quality and one for its guitar technique.

The first time I heard about MBV was in Guitar Player I think. It was actually a great piece of rock writing -- it really made them sound incredible and revolutionary. Metal guitarists dazzle on the fretboard, it said, but dreampop guitarists are tired of the fretboard. It's been done to death over centuries. What you're hearing may be one note but it's a symphony in terms of overtone and texture. On a regular rock record, the vocal is on top of the mix. On a dreampop record the vocal is buried, like a painting with all sense of perspective distorted. Of course I was so rockist at the time that when I heard Siamese Dream I thought "Hey, maybe this is that dreampop stuff I was reading about."

I also found

I also found this article useful when researching Branca.

Oh, and if any guitar mag editors are looking for someone to help with transcribing Nuno Bettencourt or other solos, I have a music degree and would be more than happy to oblige. It's gotta beat phone surveys.

― sundar subramanian, Wednesday, 5 December 2001 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)