| Author |
 Topic  |
|
|
wdf
Ha`aha`a
USA
1153 Posts |
 Posted - 08/21/2003 : 1:48:28 PM
|
I just read Russell Letson's piece in the latest Acoustic Guitar mag. It's on selling your CD using online stores.
Great work, Russell!
|
Dusty |
|
|
Admin
Pupule
USA
4551 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2003 : 2:40:53 PM
|
Hey,
I just read that last night and didn't notice that it was Russell's work. Great article! |
Andy |
 |
|
|
cpatch
Ahonui
USA
2187 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2003 : 2:58:08 PM
|
| Me too...WTG Russell! |
Craig
My goal is to be able to play as well as people think I can. |
|
|
|
Russell Letson
`Olu`olu
USA
504 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2003 : 7:09:34 PM
|
Thanks, all. There was a time (before TaroPatch.net was hatched) when I did several pieces a year for AG, but then they seemed to forget about me until these two pieces. I'm hoping that now I'm back on the list of remembered writers (even if every assignment means that much more time away from The Book).
|
|
|
|
Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 08/21/2003 : 8:50:08 PM
|
No, Russell. "DAKINE BOOK".
Teja Gerken and crowd are very capricious and driven by the bottom line, so, no way to figure out why they do what they do, unless you can examine their balance sheet and figure out, via telepathy, what they *really* wanted to do. (Which was probably: get a good lookin' blonde, with navel showing, in a full page advertisement. Not that I have anything against good looking blondes, you understand.)
But, good for you, anyway, brah.
...Reid (who is no longer an AG subscriber for obvious, and some not-so-obvious, reasons) |
|
|
|
Pauline Leland
`Olu`olu
USA
783 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2003 : 12:48:32 PM
|
Hi Russell,
Oops, I'm another who noticed the article and missed the byline. Congrats for being back in print.
Hi Reid,
I am confused by your slam of AG. That's not my impression of the magazine or the editors.
|
Pauline |
|
|
|
Reid
Ha`aha`a
Andorra
1526 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2003 : 8:53:21 PM
|
Well, Pauline, hang around a few years.
Notice how the features seem to coincide with the ads ( a really good example was the issue on classicals - those luthiers who were featured happened to place ads in the same issue) Notice how the reviews of guitars and equipment(pickups, etc.)happen to coincide with the major ads or with large companies that advertise regularly or supply free guitars and/or equipment to the reviewers. Of course, reviews are never blatant; they say mealy-mouthed things like "could have been more resonant" and, li' dat.
Then there is the superficiality. When Chet died, did they tell you anything that you did not know about Chet? In their overwhelming feature? Did you find out what Chet's life and influence on people and music were really like? Was it like a "New Yorker" profile? Because of my friends there, and here, who go to CAAS regularly, I happen to know more than a few things about Chet.
Why are articles so short? Do you have an attention span deficit? I could have written trenchant pieces about luthiers or artists that I know a lot about. They never do that.
Do you care what Beck plays? Why should he, or dozens of others, be reviewed in a publication that has the name "ACOUSTIC" guitar? Why do the dreaded singer/songwriters get so much play in the mag? Might it be because that was what was being released that month by the labels?
How about Robert Johnson's 29 (or whatever) songs? Did they tell you if he really met the Devil at the crossroads? Or whatever. THEY DID NOT. They merely parroted a few things that everybody already knows - black print covered white space to fill out columns.
Dear Pauline, compare what they write, and what they do, with what a real mag, like Atlantic Monthly, or Scientific American writes and behaves.
They are creatures of the industry.
Do you want me to explain more about my distaste of them? I can - chapter and verse. Or, is this enough?
...Reid |
|
|
|
Pauline Leland
`Olu`olu
USA
783 Posts |
Posted - 08/23/2003 : 10:10:38 PM
|
Aloha Reid,
I'll be darned if I know what goes on in their editorial offices, but I don't think they are for sale as you make them out to be. They may be willing, as almost all journalists are, to let stories come to them, so when a new model of whatever, or a new CD is released then the makers or the artists are far more willing to make the gadget/ themselves available, even push themselves forward, for reviews and interviews. Like the press hanging around the Whitehouse waiting for their official crumbs. I think the accusation of selling out was unearned.
Superficial? Well that of course is a matter of opinion. You would prefer fewer and deeper articles I guess, and you may have a valid point there. I don't know how the general readership would react.
Robert Johnson absolutely did sell his soul at the crossroads. He drove a hard bargain too, we lost on that deal, his soul was almost used up, hollow, by the time he died.
Your devil's advocate, sort of,
Pauline
PS - I don't read "The Atlantic", can't comment, but feel "Scientific American" has been drifting closer and closer to "Discover" in their coverage. Nothing is sacred.
PPS - You've mentioned Teja Gerken before. Did he personally disappoint you? There are so many other editors there. |
|
|
|
RJS
Ha`aha`a
1635 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2003 : 02:16:25 AM
|
Hey Pauline - I was just starting to understand the articles in Scientific American! Now you're telling me that they are dumbing down! This is the time I'm tempted to throw in a bunch of those icons!!!!!
Reid,
I share a lot of your feelings about AG. I think you articulated what was vague for me. However, reading is one of the ways that I keep my enthusiasm up through the down times. So.. I still get AG 'cause I haven't found anything better - and sometimes I do learn some thing from them - This year I bought 3 CD's so far that I wouldn't have otherwise - and I'm glad I did. (That said, fat chance they'll review mine CD.)
Also (warning: more than some of you want to know) AG's articles size and easy of reading fit in right well with my batroom habits.
Raymond
San JOse |
|
|
|
Russell Letson
`Olu`olu
USA
504 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2003 : 03:16:07 AM
|
I'll try to tread lightly here, but I have to say that while Reid's disappointment with AG's content is a matter of taste (and thus not really subject to argument), the implications about the magazine's editorial policies don't match my experience writing for it over a period of eleven years. I've never had an editor second-guess my opinions or meddle with my copy (except to sharpen and improve it) or suggest a slant on an artist or a product. As for ads coinciding with stories--that's what a good sales department does once they know what's coming up--and the lead time for major articles in AG has been around 6 months, so there's plenty of time to go drum up business after a piece is written. I seriously doubt that the sales department is affecting editorial content. (This topic comes up regularly on the AG web forum and gets addressed by the editors. A search of the archives there will turn up the threads.)
The magazine biz *is* a business, and a pretty unforgiving one--just about all I write is magazine copy, and you don't want to hear about what's been going on in that sector over the last few years. So publishers play to the demographic that will keep circulation (and thus ad rates) up. I too would love to see fewer twenty-something singer-songwriters and more old-fart traditionalists and guitar nerds, but if satire is what closes on Saturday night, then a too-narrowly-focused magazine is one that vanishes from the stands after six issues.
Some side notes--I believe that the Atlantic is not self-supporting but subsidized by its parent corporation. Omni was kept afloat as a prestige operation and supported by its the soft-core-porn sibling titles. AG actually makes money--and pays its writers. I could name two current acoustic/traditional-music magazines that don't, and one deceased mag that didn't.
|
|
|
|
Pauline Leland
`Olu`olu
USA
783 Posts |
Posted - 08/24/2003 : 11:04:19 AM
|
Hi Russell,
Thanks for the information. What you said about lead time makes far more sense than my speculation about PR handouts driving article choices.
|
Pauline |
|
|
|
Stacey
Lokahi
USA
169 Posts |
Posted - 08/30/2003 : 3:24:10 PM
|
| Right On, Russell! XLT Article!!! |
|
|
| |
Topic |
|
|
|
Topic Locked
