I believe this is the final issue of the Blues Magazine and they are going out in style with a Beano Album 50th anniversary special.
I know @Junior-Wells is a fan of the mag and he has kindly sent me his old issues from time to time.
This is a tough time for music mags and I believe this one lasted only 3 or 4 years.
http://i.imgur.com/cLvjtiV.jpg
—> This is issue 31, so it ran for just over 2 and a half years.
Wait – the Bluesbreakers lineup with Clapton made an album?. Why have we not been told about this before??
If true, it’s been a very well-kept secret
That’s a shame but then again I let my subscription go so I’m a part of the problem. As with the Conch my interest is old blues guys and blues rock from the classic period not some Ying boogie band from the north of England. I know that is what will keep the Blooz alive but I just can’t summon the interest. @alan-balfour may be interested too.
Btw Van is playing with Jeffrey Beck at the upcoming UK Bluesfest which I think is on at the Albert Hall.
Therein lies the problem, if they concentrate on the old stuff, they quickly run out of things to write about. And not many want to read about the new blues guys.
@Johnny Concheroo, actually, if the magazine had tried to concentrate on the less known bluesmen/women, instead of the same big guys that every average blues fan knows (and some no longer listen to), they have had a lot of names to count with and wouldn’t be done even today. @Junior Wells, I am in as well.
Any magazine editor will tell you the cover star is worth x thousand sales. It’s important to cover the up and coming artists, but sales are what keep the magazines afloat, so you need the big names on the front every month.
So is this why Mr. Hepworth put Dido (or was it Dodo?) on the cover of The Word…? 😉
As for the “cover star” – alternatively you could rely on subscriptions, which would result in better, more eye-pleasing magazine covers.
Yes, that did cross my mind. I think it was Ellen who remarked that the Dido issue remained “glued to the newsagents shelves”.
Years ago I spoke to Peter Doggett when he was editor of Record Collector mag. I asked why he was putting shit (my word) like Madonna on the cover a couple of times a year. Peter assured me that she was worth several thousand extra sales every issue from browsers who buy anything with her face on it.
I must point out this was in the 80s/90s, at the peak of Madge’s popularity.
Also, Madge is particularly collectable. It’s not just old white straight guys who collect records, you know!
(I know you know)
I know, my prejudices were/are showing.
Good to see you back, btw
Shortest Minibreak ever.
More of an Awayday
She’s back – damn that means I am still on the hook for that Dylan album review ,
“Why are we still talking about The Beano Album 50 years on? Cos it’s a f**king great album, that’s why” – Mike Vernon (producer)
I’ve never seen this picture before, obviously taken at the same photo session as the cover photo
http://i.imgur.com/iZW5kNy.jpg
The picture(s) on the cover of the 1967 LP Raw Blues are from the same Beano Album photo session, I reckon
http://i.imgur.com/nDr4nAc.jpg
they drag out some great and rare photos that mag….or at least they did.
I’ve got 2 I was going to send over to you Conch but maybe they are now collectable !!!
Hughie Flint looks like he’s off to do a spot of flashing on the common after the shoot…
Mayall: “fancy a drink after this, lads?”
Hughie: “No thanks, I’ve…er…got somewhere else to be… (thinks: cop a load of this, missus!!)”
And the guitarist is doing a convincing prototype version of Eric the Half a Bee
Thank you Harry Shapiro
http://i.imgur.com/524s6Uo.jpg
So, the Beano album kills the Blues. I always knew it was just a matter of time.
Ho ho.
Looking at that full length picture of drummer Hughie Flint (above) he looks more like a world weary French chanteur than a Manc blues boomer.
He’s now mutated into Ivor Cutler.
http://i1100.photobucket.com/albums/g401/mikethep/HughFlint5_zps84cufnau.jpg
With a touch of @beany thrown in
Steady now. I wouldn’t be seen dead in a beret. I have an impressive collection of Disney beany hats.
Where do you stand on parrots?
In the corner or the next room.
Don’t forget to put some newspaper down!
Which one? I have my shotgun ready.
I think you know which ones, Beany
Where did this “news” come from????????????
It’s not on their site “AS YET”
Can buy Issue 31 from them – BUT no word of it being the last – OR are you “self Beano Promo” for reissued LP???????????
It’s all over Twitter and their Facebook page. They haven’t confirmed it yet, which is why I said “I believe” it’s the last issue.
If the said they were fucked if I didn’t shell out, like Heppers and Ellen did when they were rattling the tin….I might have shelled out.
I amazes me that anyone still manages to publish a music magazine. I was always under the impression that even with a relatively expensive cover price, they were very dependant on advertising revenue. But it no one is buying any (or as many) records anymore, then that must have an impact. I saw for instance that recent UK number 1 album sold 10.000 or so on release ( the week it got to No 1 and a few hundred the week after. With this sort of economics I wouldn’t go going large on my advertising budget.
…..and there are just so many of them, especially if you factor in the recent ‘expanded’ specials on The Stones, The Beatles, Bowie etc. and ‘The History of Rock’ (starting in ’65….hmm) series.
Still hasn’t stopped Shindig! apparently going monthly from the next issue, although it might be in their best interests to go easy on the 10cc covers.
I was surprised to see Vintage Rock magazine still going and is now up to issue #24 (although it may not be monthly).
Its cut-off point seems to be the Beatles’ first album, so I guess it covers late 40s to early 60s. I’ve enjoyed their 50s LP/EP cover spreads and they often show vintage guitars, too. But there are only so many cover stars from the 50s.
http://i.imgur.com/6tby5PA.jpg
Never mind, we’ll always have this. That apostrophe is so disturbing though.
http://i.imgur.com/7VF7QmY.jpg
Reason for that comma.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Cattle_Dog
A blue heeler.
I know about the dogs, but still baffled by the apostrophe
Supposedly it’s the country belonging to the dog. Therefore Blue’s Country.
I just about get it now. But it’s a clumsy title at best.
not as clumsy as that joke of yours JC – still don’t get it.
Well, today I played the Ronettes single Be My Baby. On the B-Side is an instrumental jam titled Tedesco and Pitman named after two of Phil Spector’s favourite Wrecking Crew guitarists: Tommy Tedesco and Bill Pitman.
Whenever I see the title I always read it as Tesco and Pitman.
Tesco’s is the UK’s biggest supermarket chain and Pitman is a shorthand system.
I never said it was a very good joke
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i27fPOZr7-w
Didn’t David Hepworth once say 80/90% ‘Rolling Stone’ magazines are pulped in the U.S.?
That I can understand. Rolling Stone’s regular monthly mix of politics and Bruce Springsteen news has been unreadable for decades
I don’t remember that figure being quoted, but I remember him mentioning that Rolling Stone retail sales in the US are incredibly small, but that it may be because in the US most magazines of that type are sold via subscriptions.
Y’know, readers … (*tamps dottle from briar, gazes mistily through study window*) I remember when Rolling Stone was an absolutely visceral read. In the early seventies (when I discovered it) it was one of those magazines you devoured from cover to cover and actually bothered to save. Such ads as you noticed were mostly relevant to alternative (finger-waggle) society and music. It featured wriers such as Tom Wolfe and Hunter Thompson (Fear & Loathing remains the most memorable long-form piece of gonzo journalism I ever read), and it wasn’t afraid to run in-depth stories over several issues. Seeing this once-great magazine dimished by (firstly) a predictably shabby UK edition, and then a corporate move to New York, art paper and staples and the kind of advertising that makes you sick, was an indication that The Man had won. Jann Wenner was always a venal scumbag, but by accident he published the most influential and authoritative and flat-out exciting news-based magazine of its time. That time is long, long gone, along with any notion of alternative society and consequently hop for the future – which is what it was all about really. Magazines like RS made us believe that “we” could change what “they” had done; a lie, but a good one to live by.
Yeah – hop for the future. Whatever happened to that?
We want an edit facility and we want it COW.
Yeah some great writing and album reviews. I actually wrote a couple for the Aussie version -Mapfumo and Franco albums since you ask.
It’s high point was when the paper was folded over to half size.
Yes, quarter-fold I think it was called. I’ve still got some somewhere. I think the Aussie version started around issue #100, is that right?
cant remember -chucked out my copies a few years ago – with some regret.
Rolling Stone Australia was initially published in 1970 as a supplement in Revolution magazine published by Monash University student Phillip Frazer.
It was launched as a fully fledged magazine in 1972 by Frazer and is the longest surviving international edition of Rolling Stone.
Just to go off an a bit of a tangent… I think, JC, you might enjoy these people, The Hardchargers. Here’s a clip from a back yard festival I was at a couple of weeks ago, which I mentioned elsewhere round here. The frontman (who’s clearly based his whole look on Lowell George) barks and howls rather than sings but there’s something quite compelling of them, I think. I understand the Ginger Baker chap on the washboard is a frequent extra on the Game Of Thrones TV show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s17OIMN9qJc
Nice. I think I’d prefer them live than on record though.
The Lowell George wannabe is playing a Wilko Johnson signature Telecaster, the hefty bass player is working overtime and those Hughes & Kettner amps are the dog’s nuts.
I agree – the howling Charley Pattonisms would be a bit wearing, wouldn’t they? But strangely compelling live – they have a certain charisma I can’t explain – the first act on the bill on the backyard fest that made me give full attention.
Here’s two of them doing a sort of acoustic thing. I feel sure you’ll know what the guitar is…