THE ELECTRIC GUITAR is, without question, music’s single most iconic artefact. Ergo, the people that have mastered the art of playing it whilst exuding an indefinable sense of cool (that, alas, excludes you Brian May, and indeed you Bloke From Kaiser Chiefs), will forever be rock’n’roll’s most celebrated practitioners.
Knowing this, we here at Q decided to devote almost the entire new issue of the magazine to Guitar Heroes. That choice made, there was then but the small matter of determining how best to do so, and in a way that made the whole enterprise feel just that little bit extra special. Weeks of careful thought later (or, if we’re being entirely accurate, one hour-long brainstorming session), a cunning plan emerged: a big fold-out cover, that would feature eight very fine guitarists, each cradling their instrument. So to speak.
This is the sort of thing that puts a smile on my face. But then I am not the poor sap, or saps, charged with the onerous responsibility of bringing it together. No, that task falls to our Deputy Editor Gareth Grundy and Features Editor, Dave Everley. Doughty, if brow-beaten, men both, they are more than used to battling through such things – which may explain their forever wan complexions and hangdog expressions – and eminently capable of pulling them off. Such was the case this time around.
Hence, glowering and/or gurning out from the extended cover of Q254 you will find – from the left – Edge, Jack White, Jimmy Page, Johnny Marr, Slash, Matt Bellamy, Dave Grohl and Joe Perry. Each, too, is exclusively interviewed inside the issue and, alongside other noted plank-spankers, each helps to pick the 20 Greatest Guitar Tracks Ever.
We’re somewhat chuffed with how ‘proper’ the whole thing looks and feels, and rather hope you feel the same way too. Such ‘event issues’ (as we, and no one else, is wont to call them) take much, much longer than normal issues to compile.
Rather than simply calling the PR and/or manager of one major band or artist, and negotiating interview and photo time, points of access, a cover date, and other such minutiae to mutual satisfaction (which, in and of itself, can be a process as painfully laborious as removing one’s own toenails with pliers), ‘event issues’ take months and months of delicate negotiations – and, too, a surfeit of shouting, screaming, and weeping in the corners of dark rooms – before they slip, always agonisingly, into place.
This one talk four months of work. Long enough, but a mere walk around the park compared to the 18 months that went into Q’s 20th anniversary extravaganza last year. That issue left Herr Grundy looking like one of the survivors you see emerging, blinking and bamboozled, from disaster sites; their skin flayed, tentacles of smoke rising from their hair, their desperate eyes having stared horror in the face, and knowing, with absolute certainty, that they will never, ever forget what they saw there.
So, we hope you derive all manner of pleasures from this issue, we really do. And when, as will no doubt happen as surely as night following day, someone writes in to moan, “How could you possibly leave Eric Clapton/Keith Richards/Jimi Hendrix/Delete As Applicable off the cover?”, believe us, it won’t have been for the want of trying. Or they were dead.
Enjoy. Please…
Paul Rees – Editor
10:28 AM | 01/08/2007
Latest News
-
New Q editor appointed
Andrew Harrison takes over as Paul Rees departs
-
Column - Who are Noel Gallagher's psychedelic friends, Amorphous Androgynous?
With the first track from Noel's second solo album set to make its debut as a B-side next month, Jamie Skey profiles his cosmic collaborators
-
Q&a Lambchop - New album Mr M, Madonna, Vic Chesnutt, his 'fascination' with Taylor Swift & more
Plus Kurt Wagner on his "Lampchop has one more good record in us" comments...
-
Watch new Black Keys video, listen to Jack White's latest solo track, Nile Rodgers making album with Daft Punk, Plan B returns... Daily Hot List
A round-up of all the news, views, interviews and cool music things online today (8 Feb)
-
Column - The best masks in music not starring Slipknot, Daft Punk, SBTRK, GWAR and more...
What have this lot got to hide? Jamie Skey rounds up music's answers to the Lone Ranger...
-
M.I.A. may have to pay Super Bowl finger fine, Madonna announces world tour, Metallica planning surprise, Liam 'misses' Oasis, Interpol solo album... Daily Hot List
A round-up of all the news, views, interviews and cool music things online today (7 Feb)
Advertisement
User Comments
Post A Comment
Post A Comment