Columns as Pillars BY SHAWN HAMMOND
I’m a firm believer that one of the main things that sets
Premier Guitar apart from other
guitar-media outlets is the
fact that we seek out the most
knowledgeable, experienced,
and engaging people in this
business to unabashedly dive as
deep as you (and they) want to
go on anything and everything
guitar-related under the sun.
Sure, we bring you timely
interviews with past masters
and new trailblazers alike—
Exhibits A, B, and C this
month are our chats with
Warren Haynes (p. 99), the
Raveonettes’ Sune Rose Wagner
and Sharin Foo (p. 80), and
Collective Soul’s Joel Kosche
(p. 144). And, yes, we’re known
as the best in the industry
when it comes to bringing
you the latest gear reviews and
news. You don’t need proof, but
I’ll say it anyway: Between our
monthly print and weekly web-exclusive reviews, every month
we bring you more insights
on gear from knowledgeable
reviewers than any other guitar
mag out there—and often our
reviews come out before the
competition has even listed the
press release announcing the
product’s release.
Likewise, our builder profiles highlight pedal and amp
geniuses, as well as amazing
acoustic, electric, and bass
luthiers that many of you
would never hear of otherwise. And don’t even get
me started on this month’s
Musikmesse wrap (p. 112)!
Though it nearly killed PG’s
gear editor, Charles Saufley,
and me to take eight working
days out of our already short
monthly production schedule, we recently journeyed to
Frankfurt, Germany, to shoot
scads of kick-ass demo videos
on the coolest gear from the
world’s biggest gear show.
Charlie and I then hauled our
HD booty back stateside and
turned it over to our resident
video guru, associate editor
Chris Kies, so that the three of
us could engage in some major
sleep deprivation in order to
both start the steady stream of
video uploads on premiergui-
tar.com and get the show highlights into the very next print
issue (this one). Look for the
other guys to get their coverage to you significantly later.
As a side note, I must men-
talking about the nuts-and-
bolts stuff guitar addicts talk
and dream about 24/7. Bob
Taylor, Jol Dantzig, Tom
Hughes, Ervin Somogyi,
Mitch Gallagher, Jeff Huss
and Mark Dalton, Blue Book
writer Zach Fjestad, and Dirk
Wacker are just a few of the
world-class authorities we’ve
had engaging in the most
self-indulgent and delightfully
decadent guitar geekery on the
planet. Combined with the
other coverage bragged about
We’re stoked to have a veritable
who’s-who of industry heavy-
weights in our pages talking
about the nuts-and-bolts
stuff guitar addicts talk and
dream about 24/7.
tion that we saw more video
cameras at Musikmesse than
we’ve seen at any trade show
before. But Premier Guitar
remains the ONLY media outlet I’ve seen that goes to the
painstaking effort to professionally mic guitar cabs with
the industry-standard Shure
SM57—and take DI outs from
bass amps—so that our vids
have the best audio quality
on the showroom floor. Some
outlets get their videos online
faster, but no one else makes
their vids as engaging as we do
through accurate sound capture
and thoughtful questioning.
That’s why guitar freaks are still
watching our gear-show videos
years later when the fast-upload
guys’ are long forgotten.
But back to my original
point about PG columns.
We’re stoked to have a veri-
table who’s-who of industry
heavyweights in our pages
founder/brainiac engineer Terry
Burton (State of the Stomp, p.
46). And bringing a new take
to our monthly explorations on
guitar design is Randy Parsons
(The Dark Side, p. 44)—the
subject of one of PG’s most
compelling 2010 builder pro-
files [August 2010]. We extend
our heartiest welcome to these
pros and hope you enjoy their
entertaining and insightful
debuts this month.
above, it’s what makes Premier
Guitar the most forward-thinking, fastest-rising guitar-media outlet in history. And
that’s no exaggeration.
To all those who’ve contributed their vast expertise,
as well as those who continue
to do so, we express our heartfelt thanks. We know how
much you have to wring your
brain to come up with engaging stuff to write about every
month, and we truly couldn’t
be PG without you.
This month, we’re thrilled
to announce we’re bringing
more exciting voices to our
column section. First up, we’ve
got Hellecasters jaw-dropper
Will Ray telling you how he
hunts down quirky guitar gear
online and then upgrades it to
meet his needs (Bottom Feeder,
p. 56). Bringing one of several
new voices to our expanded discussions on pedals is Strymon
Later!
Shawn Hammond
shawn@premierguitar.com
