We’re in a recession. You may have heard. So when my parent company Future US announced that it would be launching a new magazine, I was surprised. When I found out it was a guitar magazine, I did a double-take.
It’s called Guitar Aficianado. Think guitars as investment, as art, as a high-end lifestyle. I buy most of my guitars used; this is for the guy who buys his guitars not only new from the factory but custom-made. I have seen these guys in Gryphon Stringed Instruments, which caters to the Google and Silicon Valley crowd in Palo Alto. I bought one of my (used) guitars there. Their table scraps are awesome.
This is a risky time to launch a magazine, of course, but reading the website, they are going with a limited circulation of 100,000 and it’s only publishing quarterly, which makes a lot of sense for something this targeted. That means it won’t be in Guitar Center but it will be be in bookstores and private guitar shops. So those guys that would likely drive up to Gryphon in their Porsches and Lexii would certainly take home a copy of this. There is always going to be an affluent demographic — the wine taster, the world traveler, the executive who likes to indulge a passion hobby. If 401k is what your guitar collection is worth, Guitar Aficianado is for you.
I hope I get to write for it. I totally want to write a story about the Moderne.