RockScotland

Scottish reviews are few and far between in the UK media.

On the rare occasions that a Scottish gig is reviewed it's always the same old paragraph without any photos.

Kerrang! and Classic Rock have both lost their focus and seem to be full of nothing more than "indie-pop" now.

Classic Rock did attempt to review the Rock Radio Birthday gig back in January but Scott Rowley's sniggering schoolboy review didn't do anyone any favours and the accompanying photographs were amatuerish to say the least.

There are plenty of people North of the Border who can cover these gigs - but the magazines don't want to know.

evermore

evermore wrote:Scott Rowley's sniggering schoolboy review didn't do anyone any favours and the accompanying photographs were amateurish to say the least.

I'm sure that Classic Rock has lost a high percentage of subscribers since Rowley took over. Any schoolboy could have written a better review!

There were professional photographers covering the Rock Radio gig and plenty of good photos from the gig were on the Rock Radio website as well. I think that the photos for the Classic Rock review were taken by someone who worked for Rock Radio (not a professional photographer) and the magazine just took the cheapest route to getting some images.

evermore wrote:There are plenty of people North of the Border who can cover these gigs - but the magazines don't want to know

They don't want to spend any money and they know that there are plenty of starstruck wannabee journalists and photographers who will do stuff for nothing - that's why standard are so low, especially in photography!

Classic Rock and other mainstream magazines are still using the same old photographers like Ross Halfwit who had a few lucky shots back in the late 70's early 80's because he was in the right place at the right time - not because he was a good photographer.

megan

metal_meg wrote:

evermore wrote:There are plenty of people North of the Border who can cover these gigs - but the magazines don't want to know

They don't want to spend any money and they know that there are plenty of starstruck wannabee journalists and photographers who will do stuff for nothing - that's why standard are so low, especially in photography!

I was speaking to one of the few professional Glasgow music photographers at the recent Scorpions gig and he told me that the UK magazines are offering stupid money for gig shots - in the region of £15 per shot. When you take into account that the mags will usually only use 1 shot for a gig review then it's just not worth the photographers while to travel into Glasgow, hang about for the gig, go home spend a day editing the images and then get £15 at the end.

metal_meg wrote:Classic Rock and other mainstream magazines are still using the same old photographers like Ross Halfwit who had a few lucky shots back in the late 70's early 80's because he was in the right place at the right time - not because he was a good photographer.

Halfin just can't handle the new technology. It's already been reported elsewhere that he doesn't like digital and doesn't know how to deal with the post-production that digital demands. His day has long passed but Classic Rock seem to think that the readers appreciate seeing Halfin's name, when in reality they just want good gig shots - which they're not getting at the moment.

rockchick

You're lucky nowadays if any of the UK rock journalists venture anywhere other than the Hammersmith Odeon (or Apollo or whatever it's called now)!

Even the festivals only get a mention if the journos are given the full VIP treatment.