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Saturday, September 29, 2007

Long distance information

This week I found the latest issue of the magazine from The Official Elvis Presley Fan Club of Great Britain in the mail. And to be perfectly honest, there weren't many things in it that were news to me.

Why is that? Well, nowadays you can read about Elvis news the same day they are made public (and sometimes before that) on the Internet. To give you an example: I already knew three weeks ago that the new FTD-releases were to be "Girls! Girls! Girls!" and "Put Luck".

When I became a member of the fan club back in 1982, the magazine played a much more important role. It was my sole channel for information about what was happening in the Elvis community.

For example, in some of the first issues I received I learned that Graceland was to be open to the general public by August 1982. I also read a review of a book written by Albert Goldman that didn't seem worth buying and found out that the soundtrack from "This Is Elvis" was to be released as a double LP.

Now, 25 years later, it's a completely different matter. Nor does it help that the print in the magazine is so small I can barely make out the text, and that the fan club doesn't have its own site on the Internet.

So why am I still a member? Well, I think the number 25 is the answer to that one. How can I quit after so many years? I'm a sentimental fool.

One thing impresses me, though, and that's the amount of articles Anne E Nixon has written. No matter what issue I pull from the shelf, she's in it. In my book, that's worth a salute!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Thomas! I started subscribing to The Man And His Music last year, and I think it is a great Elvis magazine, thanks to the many in-depth reviews and interviews with people who knew Elvis and many musicians who worked with him, including more "obscure" people like Shane Keister or Tony Brown, just to name two of them. TMAHM still feels relevant, dispite the internet. On the other hand, I recently made the mistake of subscribing to the Swedish Tidskriften Elvis for a year, after a break of 20 years (!). Let me just say I won't repeat that mistake, it was more boring and useless than ever. But I really can recommend The Man And His Music.

Thomas said...

Hi Tomas, nice hearing from you. I recently tried a single issue of TMAHM and I agree, it's far superior to the magazine from the British fan club. For example, there was an interview with Billy Strange that I found very interesting. The fan club in England should learn from this. In their latest issue there was an article about the "Aloha From Hawaii" concert with absolutely nothing new in it. Also, they reviewed the FTD CD "An American Trilogy" about five months (!) after its release. That's way to late in my opinion.

Per said...

Hej Tomas och Thomas!
Ja, "TE" är verkligen ett sorgebarn, troligtvis den sämsta Elvistidningen i hela världen?