Dylan Jones
An aficionado of all things male and stylish, Dylan Jones has edited GQ magazine since 1999. Previously he had worked at Arena, The Observer and The Sunday Times. He has written a number of books including, iPod Therefore, I Am and Mr Jones’ Rules for the Modern Man.
Dylan Jones: 'I became obsessed with ‘Wichita Lineman’ – I even wrote about the song for this newspaper'
For years I thought I was the only person who liked Glen Campbell's "Wichita Lineman" (Capitol Records, 1968); in truth I thought I was the only person who had heard of it. The song was as much a part of my childhood as the other records my parents filled the house with, and along with Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Matt Monroe, Nina and Frederick and John Barry (whose "Vendetta" was my co-favourite song as a boy), the work of Campbell saturated my life.
Recently by Dylan Jones
Dylan Jones: 'Priceless moments in Jerry Weintraub's autobiography include the scene at Gracelands the day after Elvis died'
Saturday, 5 June 2010
There are many reasons to recommend Jerry Weintraub's autobiography (written with Rich Cohen), When I Stop Talking, You'll Know I'm Dead (published by Twelve). Stories about Sinatra. Stories about George Clooney and Brad Pitt (among many other things, Weintraub produced Ocean's Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen). Stories about George Bush.
Dylan Jones: 'I think I’m on safe ground when I say that I make the best potato salad in the world'
Saturday, 22 May 2010
I gave up on celebrity cook books a long time ago, probably around the time that former Bucks Fizz singer Cheryl Baker brought out 80 Nutritious and Calorie-counted Recipes (available still on Amazon – 41 used copies from £0.01). To be honest, just about the only celebrity recipe I've ever taken seriously is Randy Newman's "Primitive cheese sandwich". "Ingredients: three slices of English cheddar cheese, and two slices of white bread. Place cheese between bread slices, stacking carefully. I like to accompany the sandwich with a simple muscatel or, for a more formal luncheon, with a brisk shot or two of rye."
Dylan Jones: The Pearl & Dean theme tune became ironic decades before irony was commodified'
Saturday, 15 May 2010
The sound of the future has been imagined many times, so many times in fact that it always tends to sound the same. Through attrition, repetition, and – one suspects – laziness, the future always sounds accelerated, robotic, metallic and other-worldly. And not a little computer-generated. Which is obviously how we like it. Walter Carlos has imagined it (he wrote much of the incidental music for A Clockwork Orange), as have Giorgio Moroder and Tonto's Expanding Head Band. Neu did it, John Barry did it, and Kraftwerk have been at it for 40 years.
Dylan Jones: 'One of the sexiest things I’ve seen is David Bailey’s short film of his wife Catherine eating an egg'
Saturday, 8 May 2010
SHOWstudio.com is 10 years old this year, a decade in which the photographer Nick Knight's website has showcased a wild assortment of interviews, blogs, videos, photographs and all manner of fashion-related tricky-dickery. It was one of the first sites to broadcast live from catwalk shows and fashion shoots, and offer access to the previously closed world of high fashion. It was original, sometimes clever, and people liked it. Which is why it's hung around.
Dylan Jones: 'Last.fm has started dictating the soundtrack of my life'
Saturday, 1 May 2010
If the prefix du jour in the Eighties was "designer", and if the prefix du jour in the last decade was "luxury", then the current prefix with the most traction is "bespoke". Bespoke clothes. Bespoke music. Television. Holidays. Food. Books. Magazines. For many of us the world looks like a very different place to the one we knew only five years ago. And thanks to the joys of ABC (Automatic Bespoke Culture), it will look even more different in five minutes time.
Dylan Jones: 'Moss Hart leaves you in no doubt as to the motivation that propelled him out of his predicament'
Saturday, 24 April 2010
My all-time favourite novel – Tom Wolfe's episodic masterpiece, The Bonfire of the Vanities – is set in New York, as is my favourite work of non-fiction, the heavily fictionalised Ringolevio by Emmett Grogan, which starts in Manhattan and reaches a counter-cultural climax in San Francisco. So it was a surprise to me and my bookshelves when both books were recently joined by another classic New York text, the autobiography of the theatrical impresario Moss Hart, Act One.
Dylan Jones: 'Being too cool for school is no longer cool – it just makes you seem like an overgrown schoolkid'
Saturday, 17 April 2010
Everyone knows Todd Selby. Actually that's not true at all as only everyone in the industry knows Todd Selby. The magazine business, that is, the sharp end. Or at least the end that likes to think it's sharp, the end that wallows in the new and the oddball and the counter-intuitive and the annoyingly edgy.
Dylan Jones: 'While we like to think of ourselves as egalitarian, we still care about class very deeply'
Saturday, 10 April 2010
I like to think I am above filling out questionnaires in magazines and newspapers, but apparently I am not. Not at all. A few weeks ago I was idly working my way through the Sunday papers, when I came across the following quiz: "How posh are you?"
Dylan Jones: 'David Nicholls' book is the sort of thing you can't put down
Saturday, 3 April 2010
It is, as they say, something of a sleeper. In the past two weeks, six people I know have said they've just finished reading One Day by David Nicholls, a novel that has been on my bedside cabinet for the past three months, and which I have just finished myself. The premise is a simple but effective one: two students – the delightful Emma and the appalling Dexter – at Edinburgh University have a post-finals fling on 15 July 1988, and the book picks up their relationship every year for the following 20 years.
Dylan Jones: 'Ordering a cappuccino after dinner is fundamentally wrong'
Saturday, 27 March 2010
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