Photograph by Robert Trachtenberg for RollingStone.com.

Not only is Man Men a great show to watch but it’s look is getting infused into our style as well.

And yes there is a Mad Men Rolling Stone issue ofcourse, and it hits newsstands September 16 with a feature story on AMC’s hit. The feature goes behind the scenes of Mad Men and explains why the cast was chosen and why Mad Men is the best show on television right now.

The following is an excerpt of an article from the September 16, 2010 issue of Rolling Stone.

In the opening scene of the new season of Mad Men, an interviewer asks Draper, “Who is Don Draper?” Rather than confess the truth — that he’s a flimflam man who fabricated his whole identity from a dead Korean War officer and built his entire life on a lie en route to a Madison Avenue advertising career — Draper merely takes a drag on his cigarette. “I’m from the Midwest,” he says. “We were taught it’s not polite to talk about yourself.”

In a sense, Mad Men is Weiner’s attempt to figure out this question for himself. He has created an elaborate pageant of American fantasies — guys and dolls who look like they have it all, even when their private worlds are complete frauds. The advertising wizards of Mad Men swagger through the office, knock back cocktails, knock back lovers. They live out JFK-era America’s tawdriest dreams, almost as if it’s a professional code — to sell these dreams to America, they have to experience them from the inside, with all their inherent betrayal and manipulation. After three seasons on AMC, a basic-cable network previously known for endless reruns of second-rate movies, Mad Men established a hold on America’s fantasy life like no show since The Sopranos. “The big question the show is trying to answer through Don has to do with identity,” Weiner says. “Who am I? — It’s only the biggest theme in all of Western literature.”

To make it happen, Weiner assembled a cast he could relate to — veteran actors who had spent their careers toiling in relative obscurity. Jon Hamm, who plays Draper, had a few scenes in We Were Soldiers. January Jones, who plays his brittle and ethereal ex-wife, Betty, showed up in the thirdAmerican Pie movie as Stifler’s love interest. Christina Hendricks, who rules the offices of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce as Joan, appeared in a video for the Nineties rock band Everclear. Nobody wanted them. Today, everybody knows their names, everybody covets their careers, everybody wants to get next to them.

The entire article is available online via Rolling Stone’s premium subscription plan.

Check out our recent article on Mad Men barbies here.

The last issue of Rolling Stone took a bite out of the vampire crazy with the cast of True Blood.

The September cover of the new Rolling Stone features the cast of “True Blood” sans clothing and dripping in blood.  Cast mates Alexander Skarsgard, Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer are featured in the photospread, that hits stands tomorrow and is available online Friday to Rolling Stone’s premium subscription plan holders.

We have a sneak peak at this steamy article here:

The idea of celibate vampires is ridiculous, True Blood creator Alan Ball says. “To me, vampires are sex,” he says. “I don’t get a vampire story about abstinence. I’m 53. I don’t care about high school students. I find them irritating and uninformed.” On his show, every available orifice is used for intercourse: gay, straight, between humans and supernatural beings, and supernatural being on supernatural being, whether he be werewolf, dog or an enormous Minotaur-looking being called a maenad. None of the sex is quite as good as vampire sex, though, which can happen at the astonishing rhythm of 120 bpm while simultaneously devouring one’s neck and making your eyes roll back into your head. Says Stephen Moyer — who plays Bill Compton, the undead Southern Civil War Veteran — “If we go from a base level, vampires create a hole in the neck where there wasn’t one before. It’s a de-virginization — breaking the hymen, creating blood and then drinking the virginal blood. And there’s something sharp, the fang, which is probing and penetrating and moving into it. So that’s pretty sexy. I think that makes vampires attractive.” He laughs a little. “Plus, Robert Pattinson is just hot, right?”

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So, what do you think about this magazine cover?  Let us know your thoughts by commenting below.

Rolling Stone Italy-January 2009 issue.  Outtakes from the John Varvatos/Franz Ferdinand S/S 2009 ad campaign photo shoot appear on the cover and thru out this Franz Ferdinand feature story.

 The last page contains a piece written by the Editor in Chief, Carlo Antonelli about the Bowery store and campaign subjects.    See translation below.   

[Show as slideshow]

Rolling Stone January 09 English Translation for the above “Lo Stile e al CBGB” 

THE STYLE IS AT “CBGB” 

By Carlo Antonelli 

Perhaps some people can remain unmoved when they give the taxi driver an address like “315 Bowery”, but it made me tremble with excitement – this used to be the New York address of CBGB, which for a time was the venue for the best live music in the world. A lot has been written about its closure, in this paper, too, and many tears have been shed. Now it’s a John Varvatos boutique, and I must admit it’s beautiful, with its creased old flyers preserved like mosaic fragments on the walls and a small corner for vintage vinyls and selling guitar amplifiers, as if to soften the impact of the change on the memories that still ooze from these walls. 
When I meet Varvatos to quiz him about his recent collaboration with Franz Ferdinand (which couldn’t have gone more smoothly, everything cool, no problems, etc etc) I couldn’t resist asking him how he ended up there, trying to work out if in fact he’s the malign force that snuffed out this dinosaur of a club. “Oh no, eighteen months ago I was walking down Bowery and I found myself in front of 315, and I saw the “For Rent” sign. I couldn’t believe it. I took it like a shot. It had closed for a year, they were asking a too high rent for it. That’s why CBGB had shut its doors, they couldn’t keep up the payments (author’s note – now I realise he isn’t the one to blame. Let’s trust him). As far as possible I tried to keep the spirit of the place intact. Once a month we hold a free jam session that’s open to the public. It always attracts a load of people. In September we hosted the reunion of Jane’s Addiction. The other week Slash got up on stage”. 
The relationship between Varvatos and the music world is a real one. Maybe it’s because he was born in Detroit and lived through the early 1970s of the MC5, something that also shows that the presence of Iggy Pop among his testimonials isn’t exactly a one-off. There’s a long list, from Aerosmith’s Joe Perry to Slash himself with Velvet Revolver, and Alice Cooper. “I also wanted AC/DC”, says Varvatos, “I met them, but the tour didn’t leave them much time, they’re great, even though the two Anguses aren’t exactly male models”. But he did get Cheap Trick. “They’re icons, and they’re real fun”. No kidding, John…