Hard News: Rockin' the Casbah?
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He was about a million times better at talking about the DJs and performers than I was (I could never sound "down wit teh kidz" like he could), so I stuck to the love and peace and be nice humans angle in all my publicity. He was a hard act to follow!
I saw him DJ with the whiteboard in Nelson -- he'd write up the name and artist of the tune he had playing at the time. Great low-tech idea.
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And if there was a pic of Debbie Harry in that week's copy he'd buy two - one for cutting the picture out and sticking it on his wall, and the other to iron and keep in pristine condition.
Wait. But he wasn't at all concerned about running an iron over her?
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There sure ain't a shortage of bad music writers...Simon Sweetman anyone?
I've got a dollar for anyone who can tell me what qualifies him to 'write' about music...I think he worked in a music shop at some point, in which case, colour him qualified!
Ooo harsh. I think he's a drummer too who has played in a number of covers bands. That probably qualifies him as well. I stopped buying music mags when No Depression ceased to exist as a print publication. It's now online. The Oxford American is a good read too if you can get it.
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Ooo harsh. I think he's a drummer too who has played in a number of covers bands.
Perhaps he should have stuck to that ...
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Wait. But he wasn't at all concerned about running an iron over her?
I seem to remember he used to place a sheet of brown paper between the iron and the NME (to stop the paper scorching and to protect the iron from the NME's infamous unstable ink), so I guess he figured she was protected by the brown paper - and having a flat and pristine NME was more important than not-ironing-Debbie. :)
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I've got a dollar for anyone who can tell me what qualifies him to 'write' about music...I think he worked in a music shop at some point, in which case, colour him qualified!
Nothing qualifies you but your ears and your writing. In fact the idea of having to qualify to write is a bit shit.Send me a dollar now.
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I think, perhaps, that rock'n'roll is dead. I miss it, but it's dead.
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Speaking of cheap-but-sorta-funny shots in music reviews, I believe Pitchfork reviewed a Jet album by posting a YouTube clip of a monkey masturbating.
Not masturbating, but certainly having fun with his genitals.
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Nothing qualifies you but your ears and your writing.
Quite right. The blessing of not having robbery around the place now is that I don't have anyone telling me I'm not "qualified" to express an opinion because I don't run a non-profit record label or something.
But I'd have to say Sweetman fails both on the quality of his writing and the quality of his ideas. The time when he pasted in an old (and rather poor) column he'd written about Shihad to make some sort of point about NZ Music Month was a low point.
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A lot of what's being discussed here is rock writing, but what about pop writing?
The Australian edition of Smash Hits and the local RTR Countdown magazine (deputy ed Finlay MacDonald!) were far more influential on my writing than the boring old NME ever was.
Smash Hits was founded by Nick Logan, a former editor of the NME and during its golden era in the late '80s, it was filled with such a playful, subversive spirit. It worked because it had the right balance of scorn and reverence toward pop stars.
Is that kind of writing still around? I dunno - I feel like I'm too old to care about most contemporary pop but I still like that kind of lively writing on any subject.
(That's enough - ed.)
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Not masturbating, but certainly having fun with his genitals.
I don't know if there's an anatomically-correct equivalent for the ladyze, but if you shake it more than twice you're wanking. As for the other, that monkey has a long and profitable career ahead of him in a rather icky niche of the adult entertainment industry. (Don't ask -- it was the 90's, I was young, permanently pissed and not so popular I could be that picky about my social life.)
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the local RTR Countdown magazine (deputy ed Finlay MacDonald!)
I think you'll find that deputy ed was Steve Braunias.
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But I'd have to say Sweetman fails both on the quality of his writing and the quality of his ideas. The time when he pasted in an old (and rather poor) column he'd written about Shihad to make some sort of point about NZ Music Month was a low point.
He's also the kind of critic whose theme song should be 'I Hate Myself And Want To Die'. If you're that jaded, why the hell are you bothering? At least if you're going to be permanently in bitch mode, be entertainingly bitchy.
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If you want to clear those jammy pipes, Metal Machine Music is cheaper and more effective than P in a bottle.
Is the consensus that MMM was nothing more than a joke? Or was he serious?
And has anyone listened to the whole thing? I see Lou Reed himself only included 1 minute of it on his retrospective. -
The time when he pasted in an old (and rather poor) column he'd written about Shihad to make some sort of point about NZ Music Month was a low point.
What was the point he was making?
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Donny and Marie Osmond. It was the theme song to their show.
I feel old.Gaaawd. Around 1978 there was even a Donny & Marie doll house, complete with hand-operated elevator - and separate bedrooms, natch. As Wayne (now Jayne) County once said of D & M: "I know they don't really sleep together, but in my mind they'll always sleep together."
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What was the point he was making?
You tell me and we'll both know -- though I think it was something along the lines of 'everything and everyone (but me) sucks like a porn star with OCD'.
Is the consensus that MMM was nothing more than a joke? Or was he serious?
I think it was a private joke, and Reed was so farked up on drugs at the time even he forgot the punchline.
And has anyone listened to the whole thing?
Twice -- it canceled out the migraine a treat.
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Is the consensus that MMM was nothing more than a joke? Or was he serious?
from Wikipedia:
As a radical departure from the rest of Reed's catalog, Metal Machine Music is generally considered to be either a joke, a grudging fulfillment of a contractual obligation, or an early example of noise music. Reed himself has said of the album "I was serious about it. I was also really, really stoned." In the album's liner notes he claimed to have invented heavy metal music and asserted that Metal Machine Music was the ultimate conclusion of that genre.
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Around 1978 there was even a Donny & Marie doll house, complete with hand-operated elevator
I am now experiencing a deep, primal desire for something I didn't even know I was missing. (There must be a German word for that.)
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Funny thing is that after the Dead C, Merzbow, Non, the noisier end of Sonic Youth, etc, MMM doesn't sound like such a big deal or such a bad thing. I doubt it was really a joke -- any more than LaMonte Young and Tony Conrad's drone music a decade earlier was a joke (which it wasn't). I've often wondered whether MMM was Lou Reed's way of saying that the experimental side of the Velvet Underground was his input -- not just John Cale's, which most would have guessed. Much like McCartney wanting credit for being experimental in the Beatles.
Re rock critics: Lou Reed had his classic put-down: "Lester Bangs is fat and he's got a moustache. I wouldn't shit in Lester's nose."
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I quite like the writing in Un-Cut, but my main source of music writing is Pitchfork. They do some great long form reviews of re-releases and Greatest Hits collections.
here is a good piece on Radiohead re-issues;
Their TV section is also great, but quite often doesn't load properly on my connection.
People do seem to like to bag Pitchfork for being elitist, snobby, driven by fashion etc, but I think they do a great job.
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I quite like the writing in Un-Cut, but my main source of music writing is Pitchfork.
I'd also rate The Quietus as a web-only music magazine. They do a good "In defence of" column. Never thought I'd see someone try to mount a defence of Paul McCartney and Wings.
In terms of print, Decibel covers metal but also goes a little broader and can be a good read. The Wire, too, in a good month. They can do archival stuff without it being Mojo or Q-like grave-robbing: with Mojo, you seem to get Pink Floyd on the cover every third month. And Nick Drake and Syd Barrett solo on the other two.
Speaking of metal, I also think Scott Kara should get credit for getting intelligent metal reviews into the NZ Herald. I doubt anyone managed that before.
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the local RTR Countdown magazine (deputy ed Finlay MacDonald!)
I think you'll find that deputy ed was Steve Braunias.
Oh God, I was only 12!
I remember Gary Steel was the editor and Finlay was on staff - to the point where there was a hilarious photo of him published in one issue which my friend and I thought was hilarious.
I'd love to get hold of some of those issues (digitise!).
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I agree with Jeremy. In fact the idea that anyone should 'qualify' to write about music simply because they have worked in the industry in some capacity is just as ridiculous. Good writers and/or journalists aren't like method actors, they shouldn't need to have lived what they write. Of course, this doesn't mean they should have no idea of the process or industry they're writing about when it's relevant.
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