haha i just got rung up out of nowhere by stephen dalt0n no less to confirm the tale of me and u2 and the nme and rattle and hum...
― mark s (mark s), Monday, 11 August 2003 13:44 (twenty-two years ago)
Please tell said tale. Or at least point us in the direction of a previous thread!
― Matt DC (Matt DC), Monday, 11 August 2003 13:50 (twenty-two years ago)
can anyone remember where it is outlined?
ned i did NOT embellish: *i DON'T NEED TO!!"
haha i told him the "butler" line though ,which he had not heard b4 (actually that's a good word to search ilm for possibly)
but not the n.barker "buttplug" improvement/variant
― mark s (mark s), Monday, 11 August 2003 13:58 (twenty-two years ago)
can't find the thread but i had this story saved somewhere on my computer! here it is:
Think I've told this story before (sorry to those who've heard it). At NME in 1988, as a known non-fan, I was commissioned to review _Rattle and Hum_ and gave it 4/10, declaring it (from memory) "the worst release by a major rock band in ten years". Handed in copy, went off to Berlin, chasing some total non-story about indie trademarkets in Europe(!). Looked at NME when it came out: R&H reviewed by Stuart Baillie, 8/10 (or thereabouts) plus the usual hip-hoorah stuff. When I came back to London, I stormed into the office — everyone in a meeting — so left a note on Danny Kelly's desk denouncing EVERYONE and EVERYTHING, and stormed back out.
Spent the next coupla weeks getting enjoyable props from various foax in the London media, as being the Last Principled Man in Rock etc etc (not to mention Nick Coleman at Time Out's comment: that I am a "designer eccentric"). Point being: this was considered a watershed moment, a signic turning point, etc, when the Great NME caves to mere record company whatever (or actually, much more to the point, to some lame focus-group judgment of the tastes of the median NME reader, as insisted on by IPC).
OK: complicating factors here, to demonstrate that I am as much a Manipulative Snake as a Bold Lonely Hero. I got given the review by outgoing reviews editor Alan Jackson — dull writer, lamentable taste, but *extremely* nice bloke, honest, straight-up blah blah — because he was pissed off and wanted to fuck with the system, and knew I was ditto, felt ditto. I wrote the review in order to *get it pulled*, then (more or less) absented myself in order to be able to Yell Scandal!! to the Very Rooftops. Did me no harm whatever (as per my gamble): in two/three years I had my own mag to edit (courtesy another angry NME refugee, Richard Cook), and a Rep that played.
Of course, R&H ¡!sUxOr¡!, which helps. I still get a wee buzz off seeing a great barren reach of second-hand copies in a U2 bin, anywhere in the world.
― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 11 August 2003 14:07 (twenty-two years ago)
mark s - d'you prefer any particular u2 record to the rest? or like any u2 record at all?
― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Monday, 11 August 2003 21:43 (twenty-two years ago)
probably the first one, where they still sound a bit like teardrop explodes
i haven't heard all of them
― mark s (mark s), Monday, 11 August 2003 21:49 (twenty-two years ago)