Inky Fingers: The NME Story

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/documentaries/features/nme.shtml

this should really be a 12-part series.

― N_RQ, Monday, 4 July 2005 14:57 (twenty years ago)

I keep singing the title to "Stinky Britches" from South Park

"Inky fingers, I got inky fingers..."

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 4 July 2005 15:02 (twenty years ago)

Over here on ILM inky fingers : the story of the NME (bbc 4, 04. 07. 05)

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Monday, 4 July 2005 15:05 (twenty years ago)

I agree. It should be in a kind of "big brother" format as well. Instead of the "big brother house", the 12 contestants - ex name mne writers all, should be locked in a smelly indie toilet venue, & should be forced to write positive reviews of bands who play there, bands drawn from the past history of nme shit hype. week 1, "camden lurch" - Gallon Drunk supported by Doghunch, week 2 "nwonw" - s.m.a.s.h. supported by these animal meh. er men. week 3 - "~~skank~~skunk rock - lo fi all stars supported by argh too horrible to contemplate, that one. And so on. Every week a contestant will be voted out based on how poorly they write these reviews - ie wether they manage to disguise the fact that the singer from the band is a fellow writer, or someone they went to uni w/. Also, a timed test on how quickly they can write the "readers" letters page, and er some other stuff.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Monday, 4 July 2005 15:06 (twenty years ago)

"The New Musical Express defined British pop music in the 1970s, 80s and 90s"

haha i like how they stop it at the 90s.

― emsk, Monday, 4 July 2005 15:37 (twenty years ago)

pash u hata!

bb-wise i am the legendary hamburglar-qesque silverback alpha male sandy

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 4 July 2005 15:37 (twenty years ago)

ie giving rattle and hum a bad review which they will have to spike = pissing in the kitchen bin on-camera

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 4 July 2005 15:40 (twenty years ago)

You could do the voiceover, Mark!

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Monday, 4 July 2005 15:42 (twenty years ago)

Britney Spears getting to number one.

"America was clearly top nation, and so british music history came to a ."

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 4 July 2005 15:43 (twenty years ago)

(hah, that was a xpost, and I'm fairly certain Norm did not mean me)

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 4 July 2005 15:44 (twenty years ago)

Maybe you too!

Pehaps (pertaing to yr ilm thread that i was horrible on, sorry!) one of the contestants could be x moore, and they could make him review the redskins! hang on, er...

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Monday, 4 July 2005 15:48 (twenty years ago)

This is all infinitely funnier than I anticipate the programme will no doubt be. Shame.

― Steve Sutherland's shiny Oasis-loving head, Monday, 4 July 2005 16:39 (twenty years ago)

is this going to feature the 'hip hop wars'?

i'm not a betting man, but tonight i'm feeling lucky.

― N_rq, Monday, 4 July 2005 17:58 (twenty years ago)

the Hip Hop Wars did get a mention, yes. as did The Punk Wars and The T'Pau Wars.

― koogs (koogs), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 07:22 (twenty years ago)

aren't channel 4 running a similar program?

― c/n (Cozen), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 07:29 (twenty years ago)

it needed to be more like 'the world at war'.

― N_RQ, Tuesday, 5 July 2005 07:35 (twenty years ago)

What, 27 episodes?

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 07:35 (twenty years ago)

'nick kent: a warning from history'

― N_RQ, Tuesday, 5 July 2005 07:40 (twenty years ago)

"Ian Pye: I Had First Refusal On Simon Reynolds But He Was Insufficiently Committed To Red Wedge" shock horror youth cult probe

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 07:43 (twenty years ago)

hahaha!

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 07:43 (twenty years ago)

i wz laffin at nrq's nick kent gag but marcello's x-post is as funny

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 07:56 (twenty years ago)

Sadly the Michael Winner years have been airbrushed out of NME history too. I suspect there's another interesting story waiting to be told about the NME and that period of British pop culture.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:07 (twenty years ago)

it was quite oddly structured. it started with a bit about the nme's decline in the late sixties, then had CSM and kent coming over from the u/g press... then flashed back to the mid-sixties again. the 'reunion' in the empty office looked kinda awkward.

― N_RQ, Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:10 (twenty years ago)

which office was it?

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:11 (twenty years ago)

(bill xpost)

"acker bilk's scintillating recreation of the spirit of johnny dodds is a refreshing antidote to the new, dissonant jazz 'music' currently being purveyed by his coloured american counterparts such as sonny rollins and lionel hampton..."

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:13 (twenty years ago)

xpost presumably the Carnaby Street one.

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:14 (twenty years ago)

i think it was supposed to be king's reach tower (weren't they all in carnaby street in the mid-70s?), but it was really just a big, empty office.

― N_RQ, Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:14 (twenty years ago)

before they went to KRT they were based in the old Commonwealth House building in New Oxford Street.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:15 (twenty years ago)

xpost 'Move over Elvis. Johnny Gentle looks set to be the new hearthrob for 1961 with his blend of skiffle and untamed rock and roll energy.'

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:16 (twenty years ago)

ok from memory they were in

---[don't know x don't know]
---king's reach tower (where logan had his EPISODE and the management-friendly replacement editor wz busted for coke on the day he took over, so n.spencer become ed instead HURRAH)
---carnaby street [moved out into hip exile bcz the likes of nick kent alarmed and menaced workers for other IPC titles by his HIDEOUS MEIN ALONE]
---weird diary cheese wedge-shaped building just off new oxford street (i.pye era); p.reel got drunk and defaced a building opposite w.trollish anti-pye graffiti and wz SHOPPED by pye and in the slammer for a while (height of hip-hop wars and probbly the nastiest incident) (i am fond of both parties in this particular v.regrettable silliness: the hip-hop wars were HORRIBLE and all management and senior editorial types involved at that time want their fkn HEADS smackin togrther for allowing them to run so far out control)
---king's reach tower again (till present day)

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:22 (twenty years ago)

cheese wedge-shaped building = commonwealth house as per marcello (but they had been in KRT previously, and moved BACK there)

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:23 (twenty years ago)

how much of the above got into the doc?

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:25 (twenty years ago)

Nothing.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:29 (twenty years ago)

i was surprised that they *did* mention the hip-hop wars, but they didn't have any juicy stories, it was more 'some people liked rock; paolo hewitt less so'. the only physical features of the nme offices mentioned were the singles booth where kent sez he spent all his time doing hard drugs (not like those other softies) (oh nick, you icon: shooting speed in the office!), and the boring 'kinderbunker' of tony and julie.

― N_RQ, Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:29 (twenty years ago)

for some reason everyone from the '92 generation felt compelled to recant their criticisms of morrissey.

― N_RQ, Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:31 (twenty years ago)

There's a way better story right here.

Someone write this!

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:31 (twenty years ago)

i am the kenneth anger of the inkies

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:31 (twenty years ago)

excellent!

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:33 (twenty years ago)

marcello wz ray connolly the name of the MM editor in the 70s? i remember he and kent on TV in 77 or 78, bein interviewd abt punk, and kent wz waving his hands about in elegantly wasted fashion and accidently - i think it WAS an accident - stubbed out his lit cheroot on connolly's bald head!!

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:33 (twenty years ago)

seriously, you shd fkn write it!

― N_RQ, Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:34 (twenty years ago)

ah no, MM '70s editor was Ray Coleman. His reviews from that period are worth rereading in a strange, proto-Hongro way.

me? i am the jackie mason of the inkies (i.e. unofficially blacklisted for 30 years then comes back at the 11th hour to hosannas of glory, except then i got blacklisted again so obv i'm the carl foreman of the inkies bah).

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:35 (twenty years ago)

i am the michael snow of the inkies.

― N_RQ, Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:38 (twenty years ago)

oh yeah ray coleman - still, that era of MM is the great lost perspective on the 70s, when prog and brit free improv belonged on the same review page

i just remembered: they got KICKED OUT of KRT first time not just bcz kent wore the same pair of ancient leather trousers - complete w.rips at the crotch and NO UNDERWEAR - for three years in a row, but they wd heave typewriters etc out of the 20th floor windows in order to GET evicted

did it cover the two ipc strikes?

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:39 (twenty years ago)

did it fuck!

― N_RQ, Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:40 (twenty years ago)

haha against my better judgment i am getting psyched to actually tackle this

all the best books start as ilx threads!!

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:44 (twenty years ago)

Well, that's another story.

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:49 (twenty years ago)

(xpost)

you would have to speak to st*v* s*therl*nd

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:50 (twenty years ago)

from the internet:

"In broad terms, the constellation that presided over the emergence of Framework was 'the national' British sector within the context of cultural-philosophical Marxism's dynamics in Western Europe since the end of World War 2. The specific role and production of the intelligentsia in Britain as the cement of the social fabric was described in 'The Breakup of Britain' by Tom Nairn, who outlined elsewhere both the function of and the reasons for the massive dominance of an English Ideology (Eng. Lit. and its Crit.) within that particular social group. Francis Mulhern's 'The Moment of Scrutiny' provides an invaluable account of the contradictions and struggles within the literary ideology at the core of the English Ideology: its oppositional aspects and the solid victory of Leavisism as the ruling set of discourses in academia since the fifties."

the possibilities are endless!

― N_RQ, Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:52 (twenty years ago)

i dreamed about SS last night!! a difft dream to the one on the "shadow life" thread

but in my dream he was rawther unlike the real SS: viz charming, elegant and be-loafered

and MM had mahogany furniture and was based in a library

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:53 (twenty years ago)

hmph all my dreams last night were abt the rock papers, my unconscious is ganging up on me

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 08:54 (twenty years ago)

Skipping 16 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

oh come on, mark s. i would imagine most music journalists are entirely unfamiliar with the concept of self-googling (he lied) x

― stevie (stevie), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 12:04 (twenty years ago)

hello, not been here for a while and i come with a request - does anybody know of the Led zepplin track used during the Nick Kent interview when he was discussing his time with the band in Cardiff?
Its really bugging me as i dont know it?

Any help would be greatfully received

― james (james), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 12:36 (twenty years ago)

in old-ilx parlance that move is called a "TASHLAN" stevie!! as bold as jack parsons and elrond hubbard we invoked the WHORE OF BABYLON and lo! up popped julie b's first best boyf mick farren

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 12:50 (twenty years ago)

I never realised Smash Hits, The Face and modern rock n' roll obssessed NME had ALL been launched by Nick Logan. What a Godhead.

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 13:10 (twenty years ago)

Hmmmm.

― Pashmina (Pashmina), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 13:13 (twenty years ago)

I am 12.

― Sociah T Azzahole (blueski), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 13:14 (twenty years ago)

No, you are 14.

― mark grout (mark grout), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 13:15 (twenty years ago)

i think the trtack is "the ocean" from houses of the holy

― james (james), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 13:17 (twenty years ago)

they really should have used the theme from 'the world at war', i'm tellin ya.

― N_RQ, Tuesday, 5 July 2005 13:19 (twenty years ago)

mick farren is on AIM

there was a short clip of penman talking

he doesn't look like ian penman

― c/n (Cozen), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 17:00 (twenty years ago)

This is on UK N0va now for all b1t-t0rrent3rs.

― Raw Patrick (Raw Patrick), Tuesday, 5 July 2005 22:17 (twenty years ago)

Seen it now. Quite interesting. Good, even.

Would have liked a bit more on the early days (1950's to 1969)

I remember having a book by Maurice Kinn, ex NME editor, but was amazed by the naffness...

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 07:57 (twenty years ago)

was that penman, c/n? i don't think it was. the tv presenterator said, 'here's a piece by ian penman...' -- he wdn't a' said that if the penmeister was right there with him? i've never heard or seen penman -- well, there's a photo on rocksbackpages, but that isn't him, surely?

― N_RQ, Wednesday, 6 July 2005 09:37 (twenty years ago)

what does roy carr make of the caesar chefs, i wonder.

― N_RQ, Wednesday, 6 July 2005 09:39 (twenty years ago)

yes that photo is of penman.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 09:50 (twenty years ago)

hmm. his writing doesn't look like that, same way burchill's doesn't sound like she talks.

― N_RQ, Wednesday, 6 July 2005 09:53 (twenty years ago)

the writing you're thinking of was written a long time ago.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 09:57 (twenty years ago)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/3829905483/qid=1120647497/sr=8-4/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i4_xgl/202-4393965-8081448

what does it all mean?

― N_RQ, Wednesday, 6 July 2005 09:58 (twenty years ago)

The Moon: Knowledge and Wisdom

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 10:06 (twenty years ago)

sounds promising!

― N_RQ, Wednesday, 6 July 2005 10:07 (twenty years ago)

Par'n my ignorance but how many people on this bitch are ex-NME writers or involved otherhow, anyway?

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 10:12 (twenty years ago)

(I was aware of one or 2 but it seems like a whole blummin slew of yers)

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 10:12 (twenty years ago)

i think we're all involved as ex-nme readers.

― N_RQ, Wednesday, 6 July 2005 10:13 (twenty years ago)

about half a dozen

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 10:13 (twenty years ago)

(or six of the best depending on how -thwack!- you wanna look at it)

― suzy (suzy), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 10:19 (twenty years ago)

Most of my NMEs have been shredded by my cat. Smart, my cat.

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 10:23 (twenty years ago)

suzy i've told you about not getting me excited before lunch ;-)

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 10:24 (twenty years ago)

I had some poetry published by Melody Maker, if that counts...

― mark grout (mark grout), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 10:29 (twenty years ago)

I had some reviews published by Uncut. Doesn't seem to have counted for anything...

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 10:37 (twenty years ago)

I had a letter asking for penpals published in Smash Hits once. :/

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 11:01 (twenty years ago)

i had two letters in the NME. but i was so fuckin' goddamn rock and ROLL (er, lazy) that i didn't even know the second one had gone in until a mate told me two weeks later. woo.

when i was 17, my dream was to be a sub-editor on the NME. not a writer: a sub.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 11:10 (twenty years ago)

I responded to a letter asking for penpals published in Smash Hits. We ended up being together for 16 years...

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 11:17 (twenty years ago)

I got a couple of relationships that way! Only it wasnt smash hits - I did the "penpalz plz" thign again in a local music rag. God knows what I was on - some ramble abt the cocteau twins ensued - and a guy wrote to me on the premise of swapping bootleg tapes who was from interstate and we went out for 2 years :)

― Trayce (trayce), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 12:36 (twenty years ago)

I had a letter in MM defending Morrissey against racism after that (in)famous Frank Owen interview. It was a pretty good letter.

― suzy (suzy), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 12:39 (twenty years ago)

i had a letter in thee nme slagging off the manics or something.

― N_RQ, Wednesday, 6 July 2005 13:18 (twenty years ago)

Ooh, Frank Owen. His writing for the nme was bad enough, but he was insufferable by the time he was writing for Spin.

― Leon C. (Ex Leon), Wednesday, 6 July 2005 13:22 (twenty years ago)

The "here;s a piece by Ian Penman" guy was Neil Spencer surely? A younger and thinner Neil Spencer.

Watched most of this last night - a welcome distraction. Isabel was horrified and hilariated by Nick Kent and thought he should be on Big Brother. What was that on his head?? John Harris sounds like Dave Boyle! (who was also on TV last night of course) I hugely appreciated how they just completely skipped over the last 13 years with only a single glimpse Conor McNicholas explaining how making the NME shite when it had been good was the whole point, duh grandad.

― Tom (Groke), Saturday, 9 July 2005 07:45 (twenty years ago)

Also NEVER AGAIN do I want to see that visual effect whereby to make a shot of a magazine more interesting the different parts of the magazine cover are all separated and then tumble into place.

(A minor gripe this I admit.)

― Tom (Groke), Saturday, 9 July 2005 07:53 (twenty years ago)

nine months pass...

Finally got round to watching this last night (thanks, Koogs). Excellent, I thought. I now understand why so many people like all that high-falutin' stuff from the Morley school of rock journalism.

It is kind of daft that people want their artciles to be as exciting as records.

I remember that T'Pau article being quite interesting.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Thursday, 20 April 2006 06:44 (nineteen years ago)

My take is that 'back then' the writers felt they were on a par with the artists. Now, they are more on a par with the audience.

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 20 April 2006 07:33 (nineteen years ago)

ts: write well (= ur "artist") vs write badly (= ur "audience")

as a reader (in the 70s) i wanted the reviews to be BETTER* than the records then i didn't have to buy the records!

*(better /= more exciting necessarily)

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 20 April 2006 08:58 (nineteen years ago)

Yes.

But thesedays, the paper needs to create a common identity with its readership to create the illusion that the NME is it's 'best mate', whereas the music used to do that before. Not that the music doesn't do that now, just that the paper's existance is more precarious (internet/sattelite/other news sources).

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 20 April 2006 09:03 (nineteen years ago)

hmmmm, but did the music do that before? i don't think that "am i mateless?" was such a widespread folk panic back then* among the young and male -- i think it's an insecurity that lads' mags have (inadvertently?) fostered to sell themselves, the masculine equiv of the "am i unsexy?" panic that mags for women have always fostered

*(it's possible i just didn't notice, being mateless myself and botherd abt it)

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 20 April 2006 09:08 (nineteen years ago)

Hmm, the "am I mateless" was something that mags hadn't worked out as being the angle to sell Mens Mags, back in the day. Which was why they generally didn;t sell like they do now.

I think the bands had the angle of "We're like you" during the NME's heyday, even to the point of "We're NOT like you" to deviate from the norm.

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 20 April 2006 09:11 (nineteen years ago)

But thesedays, the paper needs to create a common identity with its readership to create the illusion that the NME is it's 'best mate', whereas the music used to do that before.

"Thesedays"? The NME seemed very matey when I read it ('89 - '93) during the Quantick, Collins, Maconie etc years where they co-opted all the Smash Hits style of in-jokes and knockabout irreverance and cheeky-to-pop-stars-ness. It became like a weekly update from the bezza mates club, and I would read thinking, haha "where is Beatles band?", brilliant!

― Merryweather (scarlet), Thursday, 20 April 2006 10:15 (nineteen years ago)

Which came from the Danny Baker NME c1982, of course!

― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Thursday, 20 April 2006 10:18 (nineteen years ago)

"Back Then" = 1978-1980
"Thesedays" = 2000-

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 20 April 2006 10:18 (nineteen years ago)

well, it always had cheeky-to-pop-stars-ness -- but yes, i think it's true that maconie esp.pioneered the mateyness (i don't think it was a mag-wide strategy at that stage though, it was his own voice)

(i left in 88 and only very sporadically read it after that)

it's nice that "where is beatles band" has become a deathless meme

― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 20 April 2006 10:21 (nineteen years ago)

The groups who are in the NME have their own sites etc. to put their POV across and are talked out of making alliances or seeing themselves as equal with journalists by labels and managers (basically this is so the labels/managers/PRs can feel superior/consolidate their own power and they fool NOBODY); when I've been friends with people in groups it's either because they manage themselves but also if you ruthlessly try to control everything because it's "product" it creates a more antagonistic relationship between people who want to make and appraise it in terms of its artfulness or inspiration. I don't review much, but in features if you are to do something that isn't an on-tour jape or a parroting of the press release the cooperation and trust elements are pretty important, and groups still do give that to photographers but that could be down to the cachet of who those photographers are.

My time at the NME was during Brown/Lamacq et al which was noticeable for the misogyny of the former and his office clique, who dodged every sexism complaint with 'what about racism?' while Dele glowered in the corner, truly looking as if his hands were searching for necks to wring.

― suzy (suzy), Thursday, 20 April 2006 10:48 (nineteen years ago)

I was quite pleased that the gigantic 'E' was in Sitges, and I liked seeing Orange Juice.

― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Thursday, 20 April 2006 11:02 (nineteen years ago)

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