Steven Wells (RIP June 2009)

It said something about "This is music for long-haired vegan gurlie-boys who read French poetry and think football is vile" which was pretty much spot on.

That said, I think he's a one trick pony whose one trick stopped being funny a long time ago. Sigh.

its a shame really, but a world in which there are only loud shouty exciting things in capitol letters and weedy mumsy quiet middle class things, is a fairly dull world, and to write about things that way for 20+ years seems such a waste

Steven Wells is the Anti-Christ of music writing, a man pushing his own ill-conceived, badly informed political agenda onto his own third-rate interviews, which reveal little about the musician in question.

The nadir would obviously be the Belle and Sebastian interview, where Stuart Murdoch plays him like Ace/Jack suited, and Wells' response basically amounts to "Haven't you even read "No Logo"".

Steven Wells entire existence basically resembles that "Yoof TV" show in the Young Ones. Shame he didn't realise it was a piss take.

did you actually read that interview dom?

''It said something about "This is music for long-haired vegan gurlie-boys who read French poetry and think football is vile" which was pretty much spot on.''

he hates football kate but i never read that review.

I actually like his writing style, I just wish he'd stop writing about music. His Guardian cricket things are great.

Thinking about it I suppose I do hate him, though in a weary Noel Gallagher "oh jesus not him again, not more of the same" type way.

Yes

''Yes''

dave- how old are you?

so what ringtone d'you reckon he has? i wouldn't be surprised if ringtones are the only things he listens to.

I know dave. i was too.

I haven't read him in many years. but when I did start it was one hell of a contrast having all those writers looking at scenes etc and then wells doing his thing. it was one hell of a contrast and i enjoyed that.

''so what ringtone d'you reckon he has?''

an atari teenage riot one of course!

ladies and gentlemen, i give you: undugnified

Many years ago the band I was in did a few dates supporting Atilla The Stockbroker and The Newtown Neurotics. One of these gigs was at a notorious nazi skinhead haunt in N London called Skunks.

We were on first, jumping up and down making a horrible racket and shouting all sorts of crap about systems and nuclear war and anarchy as was our wont.

The skinheads seemed unimpressed.

Then the Neurotics went on and played their set complete with their rather left-wing take on things.

The skinheads seemed deeply unimpressed.

Finally Atilla took the stage.

A couple of numbers into the set (I was on stage with him at the time providing backing vocals for his version "Garagelend"), suddenly all hell broke loose. There were fists and glasses and bottles and pool cues and furniture flying through the air.

All the guys in the bands etc. who were about made a dash for it and most of us managed to get into the cellar away from the mellee. In the process I grabbed one guy who was standing by the side of the stage and pulled him to safety with us. I didn't know who he was but thought he must be part of our entourage as he I'd seen him talking to Atilla and the Neurotics earlier.

It turned out that this individual was Mr Wells who was then a writer for the NME, and whilst we were all cowering in the cellar I laughingly suggested to him that having saved him from getting a severe kicking must at least be worth a write-up for our band, even if he said we were shit (which of course we were).

He enthusiastically agreed and promised to do so - and indeed, true to his word, in the next edition of NME there was a review of our set.

It said ".... and Sub-Active from Henley"

I wish I'd left the miserable bastard to get his head kicked in now.

he has plenty of passion and enthusiasm but he has a lot of hate as well.

what's all this abt 'isn't he old', shouldn't he grow up. He is a great writer precisely bcz he can keep writing like that. his writing has passion, energy and he's v funny.

he is a one-trick pony. so what? most writers don't even have that.

he is a good journo anyway. Most of the time that I've read articles on the worst indie attrocities they've been written by him.

he is kind of like bart simpson of rock-crit. really. the article linked to above was a wonderful read.

(when ppl say you should die painfully if you don't like the same music as I do that is funny to me)

http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/news-and-opinion/cover-story/the_english_patient-38416404.html?page=1&comments=1&showAll=

ta very much.

Uh, nobody's yet mentioned the utterly reality-boggling prescience of nebbesh? 6 years ahead of the curve, man...

― Goethe*s Elective Affinities, Thursday, 25 June 2009

the RIP bit in the title was added yesterday, nebbesh didn't predict it! (if that's what you mean)

does anyone have a link to his phil collins interview?

or a link to an interview he did with Sonic Youth in NME at the end of the 90s? At the time my naive self found that remarkable, since hostility towards the Smiths or Bis seemed sort of logical for him, but Sonic Youth not so much.

I'd like to read that interview as well, since I heard about it at the time but missed the issue it was in

I don't remember it being much to get excited about either way rilly - it was while they were doing press for A Thousand Leaves which is one of their more 'adult' albums let's face it, and it was sort of autopilot 'lol u old, get out the way grandma' type railing

He completely destroyed SY's Dirty in (I think) the first issue of BANG as well.

R.I.P., by the way, obviously. I was never a fan of his style, but you have to admire someone who raged as hard as he did. And to die so young. Sad loss.

R.I.P :-(

I'd heard he was ill the first time around but not about the relapse; am sitting here intermittently in tears and/or making sure people who knew and loved him have heard about this. One of the sites he wrote for has posted the obit headline SWELLS DIES, CAPS LOCK BUTTONS SIGH IN RELIEF. Which I'm sure he approved well before it needed to be used.

Suzy. We didn't check this with Swells before hand but I was in touch with him and he was writing for me up until very recently. He was my friend and an extremely valued colleague and insensitive or not I just wanted to write something that I thought might have made him chuckle. Our obit will be running on Monday, co-written by former colleagues from NME/IPC, BANG, Playlouder, Metal Hammer etc.

He was a genuine force of nature. RIP.

Mr Doran, I did laugh my ass off when I read the headline! Looking forward to seeing what other ex-NME people say.

Suzy: Stubbs, Mueller, John Robb etc

He once suggested, in pitch-perfect Barking vowels, that Billy Bragg should release an album called More Songs About How I Neffer Git To 'Ave Any Sex.

A legend for that alone.

i have never read anything by him. after all these comments i got curious. what piece of writing should i start with? but please no music i don't give a shit about. like michael jackson for example.

I'm in the middle of putting together a Swells reader for a week or so. I'll put a link here when it's done.

I assume the Mondays interview from 1992 would be a forlorn hope? Ach, I'd love to read that again.

when i read swells in quietus i thought they were writing about swell. what a great band.

I'll see what I can do. The ones I remember quite vividly are the Sonic Youth interview, the feature on Shed Seven, when he kept on turning the volume down on Rick Witter, the argument about beards on playlouder, the argument with Dom Passantino on the Quietus, the review of Daydream nation in BANG, the U2 feature in NME . . .

the review of Daydream nation in BANG

actually if you can recall the cover/issue number, i should have that in the archive so could scan it if interested.

Cheers. I'll look into it.

the feature on Shed Seven

Hang on, was this the "Rick Witter smells of piss" one? Again, I'd love to see that one more time ... if only because I think I destroyed my copy with tears of laughter before I got to the end.

the argument with Dom Passantino on the Quietus

:)

That interview with Shed Seven made me laugh more than anything I can remember reading in the NME. The bit I remember was Rick Witter saying somet bollocks along the lines of "I'd like to spend some time as a woman, to feel was it was like to be penetrated" and Swells immediately firing back with "erm, you are of course aware you don't need to be a woman to do that?" Think Witter was lost for words.

I always think of him as a proto-Poptimist as much as a shouty punk rock guy - I remember him writing a singles column where he ripped the shit out of every jobbing mid-90s indie band in there and then heaped praise on En Vogue, going "oi The Warm Jets, THIS is what you should be doing".

He was also a genius at making unfashionable but very clever insights sound bludgeoningly stupid. Railing against what he saw as the inherent sexism and racism in the music industry, etc. RIP dude.

"the review of Daydream nation in BANG"

Seconded - I've gotta read that

I barely recall anything in Bang but I feel like (a) this was maybe in the first issue and (b) it was Dirty he gave a kicking?

I'm commissioned him to do it, and when I received his copy I felt like Jennifer Jason Leigh at the end of The Hitcher being pulled apart by opposing forces of mirth, guilt and incensed outrage that someone could say that aobut the Youth.

I think it was Dirty. I'll dig it out of the garage at the weekend.

oi The Warm Jets, THIS is what you should be doing

what a frightening thought (but point well taken and supported obv)

Mr. Sinker on Mr. Wells

And a new memorial site:

http://www.thestevenwells.com/Main.html

The bit I remember was Rick Witter saying somet bollocks along the lines of "I'd like to spend some time as a woman, to feel was it was like to be penetrated" and Swells immediately firing back with "erm, you are of course aware you don't need to be a woman to do that?" Think Witter was lost for words.

This is exactly right!

Lesson: use the clarifying word "vaginally" as often as possible

This is vaginally right!

Mark G -- so va(G)in(ally)!!

(;)

Genius comment on the Guardian message board http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/organgrinder/2009/jun/25/nme-writer-steven-wells-tribute-james-brown?commentid=65c914eb-fb46-44b6-99af-5ae721cc14af

Dear Stakeholders,

it is with regret that I, on behalf of IPC Media, announce the death of
a reputable one-time NME labourer, Steven Wells.

Human Resources at the NME tell me that he was hired by the NME in 1983.
I have also been informed that Mr. Well's labour contributed greatly
to the success of the NME brand in the decades wherein NME contracted his work.

In his position as opinion executive, he allowed NME to diversify its market position by offering greater quality written content solutions at cost, with humour as added value.

The NME share value increased several percentage points over his tenure as writer, and I speculate that this may partially have been attributable to the Unique Selling Point the NME cultivated in the delivering of his content solutions.

In retrospect, it is thought that IPC media made a sound investment decision when procuring his labour and ROI was high in this market period.

On behalf of all shareholders at IPC Media and the cross platform brand 'NME'
we express our gratitude for the dividends he secured at NME.

Yours,

Conor Mcnicholas

I'm in! (xpost)

ahem..

The NME tribute was just right.

Would have been nice to have had some of his writing there too, but probably right not to.

Swells having 'little true interest in music' is a hilarious notion!

Please consider who wrote that; I thought it was a bit offensive myself.

Actually I'm angered about that comment. Fuck him.

I am really glad I found this piece on Napalm Death (I first read it in the NME when it was originally posted as an ad I think, but I've lost the issue). Maybe the first time I had heard of John Zorn. I am sure there are one or two cuts in that piece from what I read in the ad but what is on there still reads as wonderfully.

Haha yeah it was a page feature taken out as a full page ad by whoever Napalm's label were at the time (late 90s IIRC) - can't have been that successful an idea given that no-one else ever did it but from a young reader's POV you glance over it and are like 'YEAH! How come there aren't more bands getting round the prospect of no editorial by doing this?'

Oh wow just now saw this! Matt DC nails everything correctly in post of 29 June 2233 UTC*... singles columns was indeed one place he shone (lol I'm sure I have several CD singles laboriously mailordered from the UK just because of him. Haha shit I even have that Gold Blade album!). Also, classical music = "men in powdered wigs sticking small unelectrified guitars under their necks and horned women screaming about dragons".

RIP you were great fun.

*) Actually he had some kind of proto-Poptimist good-guy bad-guy double-act with David Quantick didn't he?

Haha shit I even have that Gold Blade album!

and that album is great!!!

Actually he had some kind of proto-Poptimist good-guy bad-guy double-act with David Quantick didn't he?

― anatol_merklich, Thursday, July 9, 2009 8:58 AM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

apparently, yeah.

el quant still wrote for the nme when i started reading it. (people underrate quantick coz his views on music as such aren't that interesting... less so than swells even. this is to miss the point.) i think they did some collab more recent than the 80s but have drawn a blank.

still haven't really gathered thoughts on this dreadful news.

some collab more recent than the 80s but have drawn a blank.

On The Hour, The Day Today

Lololololol

I hadn't read that before but virtually every single line is funny.

I have dipped in and out of Tits-Out Teenage Terror Totty ever since I found it on a shelf at home after the memorial bouzer.

^ILX taken out of context

LOL. Am pretty sure Swells lived for random sentences like that. Wanted to get up at speeches part of drink and say ''no feminist was ever so happy discussing his own penis".

Does anyone know if there is a link to his 1998 Sonic Youth interview? I have just been reading bits and pieces of Swells writing and from reports he did a very funny demo-job on them.

Always had a burning desire to read Tits Out Teenage Terror Totty, but if I only I could develop Johnny 5-rapid speed-reading skills