Matmos on the cover of The Wire AGAIN!

The Borah Bergman int is well worth reading, and Mike Kelly and Ron Geesin are not uninteresting

the Kodwo Eshun thing is indeed the only thing of interest in it - ironic really since it's basically a list of online sources where you can read about NEW and EXCITING MUSIC!!!

arf!

"At its worst, however, an online forum , such as I Love Musicleaves an offputting smell of Territorial Pissing"

...

Yes David I agree with you - i dare say I am just not "with it" anymore. My main contention should have been that Matmos surely don't deserve another cover while there is so much good stuff out there.

KW again: "The tightly polished ultra-cynicism of American crits comes off as especially cleverer-than-thou"

All the more frustrating that some of the best writers on music still contribute to The Wire, making reading the odd Wire article in the newsagent an uncomfortable necessity.

Also i miss Kodwo Eshun but i suppose he's just busy working on a book.

the key to enjoying the magazine: read the articles, skip the reviews! there's no other magazine on this scale, so just enjoy the alice coltrane & eddie prevost stories, skip the mercury rev ones.

anyway - it's still gone way downhill!

Can't wait for my copy to arrive.

It has gone downhill: they do need to cut down the amount of reviews and maybe gather some more interesting ideas for think pieces but still miles ahead of anything available in this country.

and anyway, there is no mag that covers music in the range that it might be required but i suppose that's how most ppl liek ti.

I know we've been here before, sorry about that, but maybe these things are worth discussing over and over.

yes there are two autechres and two o'rourkes - i have double checkes on those ones! Both are well deserved though.

not really.

I've actually written for the Wire (I did their cover story on Tom Waits), and found their editing process only medium-invasive, and it was in a good way. They wanted more depth, rather than less, which is a very welcome change from other places for which I've written. Also, they pay pretty fast.

>not really.

haha! But Radiohead do illustrate the inconistency and snobbery that afflicts the magazine. Amnesiac -> attempts at more exploratory territory + backing of Simon Reynolds -> cover story. Hail.. -> swing back to more conventional songwriting -> no review at all.

I think that the least Dizzee could have expected was a feature review. Perhaps if one of the big guns had pushed for it, maybe we'd have seen that or more. I still don't see how a magazine with the "adventures in modern music" tagline can't find space for a dancehall column.

i stick with my never-comment-ever-on-current-wire-policy policy cz i'd have put like aqua on the cover or one of gareth's photos of bench or something

''That Comets on Fire dude seemed like a smarmy evangelistic type. "The fuckers who are destroying this country like the White Stripes! I are an rebel!"''

I think what hstencil was asking was: what's so terrible abt this comment bcz bands slag each other off in print all the time, you know.

''Phil also got the Lightning Bolt review in there too. Here's another thing - they give a feature review to Noxagt, a bits page to Sightings but Lightning Bolt only get a (seemingly) truncated review. Yeah, I know the only thing really uniting each act is being on the same label, but what's up with that?''

lighting bolt did get that one page feauture sometime last year. that's another thing: they get onto some really good bands far quicker than NME and so on.

It wasn't that great but as an intro it was fine: the records are far far better and once you dig in (I think the above quote is prob the most stupid thing I have read in this thread but nevermind), you find somethings to quibble with.

stencil- I think the poster who started this is new around these parts and doesn't know how much this has been discussed. we will get many more of these kind of things. Threads are circular and that's that.

dave- shame they don't pay attn to dancehall. having read some of yr stuff in here abt it I'm sure you would write some fantastic stuff on it. I don't quite get it bcz they have a reggae column no?

i am not an idiot... it is/was my bloody job... the above comment is one of the most stupid things i have ever read (even on ilm). it makes as much sense as saying: "you are a moron if you don't oppose full-time jobs, the right to a certain level of personal economic stability and stand for overarching casualisation of the workforce to the detriment of people's quality of life, period"...

Still it was a nice write-up, more because it was Kodwo than because it was The Wire though. (I've nothing against The Wire, I just don't buy it.)

We've gone over the critic/writer/full-time/paid/free thing a hundred times. What being a paid writer often gets you - invaluably - is access to paid sub-editors and editors, so your writing improves. What being an unpaid writer gets you is total permission to write about anything you want (though no free access to those subjects, but paid writers don't always get that either). Other than that I don't care either way.

right on nathan - what annoys me about it is this creeping, nu-Leavisite building of an "alternative" (but equally conformist) canon masquerading as intellectual radicalism... i think the reason dizzee aint in there is coz certain pasty 30-plus pseuds can't handle the fact that a naughty 18-year-old pup (their polar opposite) can be so much more witty, incisive and perceptive than them so instinctively

regarding the editorial policy I think you could cover bits of everything but it wouldn't be that comprehensive but what they are doing is focusing on the 'avant' side of these genres and trying to cover that.

there are probs with that (and those are highlighted by that flaming lips write up of the editor).

actually i don't subscribe to any mag and I haven't bought every issue this year but they still do somethings right.

I think that's what they should do, but The Wire's mistake is draw a line and say everything over this line i.e. less 'avant' does not merit serious attention. I think The Wire's readership would be better served if their perspective was at least in some ways informed by popular culture, if not directly covered. nb. I think some of the writers do have that perspective (like most folks on ilx) - it's a shame it seems to have been excised on an editorial level.

It's especially grating to me because his insult was tied into "White Stripes = tool of THE MAN" and goddamn that's annoying. Funnier was that bit on the Daily Show about a week ago where their "I Love Hollywood" vapid celebrity gossipers talked about Jack White, "the guitarist we're supposed to care about now that he's dating Renee Zellweger", and how they'd never actually heard any of his music but heard it was really cool. So they decided to play some of it and the song they chose was the first few seconds of "Aluminum"! Rob Corrdry (sp?) tried to snap his fingers to the beat and failed, and when the music stopped he said "wow, that was so cool it HURT my EARS!" Samantha Bee replied "I'm so glad I've been told to like that!"

they are not actually saying that abt it. They are just choosing not to say anything at all abt it. They pretty much ignore it.

All mags have a narrow view bcz most listeners have a narrow view of things dave. we get the music press we deserve.

absolute total bollocks... the wire is full of sociology/cod-theory/some good ones etc and are you saying popular music is somehow less musical or that liking something that a number of other people enjoy somehow makes you understand music less? (as it happens, i can write abt both: weird and pop, as both valid, both important and not as far apart as many would like to think)....

that's too bad philip :( You really ought come round here more often.

Just chiming in to say that bitter arguments like the one between hstensil and I can't recall who, with cursing and petty insults, are the reason I don't miss the FMBB at all.

julio, my statement (fire music primer wz better than actual records described) is partly true but mostly flippant. i think it was a great intro and well written- as a *primer* it did it's job, got me excited about a lot of music i haven't really listened too deeply. obv there is a lot of stuff addressed there that is A+++ (cecil taylor, archie shepp) but it also even mentions records that are not very good but interesting!

it has been a monthly part of my life for ten years and while i don't look forward to it dropping through my letterbox as much as i once did, i still get something from each and every issue.

get over yr badselves.

btw, perhaps luomo doesn't get coverage in the wire because he ain't deserving of it?

me, i'm waiting patiently for the mulatu ataque primer.