Feature Response: FT Birthday Celebrations

first off, happy birthday nylpm. secondly, good work, tom-o. thirdly, good job to all who contributed.

haven't really read much of anything yet, just browsed all of the pieces, but that browsing led me to discover what my own is missing. when i sent it tom, i told him that i thought it was okay, but that it didn't really go where i wanted it to. many of you got personal with the song, what it means to you, etc., which i tend to do, cf. everything i've written. and i think pop music is as much about music as it is about life and the things that happen therein and that it's power lies in how it works its way into your everyday existence. so, yeah, regrets for that, but it gives me something to write about on my own blog.

i'll read everything tomorrow in full. what way better to spend your first day on a new job?

Regretfully I did not finish my review before the deadline of this feature, but if you are looking for my fresh individualistic slant and opinionated aproach to music analysis and need to keep up date with new artists and forthcoming releases then check out my NYLPM entry tomorrow.

I don't expect people to agree with my choice of single and you may not be particularly interested in or even unfamiliar with it

...however if I can share my knowledge, entertain, educate,even make you laugh, offer new insights - and introduce you to new artists - then my mission will be achieved.

Join my internet and sound travels at

New York London Paris Munich http:// www.netcomuk.co.uk/~tewing/ singlesb.html/ Diverse Music Positive Weblog covering a range of interesting creative artistic music: jungle, industrial, dark metal, gothic, electro-rock, techno, epic rock, post rock, experimental hardcore, ambient, tech house, progressive trance

If you are interested in linking to my review - please do.

If you know any of your friends that are interested in music, please tell them about my review.

Many thanks.

Ethan P, SC, USA, Planet earth and beyond. Established 15 years as an Alternative Music Sound explorer since 1986 as a 3 year old)

Everything I have read so far has been great - it convinced me I did the right thing in not contributing, because I know my writing couldn't match this.

Good luck on your book, Tom!

WOW, just...wow. Screw you Tom, I should've been in bed long ago.

What Nicole said.

Since we're celebrating a 2 years birthday, let me praise both the baby and its creator. Yes. Let me tell you why Freaky Trigger is one of my favourite music magazines ever. Hopefully the following will read more like a toast than a eulogy...

I first stumbled upon FT last spring through Tom's Top 100 Singles of the Nineties, which had somehow came up in a search for Disco Inferno. I was immediately blown away. The diversity of the songs and the quality of the pieces ("fresh angle on pop music", as per Tom's description...) was enthralling. Browsing further I found NYLPM and its daily source of reviews, links and commentaries. A music fan's newfound treasure, useful for reference (so many ideas of new stuff to look for), witty entertainment or more thoughtful reflection.

So why purchase overpriced (overtaxed) British magazines when such great writing was easily available on the web? My excitation grew stronger as I went everyday through all the features and articles. With nme.com for the news and FT for the rest, I failed to see what advantage there was in investing elsewhere for fulfillment... What's more, FT often managed not merely to equal, but to better its printed, photographs-enhanced, expensive counterparts. (On that matter, it most certainly is true that the team blog format joyfully increases the feeling of intimacy and kinship the readers have towards the critics, which is a satisfaction one less frequently experiences with printed magazines' writers.) Indeed, I remember thinking that this Tom Ewing (one first pictures Adrian Healey's schoolboy face dissolving into that of a Dallas petroleum king) was a new kind of pop music writer, a confidential critic who talked aloud, no, wrote aloud, constantly, mixing personal experiences in Blue Lines with prose on music in NYPLM, sometimes blurring the thin boundary between the two. His ken of indie was singularly broadened by his profound love of pure pop, House - as his current piece indicates - and most strangely his knowledge and love of rnb/hiphop. Neither jaded, or overly cerebral, nor patronizing slut, Tom Ewing displayed remarkable literary craftsmanship as well as a classic appreciation and lore of the "good music" (rockcritics.com's). For our pleasure, because FT readers are the same, these revealed to be doubled with a visceral need for P!O!P! and great tunes. (The oxymoronic neurotic pop elitist tag, which no doubt inspired the theme of the Birthday feature). It remains my impression that few rock critics presently understand and know how to enjoy pop music in general as acutely as Tom. And I cannot help but feeling pride from being one of his readers.

Such ouverture d'esprit and brilliant eclectism thus eloquently showed that rock criticism could be more inclusive than exclusive in its appreciation of music. All music. (Select or pitchfork, for all their respective qualities, never provided me with reveries on Julie London, which I need as much as the review of the latest Wu offering.) This without losing one's necessary ability to declare something to be bollocks. While other webzines' writers committed to make excruciatingly painful essays strictly concerning the obscure and difficult, Tom could equally write about Destiny's Child, Subway Sect and Charlemagne Palestine with as much love and fury, lightness and erudition as others would have only been capable of about Jackie- O. This passionate versatility ultimately was, and still is, the most unusual and attractive thing about Tom Ewing and his zine.

A quality it turned out he shared with the rest of the FT/NYLPM crew, as I gradually discovered. Gentlemen Solinger, Ragget and Kortbein, Mademoiselle AllyK, to name some of the (al)most famous. Not being myself much of a contributor proper except for my AICON inventions, I am quite honoured to find myself amongst such a fine group of people. And I do believe Tom and all of you have indeed made something special.

Happy Birthday!

I really screwed up by not sending in. My apologies.

Like Jimmy, I was asked but (in my case due to work and illness) failed to contribute. Looking at what everyone wrote about, I see that my choice would have been a bit out of place and am kind of glad that I didn't. Good work everyone, lovely what variety came out of all of this. Maybe I'll put mine up when i finally finish that blog I've been trying to set up.

Ally's entry was so good it convinced me to download a Ringo Starr song. I know that doesn't sound like an endorsement, but it is. That Fraser guy's bus trip sounded like it friggin' ruled.

One thing I will say here is that if by some horrible mischance you sent me a piece and it wasnt published then it either didn't reach me or (sadly more likely) is stranded somewhere in my inbox (6000 new messages, sweet lord). I don't THINK this has happened but I'm incredibly sorry if it has.

Firstly, congratulations to Tom. Because I was only a wee lad (sixteen) when I started reading Freaky Trigger, I would have to say that the always varied, always challenging, always excellent writing by Tom and the rest of the FT team has basically formed my education in the art of writing about music. Remembering every glorious stage in its two year life (the early, shockingly well-written reviews; the Singles - and Albums - of the Nineties project; the "issues" period; the birth of NYLPM etc.), it's really quite sad to realise that Freaky Trigger is now reaching the end of an era. Tom will still contribute of course, but can it ever be the same???

Luckily as the Birthday Celebration Bonanza demonstrates, Freaky Trigger has gradually evolved into a wellspring of talent - both familiar and fresh - and I'm sure that this particular ship will continue to sail steadily in the face of yawnsome critical consensus under the capable guidance of one Ned Raggett.

So, charge your glasses, or some such thing. A toast is certainly in order.

Freaky Trigger sometimes suffers from a case of the 'Tanya Headon's. So it's great to read people writing so enthusiastically about music they love. I'm almost sorry I didn't write a piece, but I wouldn't have done it half as well as the people who did.

Good luck with the book, Tom, and I look forward to seeing the direction this all takes with Ned at the helm.

I really need to actually read some of the other entries, but this week is going to be *ahem* Busy as Fuck at work, so I'll have to shoot off only random comments here and there -- which is why I'm quickly doing my ILM browse right now before I actually *go* to work, see. ;-)

Anyway, Tom = god and I'm not prepared to discuss it further. So ha. And I'm at once pleased and apprehensive as to be the new editor, so all I have to say, GET WRITING ALL OF YOU. *Especially* those of you who thought you couldn't write something as well as everyone who contributed. Lies. Get to work and e-mail me. ;-)

ONCE IN A LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY -

Ned is too busy to take on FT and this forum, so does anybody fancy moderating I Love Music? You will need i)patience, ii)half an hour or so a week to classify threads iii)ideas for threads if things are running low iv)a spare e-mail address.

Any takers e-mail me at the address in my signature! Cheers!

ROCK ON! I got a taker on downloading the Ringo song. I'm so proud of myself :)

Anyhow, the piece rocks. I haven't honestly read that many people's - I just browsed, I'm really very tired because I have stayed up til 5 am EVERY SINGLE DAY since last Friday, and I don't really trust my appreciation under these dodgy conditions, but what I gleaned was good. I was very worried that my piece was too...personal but not really *personal*, more that it wasn't about the song at all. I saw other people took the personal angle too though, so I'm pleased.

This is going to turn into such a big masturbatory thread, but I really think everyone here is fantastic. I will end up downloading most of the songs listed, just to compare the article to the song. I'm also really glad that we got so many entries! I was worried because sometimes people can be quite lazy and forget to do it, but it all worked out and what I read was all really good, so really, really good job everyone.

And Tom, you rock like the Clash, a compliment I'm sure you're not taking well but you know I like the Clash so take it. Good luck on your book - you won't need it but I'll say it anyhow. I really admire that you're actually going to do it. I'll be first on line to buy a copy, even if it's a book about Radiohead ;)

Updates.

1. Ladies and gentlemen please welcome your new moderator, MISTER! JOSH! KORTBEIN!

2. "How's the book going, Tom?"

http://www.netcomuk.co.uk/~tewing/blueline.html

There you go.