The David Bowie I knew, and what it says about me

There's been no end of great (and also rotten) pieces written about David Bowie, but none perhaps as strange as former NME editor Steve Sutherland's bit which appears in the Stratford Herald. Oddly - I suspect as a quirk of a local paper's publishing system - the online version appears under his wife's byline.

It turns out Steve attempted to save Bowie from Tin Machine by sending him a shoegaze mixtape:

Now, knowing his reputation as a magpie, scarfing up other people’s ideas, sprinkling some fairy dust on them and then successfully representing them as his own, I figured Dave might benefit from an earful of some new stuff, so duly made him a cassette.

The tracklisting went something like Lush, Moose, Chapterhouse, Adorable , Slowdive, The Jesus and Mary Chain, My Bloody Valentine, Telescopes, Ride — a veritable who’s who of shoegazers making a name for themselves at the time and a line-up I felt sure would top-up Dave’s creative juices.

Just goes to show how wrong you can be! A few weeks after I sent him said tape, I received a very nicely wrapped package which contained a small broken-up jigsaw of Michelangelo’s David. When the pieces were all put in place, there was a message handwritten on the back in, if I recall correctly, green ink, the gist of which went something like, “Thanks for the lovely tape. Not really my cup of tea. Try this instead.” The “this” was a cassette tape of Different Trains, an interminable modern classical piece by avant-garde composer Steve Reich performed by the dreaded Kronos Quartet. Shudder.

It turns out that Steve - by this point having moved from the Melody Maker to the NME - had a bit more luck with the next generation of British indie stars:

My last encounter with Mr Bowie was not long after I took over editing NME. All the staff hated me for reasons we needn’t go into here but I figured — rightly as it turned out — that if I could deliver a journalistic coup, they might come around.

So what I did was arrange for David Bowie to meet Brett Anderson from Suede, who were then the hottest band in Britain. I sat in on and taped their conversation with Brett, being a big fan, asking tons of questions and Bowie, being Bowie, offering up sage avuncular advice about not doing too many drugs like he once did etc.

Again, a fun day made easy by Bowie’s polite and gracious ease in company, and his genuine interest in what Brett had to say.

Brett and Bowie, coming together to save an NME editor. There's surely a Hollywood movie in that?

NME circulation does what NME circulation does

Down again, down again: print sales have now gone below 14,000 with 13995 copies finding their way into people's hands in the second half of last year.

Topping up with digital sales brings the number up to 15,384 a week, but even digital sales aren't offering much joy: 8.5% of digital readers in the first half of 2014 had vanished by the second half. Digital was never going to take the circulation back to six figures; it's starting to look like it might not keep it above five figures.

All together, NME is down another 23% on the same period in 2013.

Q is now selling 50,161; Mojo 70,693. Kerrang - once the nip-and-tuck rival to NME lost 13.7% of circulation but remains outstripping NME by nearly two-to-one.

And the gloomiest view of the figures? MediaGuardian reminds us:

But [NME] now has just half the sales of its now defunct sister title, Melody Maker, when it was closed in 2000.

What the pop papers say: Legacy and stances

In a week when it's been announced that the entire NME readership is lower than the average home gate at Portsmouth, it's time to take one of our semi-regular dips into the magazine.

This week, it's another backward-looking issue - 20th anniversary of the Holy Bible, which is covered in depth, and actually feels like there's something still to say about a record. It helps when the LP has some depth to it. And as a one-off, irregular thing, why shouldn't you mark two decades since a band released something so rich?

Trouble is, they're trailing that next week will be a 20th anniversary issue again. This time of Oasis. The trailer line for that is a quote from Noel in 1994 saying that the album would be what will be remembered in 20 years' time, "not incidents on ferries or drug busts or whatever". Yeah, good luck with that, Noel out of Wibbling Rivalry.

It's not just the Manics' legacy that the issue has explored. There were other questions of history to be addressed, not least the NME's cover this week:

That @NME @Manics cover? That photo of Richey was a MELODY MAKER photo by Tom Sheehan. I was there. My idea. Fucking history-stealing fucks.

— Simon Price (@simon_price01) August 16, 2014

Price - understandably - was upset that there wasn't even mention of the Melody Maker's contribution to the history the one-time rival was rifling. He suggested a though experiment:

I'll never forget the time Richey cut 4 REAL into his arm in front of me as I was interviewing him for Melody Maker. How do like THAT, @NME?

— Simon Price (@simon_price01) August 16, 2014

A point well made, although... not everyone seemed to grasp it.

@David_C_Lewis @simon_price01 Doesn't Steve Lamacq also claim he was interviewing him when he did that? Said in a BBC doc on the Manics.

— Craig Brown (@sloan1874) August 16, 2014

Who knew, though, that the MM-NME war would still be raging this long after one of the flags was lowered for the last time? Even British communists would be surprised at the longevity of ill-will emanating from IPC veterans.

With this week's ABC figures suggesting that the print edition of NME might be reaching an event horizon, you'd have thought the team on the magazine would be taking more care about how they look after the work of former associates, lest one day an NME.com team thinks it's okay to, say, pass off the Brett Anderson and David Bowie photo as their legacy.

Elsewhere, there's good things for readers to explore - Laura Snapes uses a response in Sounding Off to raise the question of why Radio 1 didn't playlist La Roux on grounds that there's a lot of "female-fronted pop acts" competing for airtime. Yeah, 2014, and apparently there's still a quota for women to get onto formidable One FM.

Equally strong is Dan Stubbs call for Insane Clown Posse to either own or condemn the Juggalos:

If Juggalos behave like a gang, then Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope are their de facto leaders, whether they like it or not. And if violent crimes are being committed not just in their name, but in their honour, they need to issue a decree to the faithful telling them that it's simply not cool.

There's also a great piece on Howling Owl and how they've worked round a ban from Bristol venues. I'd have liked some more around how The Louisiana had ended up on the wrong side of scrappy pop history, but otherwise Hazel Sheffield had delivered a celebration of DIY culture that could have graced Maximum Rock & Roll. Or Punk Planet, at least.

There's a lot of heart and vibrancy in the NME at the moment, even though it's starting to get lost again in a sea of Uncut-lite jubilee articles. If they can channel that voice, and find a way to celebrate the past without just getting a Google alert that it's 20 years since X and choosing a cover based on that, there's a magazine worth fighting for there.

Bookmarks: Abba

There's a great post on Richard Williams' blog about his role in Abba's rise to world domination. It even has a walk-on part for The Human League, in the Melody Maker offices:

“Sorry, Ian,” I said, “but I really have to listen to this — it’s the new Abba single.” A look of horror crossed his face. The two people with him swung round in amazement. They were Phil Oakey and Joanne Catherall from the Human League, then at the very beginning of their journey to pop stardom.

Journobit: Carol Clerk

More sad news via Everett True's blog: Carol Clerk, news editor at Melody Maker, died earlier today. True's words, and the warmth of the comments on the piece, say a lot about a woman who was able to keep herself held in high regard despite working at the interfaces of the music and journalism industries.

More recently her work had been appearing in Uncut and she published several books. A collection of her pieces is held at Rock's Back Pages.

Melody Maker: Don't call it a comeback

Ten years on from the sudden closure of Melody Maker, IPC have announced a revival.

It turns out the motivation is less a desire to bring back a cherished brand, and more about protecting the name. A Spanish company, Nice Fashion & Music SL, had been trying to register Melody Maker as its own brand name. IPC objected, telling an IPO Judge that they're busily working on building a digital archive of the magazine:

The publisher said that soon after the magazine's closure, work started on the digitalisation of the Melody Maker archive, with a company employed to electronically scan every page of every issue of Melody Maker magazine, with a view to making the complete searchable digital archive available online under the Melody Maker brand.

IPC claims that any online archive service could be funded by advertising therefore providing users free access to historic Melody Maker artwork, including some of the Melody Maker logos. The publisher said the archive would be of interest to the general public at large as well as to the enthusiasts and academics.

"Soon after the magazine's closure", eh? Sure, there was seventy-odd years' worth of back issues to be scanning, but you'd have to raise a curious eyebrow that IPC have cheerily invested in a decade's worth of content production for a brand they're not actually promoting at the moment. That really is a labour of love. Given that they don't even bother to put most of NME online week-by-week, you'd wonder at the decision to spend so much time to make sure 1947's mid-June issues were available to the world at large.

It's not just scanning, it turns out:

Although the technical aspects of the archive are almost complete, IPC said it still needed to address some legal issues before making the archive available.

It's almost as if Press Gazette is having trouble believing this, too, as they rang IPC to check:

When approached about future plans for the Melody Maker brand, a spokeswoman for IPC Media: "Melody Maker is an iconic brand in the history of music magazines and we will continue to explore ways to make that historic content available digitally."

"We will continue to explore ways" sounds like that spokeswoman has somehow missed the ten-year scanning mission going on elsewhere in the building.

[Thanks to @pelicanhead for the story]

Pop Papers: Supplemental - do you see what we did there?

We neglected to mention that the nme this week comes with a pull out of Melody Maker style "images of the year" - Coldplay; Kelly Osbourne; Liam; Von Bondies; Cooper Temple Clause; The Hives; The Strokes; the Datsuns; The Vines. The choice is curious - none of the really great pictures of the year (White Stripes with New York between them, for instance) and even the most photogenic band don't come across that well - how can you have a picture of Craig that doesn't make you sticky?

What the pop papers say: God, isnt BlueYonder rubbish - 36 hours and nothing's fixed edition

"Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez talk about how they'll celebrate their wedding" promises Hello - apparently by Jennifer turning into Jackie Kennedy to judge by the front page. "Jennifer explains why this marriage will be her last" - I'd imagine because having worked her way through the men, she'll be getting cracking on the chicks next, is it? Or maybe it's because interest is waning, what with Jenny From The Block barely managing to sell more than 40,000 copies...

In Music Week, Alan Jones takes a hard look at Shania Twain's album and its oddities - a double CD that isn't advertised as such; in the US disc 2 is country mixes, while in the rest of the world you get the ghastly-sounding 'world mixes' and, scarily, nine of the tracks have exclamation marks. As does Up! itself. It sold 73,000 copies in first week in the UK racks, which compares well with the start Come On Over made (just 122 copies). If Up! reaches total sales as proportionately high to its week one as its predecessor, Shania can expect to flog nearly two billion here...

MW also reports further changes at the nme where, following on from appointment of former Daily Express writer Melissa Myers as news editor, deputy editor James Oldham is quitting to run a pretend indie label, Loog, part of the Vivendi-Universal conglomerate. Actually, we wish him well, although its a pity that he feels his time at the NME has "reached its natural conclusion", which we wouldn't be so cheap as to suggest has anything to do with the recent change in the editor's chair at Kings Reach Tower...

talking of what and which, there's two things lurking in the placcy bag the paper comes in this week - a Chain With No Name advent calendar (December 7th has a Haven Album clearly shoved in a girl's vagina); poorly drawn versions of celebs litter the calendar, offering a badly drawn Badly Drawn Boy and Conor Oberst looking like he's mid-change from mild scientist David Banner...

then there's a Bring It On - another month over so soon? - with The Datsuns on the front, pretty girls make graves, the thrills, the kills (rhyming bands alert), glassjaw, kinesis, the rapture and a scary close-up of conor oberst plus a better quality shot of Pete Libertines in his skirt...

so, onto the nme proper, with Black Rebel Motorcycle Club on the front - huzzah...

news: Kelly Osbourne says "I'm no Britney" - thats right, love, Britney can carry a tune when she has to; eminem is thinking about taking more acting roles following the success of 8 Mile - apparently playing largely himself in a film has given him to confuse himself with an actor. Someone should play him Desperately Seeking Susan and Shanghai Surprise back to back, and quickly; "Could former Marilyn Manson guitarist Twiggy Ramirez be about to join Blur? Could Courtney Love be about to join the former members of Guns N Roses?" asks the nme. No, and no. Next? Fabrizio Moretti has cut his hair off (hmmm, you'd have to say, having the Daily Star's gossip columnist at the news desk is starting to look less like a duff plan if this is the standard her news coverage is going to have rise to next week); what's puzzling about Kylie getting the huff over a body double being used for the unofficial hits package is not why she's arsey, but why the label behind the album had trouble finding a nearly nude Kylie shot to use for real; stars are asked what they think of Kurt's Diary in a feature entitled "Let's see if we can squeeze some more mileage out of this, then." What do the stars think then? We simply don't know. But we do know what Ryan Adams ("I'm just trying to read the stuff that makes me laugh" - anyone who can explain how you go about doing this wins a prize); Wayne Coyne ("He knew he was going to die, why didn't he take these things and burn them?"); Henry Rollins ("I'd like to see the version of the journal that says 'I'm really trying to get away from my psycho wife" - thanks for playing, Henry"); Roddy Woomble ("I don't feel the need to read it"); Steve Lamacq ("I met him") and Eddie Vedder ("I probably could relate to the suspiscion coming out of his brain [...] I've [...] I've [...] I've had a hard time [...] I used to [...] I'm [...] I've [...] "); Fischerspooner story blah blah blah oh give it up; you can win a free Winona Ryder tshirt by completing a sentence - which is ironic, being as how that's how Winona's going to have to win her freedom, too. ("Winona is innocent because...", by the way. Um, only she's not, is she?); there's a thing which claims the nme has come with three free badges "this week" which, clearly is meant to run next week - still time to realise just how shitty and awful the concept and, indeed the badges themselves are (More Melody Maker style "you all use our catchphrases like 'You Cock' and 'If they bring someone in over my head, I'm off to Polydor' all the time, don't you?" self-regarding nonesense, I'm afraid); there's two pages of Robbie Williams news - like we give a shit; there's also fevered speculation as to why Chris Martin had the letters BH on his hand at the MTV Music Award - it was a greeting for one of his friends who was having a birthday. You might think that someone with a top ten album might have sent a card and a bottle of beer or two; Ryan Adams has recorded hardcore punk for The Finger's We Are Fuck You album; Tim Burgess says that the solo album has come about because he feels isolated from the rest of the Charlatans - presumably the implication of living on the other side of the world not thought through, there, then; he's also been on a pilgramage to the Joshua Tree National Park to try and capture the spirit of Gram Parsons. Probably lucky the body had already gone, then...

hot new bands: pretty girls make graves - hot? yes; new? debatable...

sum 41's dave baksh does the pretend cd thing... he calls it Ass Invaders... huh huh huh huh... he said 'ass'... heh heh heh heh... Beavis chooses Anthrax, Pantera, Carcass and Death...

the pisspoor concept of getting readers to email gossip in is showing itself up for the mouldy cake it seemed like - Ladytron were spotted backstage at their own gig, believe it or not. Fancy...

Cranebuilders are interviewed so briefly as to have nothing worth mentioning there...

ryan adams is smeared lusily over four pages. He addresses the "humourless" charge over the Bryan Adams affair by pointing out the guy he gave the money back to had been using the same joke right through the gig, and it was at the Ryman Auditorium which was, personally, a big deal to him. And apparently Neil Young has since told him "You're lucky. All my life I got Neil fuckin' Diamond." He also claims he never went out with Beth Orton, and then turns his attention to Denise Richards who wears a mask to avoid breathing the air on planes: "How do you hold a penis in your hand? Charlie Sheen's penis mind you... you put that in your mouth and yet you put a bag on your head so you won't breathe the same air as other people."...

James Murphy/ LCD Soundsystem believes he's reuniting rock and dance, which were separated by homophobia and racism...

Good idea to investigate rock at violence, post-Leeds toilet riots and someone getting sexually assaulted at a Richard Ashcroft gig. Bad idea to try and do it in half a page, although Anton Brookes is on hand to provide the backbone to the piece: "You get these idiots, they read about what the hardcore days were like... but they don't get it. It used to be about self-expression and everybody would help each other. Now you just get a load of morons going mental."...

BRMC, then: it's a good article, but it's perhaps a little too heavy on letting daylight in on magic and explaining the new songs...

reviews: albums:
ladytron - light and magic - "it doesn't all work, but...", 8
audioslave - audioslave - "what does this parade of heavyweights amount to? nothing very much at all", 4
meat beat manifesto - ruok? - "none of this sounds less than seven years old", 4
ja rule - the last temptation - "aimed at the doubters, not the kids", 6
blazin squad - in the beginning - "PG treatment of adult themes", 6

singles:
sotw - eminem - lose yourself - "genius"
the raveonettes - attack of the ghost riders - "best JAMC-indebted Danish goth-garage band around"
tegan and sara - monday, monday, monday - "they have no tunes. rubbish"

live:
doves - glasgow - "untouchable"
the rapture - london ICA - "absurd in theory; compelling in practice"
john squire - liverpool uni - apparently a lot of Roses stuff
ladytron - london WC2 - "'can we stop talking about porn now?' asks Danny 'can we talk about nice things?'"

best thing in nme this week: the model in the virgin mobile advert. in tights. he's yummy.

Something to read

From Simon Reynold's site, a piece he wrote originally in 1996 to explain the UK pop press to Americans. In passing he had to explain Romo too, of course.

Now, there are points at which he's plainly wrong - especially when he claims that the Melody Maker would focus on bands at the start of their career and the NME would muscle in and start to applaud them when they were about to break. This is arrant wasp toss - there always were Maker bands and NME bands, and the Maker bands would never be touched by the NME unless they broke big - indeed, the same was true of whole scenes; so Romo never actually got beyond the Maker and the two magazines called Shoegazing by different names for so long they nearly fell over.

But the article remains a solid reminder of a time lost - even though "right now... something so revolutionary is happening that nothing will ever be the same again" (according to the liner notes with the new NME CD) there's still a feeling of consensus, consensus, consensus. And part of that is down to the loss of any sense of competitiveness in the music press - the days when there was a race to be first to get the bands into print have gone, and as such, the then-weekly nme is short of compulsion.