Acapulco Presents... Delightful Missives from the World of Music "Criticism"

[meshkalina]

I  haven't seen it. Are there two Robert Palmers?

[Slack]

I dunno. This is the book I'm talking about:

http://www.amazon.com/Blues-Chaos-Writing-Robert-Palmer/dp/1416599746

[meshkalina]

I agree when the subj. matter is dry--like those first couple essays--the writing is dry. In fact, I prefer his stuff about Lennon, punk, various wildmen to blues and jazz stuff. I was unaware of the book. Reading him in "real time" probably makes a difference too. A lot of stuff that was once punchy is now just old.

[Whet Bull]

My favorite old-timers are the usual suspects: Bangs, Meltzer, Shaw.  I'm sure I'm in the minority but I think Christgau's writing in the '70s was often very insightful.  I thought the writing in Bananafish was outstanding, esp. Seymour Glass, Roland Woodbe, and Earl Kuck (whoever that was).  Mark Dancey's Motorbooty was a great satire zine.  Black to Comm and Superdope were great reads.  I loved Byron's writing when I was a little younger but I don't find him dependable -- guy's too entrenched (and Thurston is a jackass).
The Wire's Keith Moline is pretty good, and Marc Masters is a good, no-bullshit guy as well.  Dude who does Yellowgreenred is an excellent writer (he posts here, as you probably know), though he likes some stuff that I can't stand (that's fine, he's not stupid about it).  Bill Meyers at Dusted writes intelligently and lucidly about experimental music, one of very few people doing so right now.  Dan Warburton at Paris Transatlantic is probably the single best writer on experimental and "difficult" music.  My friend Brian Olewnick, a Paris Trans contributor, writes a good blog about experimental and improvised music.  Mark Prindle, also a friend, is one of the funniest, smartest writers of my generation and I read his work religiously.  And I'm not gonna lie, Mosurak's column is a great resource and I always read him even if I don't always agree with him or particuarly love his writing -- Still Single's important 'cos they review every underground rock record that matters and the column's reached a point where people send him every record that comes out and he doesn't hafta kiss anyone's ass.
And I sincerely respect and admire my colleagues here on Termbo and at Z-Gun, two organizations of which I'm proud to be a part.

DeRogatis is a moe-ron, Klosterman's a jagoff who shoulda stopped writing about a decade ago.  I liked Chuck Eddy's heavy metal book (which isn't actually about heavy metal, unless Morrissey and the Swans also count as metal), but I find his columns undigestible. 

[Whet Bull]

Oh, yeah:

I really enjoyed Shit-Fi for awhile, though I think the guy's premise is fundamentally flawed.  Very good writing in there and seriously erudite w/ respect to the music he discusses.

Patrick the Llama, Aaron Milenski and others at Lysergia / Acid Archives are among the best people writing on marginal music.  Along those same lines, Mario Panciera (or whoever it was that actually wrote 45 Revolutions) is brilliant.  (Kugelberg, not so much.)

[Quincy Hoist]

Hey, I don't wanna jack the thread or nuthin', but yr response makes me want to ask a question re: Yellowgreenred. Is the music yr talking about which you can't stand the techno/club-related stuff, or are you referring to just disagreeing with his opinion on some more Termbo approved genres?

Just curious, 'cuz I love that he's getting techno action on that shit, and while I understand the aversion a lot of scum-rock "types" have for it, I am actually curious as to how, like, Forced Exposure moved from being a print zine covering, y'know, scum rock, etc. to being a distro that happens to import a lot of techno stuff.

I'm sure the answers are out there, and I apologise for typing the word "techno" multiple times into one post on Termbo, but these are "thoughts" and "questions" that pop into my Naive Midwestern(tm) "mind", and I thought I'd ask. For some reason, ask here.

[Indoorsman]

Earl Kuck was "my" sales guy at Revolver back in my Santa Fe days & rumored to be the same person as Seymour Glass - where is he now?

Re: Marc Masters, I liked Crank quite a bit but his current reviews in the Wire seem to reveal a taste in music that ossified back in the mid-90s when Homestead was putting out David Ware CDs.  That may be Wire editorial bias & not Masters' fault.

Bill Meyer wrote a bunch for Popwatch back in the 90s, didn't he?  Anybody have a pile of those they wanna unload?

[erickelric]

re: Bill Meyer - Yes. Yes/No

re: Still Single - agreed.

[Indoorsman]

I am actually curious as to how, like, Forced Exposure moved from being a print zine covering, y'know, scum rock, etc. to being a distro that happens to import a lot of techno stuff.

  The distro arm came out of a little mailorder thing they did outta the back of the magazine.  It used to be mostly the same subject matter as the later issues of the mag: some scum/no wave rock, various strands of psych, some free jazz and free improv, and a bit of 20th-c classical.  My impression is that Jimmy Johnson got into techno, but I may be wrong.

[Jared]

Loy, can you elaborate on Shit-fi's flawed premise.  Jusr curious 'cuase I agree that his writing is great and I really like his site.  I think it's interested to see theory in that particular sphere.

[Jared]

EDIT: I need to stop posting from my phone cause these posts are a mess.

[erickelric]

Ha. Pretty much have only been posting from a phone. Keep it tight.

Schrader had a thing in the Brooklyn Rail recently about Lipstick Traces. It was interesting, probably on hissite

[meshkalina]

I believe YellowGreenRed or whatever is Pissed Jeans guitarist who is also a good visual artist.

Your Flesh has consistently had douches writing for it but now it has latter day renaissance dude Montgomery Buckles, a huge step in the right direction.

[denkinger]

From the 90s crop, the best were Bananafish, Rock Mag, Superdope and Black to Comm. Bananafish could make a Stomachache 7" sound like something you would want to actually sit down and listen to, but in the end the writeups were almost always better than the subject. Here I am with a Masonna CD in the machine, reading about it in Bananafish...I take the CD out, toss it onto the sell pile and keep reading the mag.

Rock Mag took reviews and writing seriously, which for the 90s was 75% of the struggle since every other writer was either a) too smart and cool to actually review records or b) nakedly trolling for CD promos ie; an everything is great!! hack. Ellison maybe got too academic at times, but at least he had a point he was trying to hammer home, taste notwithstanding.

Superdope just had a nice balance of psych/punk/KBD/indie, no other mag had quite the same range while keeping a punk-first tack, outside of that mag that the Oblivians dudes were doing, what was that called again? Wipeout!

Black To Comm is the toughest one. His taste is largely impeccable, I really like the scattered layout and the sheer heft of his mags, but this is more a vote for the mag as a whole, rather than the writing. That dude really is a terrible writer overall, he can't explain why anything is worthwhile without tilting at the same old battered windmills born of cultural bitterness, and, with the later issues, flat out encroaching old age. "A golden era has passed, pity the fallen Empire of Max's Kansas City ye cringing mortals!" Every review ends with the same xerox-style crankiness. I'm sure people find that charming in the manner of the surly Old Man bartender who won't serve you what you ask for because he's "kooky 'n all" but in the end I usually just note the artists and titles of interest and kind of blip through the rest of the review looking for his inevitable points of comparison.

MRR in the 90s could always run the occasional punker article that was as good as anything in any other zine. That's the random nature of the mag.

[meshkalina]

Black To Comm is the toughest one. His taste is largely impeccable, I really like the scattered layout and the sheer heft of his mags, but this is more a vote for the mag as a whole, rather than the writing. That dude really is a terrible writer overall, he can't explain why anything is worthwhile without tilting at the same old battered windmills born of cultural bitterness, and, with the later issues, flat out encroaching old age. "A golden era has passed, pity the fallen Empire of Max's Kansas City ye cringing mortals!" Every review ends with the same xerox-style crankiness. I'm sure people find that charming in the manner of the surly Old Man bartender who won't serve you what you ask for because he's "kooky 'n all" but in the end I usually just note the artists and titles of interest and kind of blip through the rest of the review looking for his inevitable points of comparison.

MRR in the 90s could always run the occasional punker article that was as good as anything in any other zine. That's the random nature of the mag.

Superdope was Hinman, right. Tim Ellison's tastes got outer and outer; I think he writes a blog about opera now, I ain't lyin.

Stigliano fancies himself a serious supply side race baiting conservative, but is also quiet fond of racist and poopy humor. He has great taste in music, but his writing is the equivalent of listening to Lamont Young. Starts out good, but a little goes a long way.

Also, he's started many "feuds" with the unsuspecting--Hinman, the OZ Dave Lang, Ken Shimamoto--over things too trivial to recount and gone on and on about them. See above comparison to Lamont Young. And ref. to racist and poopy humor and add gay.

If you are going back this far,--early, mid -80s?-- The Offense and The Offense Newsletter in Columbus have to be in there. All the Columbus suspects--Howland, House, Shepard, Rep, TJ Lax, etc. and more as fanzine writers run by an insurance investigator named Tim Anstaett who loved in equal measures Joy Division and Sinatra and who brought the Fall to Columbus (among many other achievments of staggering audacity, oh yeah, TKA ever the straight arrow, drove Nick Cave around the East Side looking for dope too!). Flexi discs that people would kill to own now. No, there is nothing on the 'net.