UK Garage, My Arse! (1 Viewer)

haha, I had that issue. I still have the CD from it actually.


Neil Kulkarni and Sarah Bee go into the hell that was the last few years of Melody Maker on one of the Chart Music podcasts.

God I used to hate JJ72 back in the day. Yer man's voice, christ almighty
 
haha, I had that issue. I still have the CD from it actually.


Neil Kulkarni and Sarah Bee go into the hell that was the last few years of Melody Maker on one of the Chart Music podcasts.

God I used to hate JJ72 back in the day. Yer man's voice, christ almighty
I also had this issue. After years of hearing about Melody Maker I was finally living somewhere it was available (Belfast) and this was what it was. What a let down.

I also remember it having a terrible review of Kid A, dont know if it was the same magazine.

The Selects from the 90s were so much better. I'd give anything to have that box full of them back.

Remember Hilary Woods called out the Songs from a Dingle fucks not long ago about being asked to pay to play. Total legend.
 
I was in the Gaeltacht with the singer from jj72. A bit of an arse, although at 15 I wouldn’t judge him by it

God I used to hate JJ72 back in the day. Yer man's voice, christ almighty

I remember when I worked in Hodges Figgis in 2007/08 [1st Floor], and I was shelving that section at the back stairwell, and he was in there with his mother. His mother must have been embarrassing him or said something. I can remember that sour head on him. In my memory he was tutting at her, throwing her the evils. All this took place in the "psychology" section, ahem.
 
I also had this issue. After years of hearing about Melody Maker I was finally living somewhere it was available (Belfast) and this was what it was. What a let down.

I also remember it having a terrible review of Kid A, dont know if it was the same magazine.

The Selects from the 90s were so much better. I'd give anything to have that box full of them back.
Melody Maker was class until they tried to become all things to all teenagers basically. I'd say i started around 1996 or 1997 and read it until it shutdown. Aged about 14 i had to cycle l the way up to Sutton to get a copy FFS. I didn't know any better at the time but in retrospect I can I see how obviously it became a different magazine over those four years or so. I was a bit bewildered what they were doing putting Bewitched and Fred Durst on the cover, apparently so were the staff. I'd read Select as well but I liked the scrapiness and bitchiness of the weekly press.
I remember when I worked in Hodges Figgis in 2007/08 [1st Floor], and I was shelving that section at the back stairwell, and he was in there with his mother. His mother must have been embarrassing him or said something. I can remember that sour head on him. In my memory he was tutting at her, throwing her the evils. All this took place in the "psychology" section, ahem.
I'm sure it was a horrendous job but also, dream job, I WISH I could ever have gotten a job in a bookshop.
 
pre Brit pop Melody Maker was better than the NME. Steve Sutherland became editor in 1992. he was very conservative and the paper was out of touch. they spent too much time covering old farts and things that amounted to nothing in London.

Where as MM had Simon Reynolds, Everett True etc and were much more in touch American indie things like
Sub Pop, Touch & Go, Amphetamine Reptile, Drag City, Riot Girl etc.
overall both papers were poor at covering black,/urban or dance culture.
never read Sounds, it went under in summer 1991.

JJ72?! who are ya?
I can't even remember their name. total blank.
from 1993 onwards I've paid zilch attention to next big thing groups.

EDIT:
Smash Hits in the early 80's was better than NME or MM were in their later days. they interviewed The Fall, Crass etc and gave indie, punk etc a lot of coverage. they played a major role in left field bands like the Specials, Human League, Soft Cell etc getting huge. it also provided an easy way to go from mainstream pop to left field independent music very quickly.
 
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I'm sure it was a horrendous job but also, dream job, I WISH I could ever have gotten a job in a bookshop.

It was horrendous but purely because of the managers [unless you were lucky enough to work on the 2nd floor with the uncharacteristically pleasant Cork fellow.]The overall manager was this shrewd German accountant called Walter Pohli who you'd never see on the shop floor; He had the perfect head for a Simpsons character with this maniacal grin plastered onto his face. 1st floor was probably the worst - the manager was a real dumbo but had a savant genius for psychology. She sent me out on the floor during the busiest week for Christmas with an insane volume of customers milling around to "field questions." Needless to say no-one asked me anything but people were probably extremely irritated to have a staff member taking up needless space on the floor... it was a psychiatric environment to say the least.

I used to work with the heir to the Guiney clothing empire which he was pretty ambivalent about taking over. Good lad who actually gave you good tips on how to be a better bookseller. The art section was permanently in chaos because it was "run" by this certifiable nun who did her best to keep it in disarray due to her prudish nature. I honestly don't know how she managed to get this job, or even weld herself into her dowdy nun costume everyday, but I put it down to the perverse sense of humour of Pohli who was in charge of all hiring.

Tying into the theme of Oversensitive Sons' Cranky Resentment Towards Prying Mothers, the second best customer experience I personally dealt with was Graham Linehan. He was looking for a copy of Inside the Whale & Other Stories by George Orwell. Took a look on the floor with him standing by him, and then was checking the system, when he got a call, he answered the phone, and I swear to Jesus, I'm paraphrasing now, but said rather frostily, "NOT NOW MOTHER, I'm in a shop!" He then said it was grand to me, and departed hastily awkwardly cramming the phone into his skate jacket with an increasingly sweaty, desperate burst to his countenance.

The best customer experience was when a sniffing, balding man with an aquiline beak and golden locks streaming from his regal widow's peak came in looking for photography books. He was in a hurry, but was extremely friendly and positive. Sniff sniff, yeah, yeah. This was Gugai from Bono's entourage. He gushed in syllables and gesticulations - cocaine really is a helluva drug. The limo was rounding the block, so time was precious. I must have sold him about 200eu worth of fancy photography books in the space of ten minutes. Sniff, sniff, yeah man, great. Radical. I wish I had left with him, got in the limo and never looked back.

The same year my mate came into the shop late one Saturday, and said, "John C. Reilly is in House of Ireland right now." Luckily I was on a break. Went into House of Ireland. Reilly was wearing some ridiculous Dick Turpentine head attire. I guffawed loudly and ran out of the shop. It's the only time I've ever been starstruck.
 
I was definitely reading Kerrang! before I was reading any of the inkies.
 
Sounds was the best.

It's nuts that kerrang!!! Is still around,I liked it as a kid.
yeah. Sounds seems more punk and metal and less fashion / trend orientated.

have you got these books of old punk press clippings yet ? mostly seems to have come from Sounds.
I only have this one (there's several others):
When The Punks Go Marching In. A Scrapbook Of Second-Wave UK Punk (1979-1984)
loads of interviews and photos of UK82 bands esp Beki Bondage, Wattie, GBH...
also clips from zines plus mags like Flexipop, Punk's Not Dead, Punk Lives and zines.
 
The Selects from the 90s were so much better. I'd give anything to have that box full of them back.
I was quite fond of the Select formatting. Something about it being a monthly made it more appealing too.
pre Brit pop Melody Maker was better than the NME. Steve Sutherland became editor in 1992. he was very conservative and the paper was out of touch. they spent too much time covering old farts and things that amounted to nothing in London.
This rings through retrospectively. Sutherland was a pontificating twat. He'd be likely to give an Ian Brown solo album 8/10 and generally overstate the case for "British" bands etc.
I was definitely reading Kerrang! before I was reading any of the inkies.
Yep, older brother was a big metalhead [Machine Head, Pantera, White Zombie]. Interesting reading about degenerates like the Wildhearts and their debauched actitivies. It was real primary school reading.

Have to say I rarely if ever bought Melody Maker. I bought the NME a good bit around 98/99...

I think all the British inkies suffered from a bizarre pro-British music stance in the 90s [that deluded self-suffocators like Sutherland really pushed] that hasn't weathered well. "English rock is back on the map" type nonsense.

Yep, the ludicrous cattiness of the reviewers/scribes... I watched an interview with Stuart Braithwaite recently and he was saying that a Melody Maker scribe threatened Rachel from Slowdive [I think] at some early 90s music festival... "I will ruin your career" etc... It's mad the power these hacks had... they fuckin' reviewed records for a living fer Christ's sake??


That NME pub crawl thing with the bands in the Xmas issue was good craic though... done by Johnny Cigarettes.
 
This rings through retrospectively. Sutherland was a pontificating twat. He'd be likely to give an Ian Brown solo album 8/10 and generally overstate the case for "British" bands etc.
And it was Mark Sutherland who ran MM into the ground in the end wasn't it? Were they related??
Yep, older brother was a big metalhead [Machine Head, Pantera, White Zombie]. Interesting reading about degenerates like the Wildhearts and their debauched actitivies. It was real primary school reading.
Eh maybe 6th class, you were clearly very advanced. To this day i love the Wildhearts, although only their 90s stuff.

Have to say I rarely if ever bought Melody Maker. I bought the NME a good bit around 98/99...

I think all the British inkies suffered from a bizarre pro-British music stance in the 90s [that deluded self-suffocators like Sutherland really pushed] that hasn't weathered well. "English rock is back on the map" type nonsense.
Ah yeah, and that attitude hasn't gone away either. There's a reason no one cares about this shit anymore and you can blame the forever backwards looking English Rock Defense League types.

Yep, the ludicrous cattiness of the reviewers/scribes... I watched an interview with Stuart Braithwaite recently and he was saying that a Melody Maker scribe threatened Rachel from Slowdive [I think] at some early 90s music festival... "I will ruin your career" etc... It's mad the power these hacks had... they fuckin' reviewed records for a living fer Christ's sake??
Ah seriously though, the good writers were better than a lot of the bands, you'd definitely get more from a scabrous self hating alcoholic wreck of a music writer than 4 lads all trying to be Liam Gallagher. In a lot of ways I prefer reading about music than listening to the latest generation of 24 year old's discover Can and chorus pedals.
 
Ah seriously though, the good writers were better than a lot of the bands, you'd definitely get more from a scabrous self hating alcoholic wreck of a music writer than 4 lads all trying to be Liam Gallagher. In a lot of ways I prefer reading about music than listening to the latest generation of 24 year old's discover Can and chorus pedals.

I could see Lili working for the British music press in the early 90s. Striking fear into hapless indie bands.
 
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