OK, is this the worst piece of music writing ever?

http://thequietus.com/articles/14291-warpaint-review

okay, it's not the worst but i don't think i've read a more off-putting final sentence

Appalling piece. Can't spell psychedelia either.

There's been an irresistible twilight, road movie grind to their music, all half-asleep grooves and stoned humping

mmmmmm

Lol at equating lack of twitter beefs with reticence.

this might be the worst job anyone has ever done at interviewing

http://blog.thecurrent.org/2013/12/112-words-from-bonnie-prince-billy/

lol 'I probably couldn’t tell you anything you couldn’t learn over the Internet.'

ahahahaha

That is both terrible and weirdly perfect.

Aw

When the interviewee asks a question, you gotta answer with a firm "hey! I'll ask the questions around here, pal" followed by some nachos to smooth things over

BPB was one of the first artists I ever interviewed, face to face, back in 1997, and remains perhaps the most purposefully difficult and evasive I've ever met. I've never really been able to enjoy his music since, because he was so unnecessarily obstructive and dickish.

Though yes those are some heinous questions.

Interviewed him twice during the same promo cycle a few years back (once for an article, the second time cause the local campus station pulled me in last minute cause they knew I was a big fan of him). The first time, he was fantastic while the second time at the radio station, he was evasive as stevie said, but not enough that I was too annoyed or anything.

(and as for whether he recognized my voice, I don't think so - first time was on the phone while the second time was face to face)

Surely that's her first ever interview with a musician. It's comically bad but I cut student journalists a lot of slack.

imo it's very bad form to be dragging student journalists itt. save it for the pros or pro websites

yeah, as someone who has graded a large amount of student journalism, it can be much much worse than this (and surely that's the point)

Yeah, it's not like I'm in any rush to reprint my handful of student interviews. The bar is low.

(ie you write badly as a student because you don't know better, and then you learn better, and then you become better)

(xp)

Will Oldham was the first artist I ever interviewed. Although I was almost sick with nerves beforehand, he was no problem at all, and acceptably forthcoming. I finished the call by thanking him for "dispelling the myth that you are a difficult interviewee". No excuses, no slack!

I don't think that Oldham was being particularly difficult, i just think that everyone has to start somewhere and it's bad form to rip into student journalists who haven't worked out how to do an interview yet.

also the Q&A format really leaves no room to paper over a bad interview, which can happen to anyone and isn't necessarily a marker of the journalist's skill

and more than anything else interviews are something you HAVE to learn on the job, there's no formula for a good one, a lot of it is intuition, and the more experience you get at them the better you become

I'm just glad I didn't do many interviews for the university paper because I shudder to think how many musicians I'd have alienated with dumb questions back then.

Perhaps Oldham is difficult because he's such a classic student journalist interview

Hey guys I work really closely with our intern program. In fact I have 2 multi page feature articles written by college interns that will be in the next issue. They will be going out in 8 million issues of the magazine. We've had tons of kids that were just as young write great stuff. Thing is you have to challenge them, send stuff back, make them do it over, work at it. Writing for a living is almost impossible if you're good so no ones doing this kid any favors by trekking her it's ok not to prep for an interview or to publish shit that is this bad. So I'm not being some meanie to student, I work with great interns every day and some have gotten jobs after because we didn't treat them with kid gloves. We respected them enough to give them real criticism. They aren't babies.

They don't get paid. If you're not going to at least help them learn what it really takes to do the job well, you are just wasting their time.

m@tt OTM

Writing for a living is almost impossible if you're good

Strange state of affairs w all these gr8 opportunities for unpaid interns.

We do ours through schools, it's something they apply for. It's a 3 month temporary term to ensure that 1) they come in understanding that this is not a promise of eventual employment 2) we don't keep stringing them along as indentured servants.

I myself started as an unpaid intern.
The lack of jobs in writing is due to the large scale meltdown of the publishing industry.

That cool w you bananaman?

& lex is right, being a good interviewer take time, but teaching kids that it's ok to be lazy and not even bother to do any homework isn't helping.

teaching kids that it's ok to be lazy and not even bother to do any homework isn't helping.

who here is doing that? i think the sentiment is that this thread shouldn't be for piling on student journalists, not that someone shouldn't tell the interviewer that they flunked this one out, and how.

This wasn't published on a student site, that's a professional national public radio site.

It's not like I'm trolling student newspapers, it's considered a major outlet of music coverage in my city

Shit. I misunderstood... okay, I take it all back...

Ah ok I see why ppl reacted that way... For the Brits this is sort of like a BBC site equivalent

Yes, that's the website for Minnesota Public Radio

In that case it can gtfo

http://blog.thecurrent.org/2013/12/15-minutes-in-fargo-with-martin-zellar/

looks like she asks the same basic questions to everyone

A lot to learn here:

"Well, after listening to some of your 'stuff' (sure), I’d agree (not committing) with the people (they exist) who said (ready to blame them if this doesn't go well) it’s a type of (open to interpretation of course) alternative, indie style (two descriptors make it feel descriptive!)."

Yeah, I mean these are definitely a failure of whoever's running the intern program there. "Being published" is not the same as "learning."

imo there are few learning experiences more important than getting shot down hard. I know some people find the experience too upsetting, but, you know, grow some skin already.

sure, but i mean the fact that these pieces have been published is a sign that nobody is being 'shot down hard' in the long or the short run.

Isn't NPR's business model centered around publicly humiliating interns anyway?

xp editors have ceded this responsibility to commenters now

NPR != MPR, though?

re The BPB, do you think there might be some chance that no one with experience was willing to do the interview, precisely because of his terrible reputation, at which point it was thrust on to the intern with five minutes' notice? Because it certainly doesnt read like said intern had lobbied hard to interview a hero, does it?

sure, but i mean the fact that these pieces have been published is a sign that nobody is being 'shot down hard' in the long or the short run.

― maura, Thursday, 23 January 2014 17:05 (3 hours ago) Permalink

right, that was exactly what I meant by my post

Everyone undertaking a conversation with such a fantastic and unusual person should do a good bit of research before getting on the phone. You should be able to find out whether or not he's been to Minneapolis pretty easily with some internet research. Then you can skip straight to questions about the movies he's been in, his facial hair, the evocative lyrics he's written, where he lives, and the stuff not yet on the web. What made you want to talk to him in the first place? Don't underestimate how helpful publicists can be to brainstorm good discussion topics, and they'll definitely know ways to get their clients talking.