― Jim, Thursday, 12 February 2004 08:39 (twenty years ago) link
― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Thursday, 12 February 2004 10:38 (twenty years ago) link
i know what you mean about the wire making you unhappy but Rob Young has stepped down as Editor so there's hope. The New Editor is David Keenan.
(Nah its actually someone called Chris Bohn)
― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 12 February 2004 13:59 (twenty years ago) link
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:01 (twenty years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:05 (twenty years ago) link
The best thing chris could do is bring those kind of features back, the worst he could is concentrate on the 'industrial' music side of things (they should def expand the things they are covering but whatever, it will have to get REALLY bad for me to stop buying it).
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:13 (twenty years ago) link
― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:14 (twenty years ago) link
― prima fassy (mwah), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:16 (twenty years ago) link
― strongo hulkington (dubplatestyle), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:18 (twenty years ago) link
x-post: apparently so. But a scary one.
― Colin Meeder (Mert), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:19 (twenty years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:19 (twenty years ago) link
but I think its a bit more complicated: their coverage of clasical increased but there was some funny stuff (dizzee being high on the writers poll but not even getting a feature, or a proper review, in the mag).
x-post: yeah that was funny. i get it was the handover cover and it would be a bad sign.
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:20 (twenty years ago) link
― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:24 (twenty years ago) link
― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:25 (twenty years ago) link
― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:27 (twenty years ago) link
(as well all know it can be hard to get hold of that kind of stuff)
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:28 (twenty years ago) link
― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:30 (twenty years ago) link
x-post
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:32 (twenty years ago) link
Marcello got it right - Wire is becoming a magazine for 40 year old ex-Goths. Fuck Coil/ Current 93 and all that garbage.
I like Ian Penman too but he overdoes the punning and wordplay and he likes Coil.
― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:33 (twenty years ago) link
maybe next month we can look forward to that long awaited alec empire reappraisal... total destruk-shun the only solu-shun la la la
― prima_fassy (mwah), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:34 (twenty years ago) link
(and current 93 can be marvellous).
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:36 (twenty years ago) link
― ENRQ (Enrique), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:37 (twenty years ago) link
― prima_fassy (mwah), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:38 (twenty years ago) link
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:39 (twenty years ago) link
― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:44 (twenty years ago) link
― Dave Stelfox (Dave Stelfox), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:46 (twenty years ago) link
― ENRQ (Enrique), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:47 (twenty years ago) link
― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:47 (twenty years ago) link
― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:48 (twenty years ago) link
x-post: which one tico? I have 'sleep has his house', mostly short songs, very pared down folk and the last track is palestine like minimalism (he of course cut the karenina double CD on david tibet's durtro label). Its my only one of theirs but its triffic!!!
― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:54 (twenty years ago) link
― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 12 February 2004 14:56 (twenty years ago) link
― Tico Tico (Tico Tico), Thursday, 12 February 2004 15:01 (twenty years ago) link
mark s = Mark Sinker
Duh! How hilarious.
― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 12 February 2004 15:07 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 12 February 2004 19:39 (twenty years ago) link
― pete s, Thursday, 12 February 2004 21:31 (twenty years ago) link
― jed_ (jed), Thursday, 12 February 2004 21:54 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 12 February 2005 15:05 (nineteen years ago) link
i've seen ip several times since his blog froze, and he wz fine, but only spoke once since j.balance died (which hit him v.hard) so what jerry said :(
hi dada! sorry i wz so taciturn on thur, i wz just v.tired and somewhat preoccupied
― mark s (mark s), Saturday, 12 February 2005 15:36 (nineteen years ago) link
― Derek Kent, Thursday, 2 February 2006 04:59 (eighteen years ago) link
― Momus (Momus), Thursday, 2 February 2006 05:31 (eighteen years ago) link
"Here we are again with the problems of producing music, hearing music writing about same. Here we are again with... on the one hand, a proposition such as The Fall, on the other such doleful music press hacks and cultural consumerist quacks as practice little more than daily breadwinning, more concerned with the width of a riff than the quality of language."
Ian Penman, NME, 1980
"And so we come to the business of constructing pop in 1986. Of tugging, tearing, forgetting, pretending. Of joy, despair, artifice. And still we find falling in love and saying "no" communicated in simply awful cyphers scraped on bright red plastic. The haircut appears to be mightier than the word."
Paul Mathur, Melody Maker, 1986
Mathur went on, of course, to write books about Oasis.
But I think Penman's style, the kind he still uses on his blog (and I see traces of it in Mark S's cryptic infoldings, showy opacities and loose grammar) has dated very badly. The surprise winner of 1980s UK rock writing's Posterity Awards is (for me, at least) the Smash Hits school pioneered by Neil Tennant, Chris Heath, Sylvia Patterson, Tom Hibbert. I have no idea whether any of these people have blogs. I hear Neil has a band, though.
― Momus (Momus), Thursday, 2 February 2006 06:52 (eighteen years ago) link
When he does this he seems to me to be in thrall to a romantic / authenticist paradigm, in which the purpose of music is seen as a channel between those who are able to feel that bit more deeply than other people.
Even the "fun" involved sounds like hard work.
It's like a peculiarly rockist anti-rockism and I suspect that the trajectory that Paul Morley's writing has taken is in part inspired by a reaction against it.
― Harthill Services (Neil Willett), Thursday, 2 February 2006 07:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― Momus (Momus), Thursday, 2 February 2006 13:29 (eighteen years ago) link
Just noticed that his name is misspelt as Ian Menman on the back of the Wire/Scott Walker book
― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Friday, 3 October 2014 08:01 (nine years ago) link
"Ian Penman, who started writing for the NME in 1977, is working on a novel about music and terror in 1970s Britain."
And I for one can't wait.
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 3 October 2014 08:08 (nine years ago) link
Not gonna happen
― please delete outrageous tanuki crappyposter (wins), Friday, 3 October 2014 12:13 (nine years ago) link
His stuff for the lrb has been really good
― please delete outrageous tanuki crappyposter (wins), Friday, 3 October 2014 12:14 (nine years ago) link
I like the idea of it.
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 3 October 2014 12:30 (nine years ago) link
Oh me too! But I remember that his byline always used to say he was "working on" books about Bryan Ferry and Billie Holiday (the latter even had a title, Pretty White Flowers)
― please delete outrageous tanuki crappyposter (wins), Friday, 3 October 2014 12:35 (nine years ago) link
His twitter is the best:
https://twitter.com/pawboy2
Charity shop finds, his reading, what he's watching on daytime 5USA, BBC2 etc. Pics of writers and their cats.
Thinking I might even get a twitter account now.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 14 March 2015 18:25 (nine years ago) link
if you like Ian Penman so much why don't u marry him
― the manwich horror (Neanderthal), Friday, 16 June 2023 15:16 (eleven months ago) link
I like everyone
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 16 June 2023 17:54 (eleven months ago) link
The fassbinder book is good
― Grandall Flange (wins), Friday, 16 June 2023 17:56 (eleven months ago) link
How much of it is actually about Fassbinder
― Crabber B. Munson (Boring, Maryland), Friday, 16 June 2023 18:19 (eleven months ago) link
Enough
― Grandall Flange (wins), Friday, 16 June 2023 18:22 (eleven months ago) link
― Grandall Flange (wins), Friday, 16 June 2023 bookmarkflaglink
Will probably get it, that discussion was good
― xyzzzz__, Friday, 16 June 2023 19:06 (eleven months ago) link
Just read through Owen Hatherley's piece on Fassbinder in the LRB. I love how Penman really reviews the book (the first review I put way up the thread was bad), wrestles with the content of it. The section where he writes about Fassbinder's abuse is powerful too.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 24 June 2023 12:35 (ten months ago) link
Does Hatherley touch on the fact that Penmman barely mentions any of the actresses that Fassbinder worked with?
― bain4z, Saturday, 24 June 2023 13:23 (ten months ago) link
Linda Ronstadt and the Eagles aren't yacht rock ffs
― Daniel_Rf, Saturday, 24 June 2023 13:31 (ten months ago) link
xp: no, but I don't think it's a thorough study of Fassbinder?
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 24 June 2023 13:45 (ten months ago) link
Nitpicking but "Why Does Herr R Run Amok?" is not a "minimalist film noir set among the lowlife the Federal Republic".
― Renaissance of the Celtic Trumpet (Tom D.), Saturday, 24 June 2023 13:47 (ten months ago) link
Maybe he was thinking of “The American Soldier”?
― Crabber B. Munson (Boring, Maryland), Saturday, 24 June 2023 14:09 (ten months ago) link
Sorry my original post is how OH really reviews IP's book.
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 24 June 2023 14:24 (ten months ago) link
Of course
― Johnny Bit Rot (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 24 June 2023 14:27 (ten months ago) link
Well, there's three (interconnected) films that fit the description and Herr R isn't one of them.
― Renaissance of the Celtic Trumpet (Tom D.), Saturday, 24 June 2023 14:33 (ten months ago) link
Gotcha - I love OH and largely enjoyed the Penman book (and love Fassbinder too) so am excited to read, cheers for the heads up.
― bain4z, Sunday, 25 June 2023 16:15 (ten months ago) link