The NME: Do the critics have personality?

his rejection over his request to do a segment during black history month in February 1984 for campus radio station WAER-FM because “he wasn’t black enough” (i.e. because he wasn’t a black American, he was from Africa...my brain still comes to a screeching halt even now thinking about it) and our talks about about music, bands etc.

you couldn't ask for better prep for working at NME in the era he did, or probably at any time tbf!

'00s NME writer James Jam's memories of Dele: https://medium.com/@jamesmcmahon_29072/some-thoughts-about-dele-fadele-6c7a18e533ba

i forget now if he told me this himself or someone else told me, but according to legend he one time seized the WAER- FM studio to solo-broadcast ALL of the TG live albs back-to-back

(this is abt 40 albs i think so the "ALL" seems in retrospect unlikely but there was def talk of a 24-hr blitz of the stuff lol)

(he was studying engineering, which somehow also seems pertinent)

What is TG?

Throbbing Gristle.

There was a James Brown at the NME? Wonder if I met him.

erstwhile manager of hitmakers Fabulous and publisher of softcore ironic misogyny mag Loaded

i've met him, he were alright

you forgot to add *celebrity* fan of vile revenant of the north L666s Utd

oh aye i forgot

ok i only met his briefly, we have to count Leeds in the debit pile

I bought his fanzine (Attack On Bzag) off him, on the street after a http://i.imgur.com/QbYzHTH.jpg gig. From that to Loaded was... quite a stretch.

Haha, WHAT? I said R e d s k i n s gig and it gave me a cat?

Hatcat were never the same after the original bassist left tbf

(longstanding ilx autoreplace for a racial slur / sports team name)

Keep it that way. Hatcat is the best.

so glad that http://i.imgur.com/QbYzHTH.jpg is back

nice spike jonze obit for dele, complete with some actual journalistic legwork: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/sep/14/dele-fadele-remembered-nme

i'm glad it actually brings up the issue of why this news took so long to come out (and at least hints at the institutional crappiness of the music press in its treatment of freelancers)

and tbh i lolled at the cheeky way the entirely just and fair headline ("He was a groundbreaker and a visionary”) completes itself further down the copy: “He was a groundbreaker and a visionary. He was a black man writing about indie music!”

that's a really good piece, glad to see it

Does Tim get called Spike a lot?

it's the price he pays for his rare and unlikely surname

Well- written and sad piece