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As its name suggests, the blog Archived Music Press is a collection of scanned pages from the British weeklies NME and Melody Maker from 1987-1996. The scans up the nostalgia factor of reading this stuff again (Simon Reynolds has been doing the same thing on his archive blog, ReynoldsRetro), but the main reason I’m posting is a recent addition: “Dear Backlash,” David Stubbs’s omnibus response to Melody Maker reader letters, and one of the flat-out funniest things I’ve read in an age.
Stubbs skewers his targets so cheerfully it throws the premature jadedness of most current Web-based music writing into ultra-sharp relief, and he’s irresistibly funny, especially when he quotes reader poetry. (My .sig of choice these days is “Oh flowers, flowers / you are so flowery / as you drip in the rain / that is so showery.”) It’s hard to imagine someone writing this today. Comments boxes (hi, guys!) have replaced the letter to the editor with immediate-impression “TL;DR” wankery; back then, you had to commit to voicing your displeasure with a magazine or newspaper. Not to get too golden-age on you, but today, it’s hard not to miss this kind of thing.
“Dear Backlash,” [Archived Music Press]
That was HILARIOUS. He’s the same man responsible for the Pepe Le Punk column which was nothing short of genius.
@NeverEnough: I still quote Pepe LePunk from time to time.
“Hot piss!”
“…author of Freddy Mercury: He Was Not Gay.”
“Please wait while I unpack my notebook from my rucksack.”
@NeverEnough: I still miss Pepe Le Punk: “For it is I, Pepe!”
@Ned Raggett: @Nicolars: YES! I got to meet David Stubbs in 1995 and started frantically quoting my favorite Pepe le Punk article where he interviews David Bowie and invites him over for “potatoes and laughing.” Ahahaha!
Hahahah, beautiful. Whatever was his reaction to that?
@Ned Raggett: He was the epitome of gracious. He even included the “potatoes and laughing” line again in his next week’s column. Awesome.
And words cannot describe how disappointed I was when I saw A Flock of Seagulls 2 weeks ago only to discover that the guy who was the face of Pepe le Punk is no longer in the band (it consisted of just Mike Score and 3 angry looking Latinos. It was like A Flock of Sepultura).
Fantastic.
@NeverEnough: the guy who was the face of Pepe le Punk
That would be the very underrated Paul Reynolds, who keeps on keeping on.