FUCK EDITORS

All the more reason NOT to do too much local coverage. (I mean, right, my job is to provide publicity for local hipster musicians.)

Eep. I'm learning something here.

I never give too specific of pitch guidelines either, so I'm not sure why it bugged me by the suggestion that you should give more samples than requested. I think I just don't like it that someone else assumes they know what I need. Although this thread is pointing out that maybe they do!

Jeezus.

> the volume of venom from local hipster musicians was incredible.<
All the more reason NOT to do too much local coverage. (I mean, right, my job is to provide publicity for local hipster musicians.)

Did work for a local daily newspaper for years. It was intensely local, sometimes to self-destruction, and the hometown artists had grown accustomed to pattycake treatment. After a couple of weeks, every Monday morning the assistant managing editor for features would be in a really foul mood because he had to answer phone calls from them after I'd slaughtered some hometown favorite over the weekend. The best moment was when a bunch of them brought in a signed petition to have me fired. The griping in the letters section actually seemed to stimulate more readers into looking at the section, which had been one of the most ignored in polls judging aimed at rating what people turned to (sports, the comics and the horoscope always won). If they'd had a sex columnist or someone who told bathroom jokes, that probably would have been first.

Mridu's advice is good, particularly the bit about fresh slants.

http://karma2.karmadownload.com/images/albums/SKCD77_pic.jpg

i have the angry emails to dispute this as my intent in covering local music.

I never understand why the weekend section focused so much on Anthracite entertainment; it always seem to enforce racialized fears that get so much play in Berks Co. as it is.

w/r/t local coverage in Philly: there's basically a one man monopoly on local band coverage in our weeklies and then there's Philebrity. As someone who actually lives here and doesn't carpetbag from NYC, it's amazing how detached and disillusioned coverage has been of Philly bands generally speaking. Maybe it's for the best; if you've waited on bands as customers, then it's probably better to avoid ever writing about them, right?

Yeah. I worked for the Allentown Morning Call in the Lehigh Valley, straight east from Berks and up the northeast extension from Philly. Went to college in Reading and the LV and there wasn't a lot of difference between the two. Anyway, after I left the Call, the music editor used some of Condran's free-lance reviews to help fill the hole. Don't remember seeing a lot but I wasn't paying much attention so I'm sure some stuff escaped me.

The Call was really into the local heevahava scene. It was what xhuxk referred to as local boosterism run amok. It had been that way for years. Everyone was totally into hagiography so this was circumvented by starting a new feature called "Nightclubbing," a weekly column that published satirical reviews of the locals in their watering holes alongside similarly voiced reviews of whatever semi-bigshots were at the Fairgrounds or in the Stabler Arena.

-- strongo hulkington's ghost (wt...) (webmail), November 18th, 2005 7:01 PM. (dubplatestyle) (link)

Yeah, it's weird. With the exception of the ex-Man Man guys, that's pretty easy to maintain, and as someone who's had peripheral experience with Philadelphia, you can understand why. Search Marah and knifepoint and you may find some interesting results.
xpost

When it comes to local Philly weeklies, it seems their predisposed to running the same people's pieces (see Philly Weekly for instance) and not welcome other writers at all, as though it were an affront to the editorial sensibility of the paper. Is this pretty common?

So far I have no editing horror stories to report from working for Strongo or his predecessor!

Hello editors!

Damn Technorati!

Agreed, Chuck ... on the flip side, though, scene-bitching is just as bad. Man-in-the-scene iconoclasm just doesn't have much value or shelf-life anyway you try it ... and that's all I'll say relative to my past experience.

Depends on the execution. For the operation, it was the most read and anticipated section of the weekend music news.

On the other hand, I edit the music reviews on and off, and that's where if I say that I want 300 goddamned words, I want 300 goddamned words. People seem to think that this is something that I'll be pleased to get, 400 extra words on some bland album that I have to cut out anyway. And would it kill them to make a declarative statement that doesn't have "possibly" or "one of the" in it?

And that's leaving aside the hassle of a publisher who cuts the pages randomly and has no interest in funding editorial work at all. ("Yeah, I know that I promised you $25 for your review, Freelancer, but the publisher doesn't cut a check until he runs it, and he's cut the reviews page the last three months. I know it's a dumb policy. No, I can't help you out. Sure, I've got more albums for you to look at, but most of them are 35-year-old white guys rediscovering the blues, and I'm not going to be able to run them until 2008").

-- Raymond Cummings (gracefulas...), November 18th, 2005.

haha Raymond, you're trying way too hard, my first name is Al and it's the same name as on my bylines, wtf

Yeah, some features are printed two months later, and then he'll wait a while before cutting that check. Meanwhile, you better be respectin deadlines an all.

-- Raymond Cummings (gracefulas...), November 18th, 2005.

haha Raymond, you're trying way too hard, my first name is Al and it's the same name as on my bylines, wtf

-- Al (hoteloper...), November 19th, 2005.

It's Al Shipley right? I like that guy's writing. Who did you think it was?