Rolling Music Writers' Thread

Makes total sense. Thanks.

i was always kind of obsessed with art AND artists. even as a little kid. i loved reading about painters and writers and musicians, etc. how people created things was as fascinating to me as what they created. seemed like magic to me. and i always wanted to know more about it.

I was a writer and journalist first (or on my way to being one anyway)

It was easier for me to be a general interest newspaper journalist because it was easier cultivating professional relationships with local newspaper editors than it was trying to pitch to music editors when I started. The work allowed for a lot more production and development just through getting things done on a daily basis. Plus, the newspaper people I worked for largely thought very poorly of rock critics. Deserved or not.

However, a lot of that experience was a complete waste, or completely wasted, with regards to free-lance music journalism. And as far as I can tell, in anyone it would be totally wasted now.

I would also argue against the notion that you have write compulsively to be successful. Sure, I'm obsessed with music. But I have always spent at least as much time making music, and reading about music (among myriad other topics), as actually writing about it. I've become a part time critic (not a word I tend to use) because over the years I've accrued a lot of experience and knowledge that I like to share. I genuinely want interested readers to know about great music (and occasionally want to help them avoid lousy music). And along with that practice has come a confident voice (supported by real English education, back when public schools used to offer it). Apparently I also like commas and parenthesis. And emoticons ;)

Anyway, I love to write, but no way could I spend all day doing it and hope to pay my bills in this economy. If I'm going to starve myself for art, it's going to be while recording and performing, or ultimately writing some fiction out of my own head instead of spending all my days waxing poetic about the careers of others.

BTW, here's one of the best pieces of music writing I've encountered in a while. It's by Aesop Dekker who writes for the excellent Cosmic Hearse blog but is in this instance moonlighting at another.

Dear editors, please scoop this guy up and give him some paying work. He's brilliant.

http://icoulddietomorrow.blogspot.com/2010/01/france-gall-baby-pop.html

he had me at "boner-inducing chanson".

I've been writing since I was about twelve (well, younger than that, much younger, really, but I became earnest and self-aware about it, decided it was The Thing I Wanted To Do, in more or less the seventh grade). I never tried to write about anything else (zoning commission meetings or sports, to recycle Chuck's examples) because I never loved anything else as much as I loved listening to records. I had a Walkman on constantly in school; I'd walk out of class and turn the music on just for the two or three minutes we were allotted to walk from one classroom to the next. I had, like, an entire small bag of cassettes I carried with me because I could never decide on just one or two to bring with me that day. At one point I had one of those fishing vests with all the pockets, and they were all stuffed with tapes. So it was obvious that I was gonna write about music if I could. In addition to writing fiction, which I've been doing for twenty years though nobody, not even my agent, seems to want to read a word of it (my characters are unlikable, apparently, and the journeys they go on are unrewarding to the reader).

I am somewhat compulsive about writing, because I have ideas constantly - not just ideas for stories and novels, but ideas for books about music, books about other stuff, screenplays, blah blah blah. If I'm awake, the laptop's on, and I'm typing. I tend to quickly discard ideas that I don't think will be salable, though. I'm a whore in that respect - I'm passionate about writing, I love the act of creation, but I'm also very much interested in getting paid for it. And when a pitch is rejected, I move on to a new pitch, I don't polish it slightly and try a different editor or agent or whatever.

As the Joker says, "If you're good at something, never do it for free."

Yeah. I have invitations to write for some pretty cool outlets
(pro bono), and yet I seem to always prioritize even $10 listings before those.

some writers don't like reading reviews or whatever of an album that they're gonna review before they write their own review

yeah otm, i always try not to do that

i think more specific than being obsessed with reading, which i always have been, is being obsessed with language and etymology and how words work.

(i don't mean in the sense of being remotely interested in that meta-gawker shitstorm that frankly repulses me, the whole thing, and i'm so glad i was offline that week)

As the Joker says, "If you're good at something, never do it for free."

At my last job there was a big spirit of enforced volunteerism; environmentally themed events that the whole office was expected to pitch in and staff, things like that. I always did the absolute minimum necessary to keep my job; as I told the one guy there who agreed with me (out loud at least), "I'll do almost anything for money, and almost nothing for free."

You need to as obsessed with writing (and reading! and not just about music!) as you are with music. Otherwise you're just a superfan.

the second group is content to listen without engaging with what they're listening to in that way.

A lot of us post here and like to talk at least somewhat critically about music, but aren't necessarily critics. So there's also some in between space between someone who just listens to music and someone who produces professional reviews, interviews, features, etc.

I love to write, but no way could I spend all day doing it and hope to pay my bills in this economy.

^^^^^^^ story of my life.

I've explored writing for a few different places but in the end, never really found any ship worth sailing on. I'm pretty content to be an "armchair critic" just posting my thoughts and lols on ILM here and there, and listening to whatever catches my ears at a particular moment. Maybe I spend enough time listening to music, and enough money paying for it, that I don't also feel a need to extend music into another sector of my life (i.e., career)...? Who knows...

It was easier for me to be a general interest newspaper journalist because it was easier cultivating professional relationships with local newspaper editors than it was trying to pitch to music editors when I started. The work allowed for a lot more production and development just through getting things done on a daily basis... a lot of that experience was a complete waste, or completely wasted, with regards to free-lance music journalism. And as far as I can tell, in anyone it would be totally wasted now.

There's a good chance you're right. But I definitely put my journalism school/newspaper experience both to work as an editor, both at the Voice and Billboard. Still, I should hedge what I said above about it being "inevitable" that I'd wind up writing about music for a living -- because in a different place and time, even if I'd become such an obsessive music listener, that really might never have happened. When I got out of the Army, I actually assumed I'd go back to doing reporting work for suburban weeklies in Michigan, and maybe climb up through that world, beome a big fish in a small pond. But, because of any number of circumstances, I lucked out, and several magazines (and then a couple book publishing companies) were asking me to write about music, often before I even considered pitching them. Since big national publications like those tend to pay better than small local publications (or did then anyway), there was actual some financial advantage to me writing about music; also didn't hurt that my wife was initially making more than me. Obviously, that confluence of circumstances hardly ever happens, to anyone, and I assume it happens less and less as time goes on. And though I'm still basically doing this fulltime, freelance, lots of what I've been paid for in the past couple years (editing Billboard pieces from home, programming artist-specific web radio stations for Clear Channel, data and asset entry for Rhapsody) isn't music criticism, or even writing at all, per se'. 25 years ago, I was writing way more, for more outlets, than I am now.

An indirect comment but a relevant one from a writer who I think is one of the truly consistently *great* writers, on many subjects, in English these days, Ta-Nehisi Coates (the piece linked regards sports journalism):

... there's what my label-mate Andrew calls, "journalism dirty secret." The dirty secret is this--perhaps more than any other "profession" journalism's barriers to entry are really artificial. It does take a special person to be a great journalist. Curiosity in the extreme is important. A strong desire to see, and thus think, clearly is important. But neither of these can really be taught in a crude classroom environment. Journalism can't be absorbed through a series of lectures and assigned readings. It must be done. No one can teach you how to go up to strangers and ask rude questions. You just have to do it. Repeatedly.

In point of fact, many of the journalists whom we regularly see exhibit neither great curiosity nor clear thinking. It's much like acting--there are many great actors, but many of the ones you see regularly are not. Thus the sense is that the perch which journalists enjoy is undeserved. A journalist is not, say, like a chemist, or an ophthalmologist. When we watch sports analysts loudly proclaiming who's going to win, and who isn't, we look at them and think, "Why is this guy on TV? I can do that."

Indeed you could--and many more of you should. And not just in sports. Some of the best, and most informed, commentary I read happens underneath posts like these. Indeed the comments sometimes exceed the post to the extent that I end up having to reverse myself. Forgive the circle-jerk. But sometimes I read some of you and wonder why you're here. You should be out there with guns. We need soldiers.

It must be done. No one can teach you how to go up to strangers and ask rude questions. You just have to do it. Repeatedly.

In point of fact, many of the journalists whom we regularly see exhibit neither great curiosity nor clear thinking.

You should be out there with guns. We need soldiers.

He forgets to add the part that lots of 'soldiers' have been shut out and chased off systemically. And that's true of journalism in a general sense, where it's become professional practice to avoid annoying the uppers while spending time afflicting the afflicted and praising rascals. It's not new, either.

The assistant managing editors at the mid-size parochial newspaper I worked for hated getting telephone calls the day after pieces ran. And if you're asking rude questions and putting such unpleasantness into print, you'll generate phone calls, yelling and veiled threats.

So where are the soldiers at the New Yorker and the Atlantic, other than Jane Mayer and/or
Seymour Hersh? I'm sure there are others. But considering the price, regard and resources of the real estate, they're in much lesser abundance than we might expect.

But I definitely put my journalism school/newspaper experience both to work as an editor, both at the Voice and Billboard

You don't have to prove it to me. Many editors I have worked with, including you, were very good. But my aim was to get into print on a regular and reliable basis and that meant not having to rely on someone deluged with free-lance queries on music, occasionally throwing out a bone on some band.

all i ever wanted out of the writing thing after i'd done it for a while was a little spot of my own. which is a lot to ask for these days. i have a small spot at decibel and i'm happy with that. i'll ride it as long as they let me. one of the only times i did something for spin magazine i said to whoever was editing then: you know, you should just give me my own column. (cuz i was cheeky like that) and they said: why is it always people like you who ask for their own column?

(Scott: Pete's father did write "Christians." http://blogs.citypages.com/pscholtes/2005/09/an_interview_with_peter_r_scho.php)

In point of fact, many of the journalists whom we regularly see exhibit neither great curiosity nor clear thinking. It's much like acting--there are many great actors, but many of the ones you see regularly are not.

it should also be noted that ALL of the journalists that 99.9 percent of us see are television journalists, which is a very different thing than being any other kind of journalist. different medium, different needs. it's more than "much like" acting. it IS acting. that's what the medium requires.

said to whoever was editing then: you know, you should just give me my own column. (cuz i was cheeky like that) and they said: why is it always people like you who ask for their own column?

geez no harm in asking - what an assholey response. "people like you" = people w/their own ideas rather than sycophants

"people like you" = people who can write, but waste too much time listening to metal/noise/prog?

Also, I really want to see a vintage pic of Phil in his fishing vest full of tapes. Please?

A strong desire to see, and thus think, clearly is important. But neither of these can really be taught in a crude classroom environment. Journalism can't be absorbed through a series of lectures and assigned readings. It must be done. No one can teach you how to go up to strangers and ask rude questions. You just have to do it. Repeatedly.

I love Coates, but is the state of education really so bad that he thinks classrooms are only places where you absorb lectures? Of course these things can be taught. I was teaching them to a bunch of high-schoolers just a few weeks ago. You practice, scaffold, role-play, then have them go out and try it themselves.

xp: Scott, yeah, that was my dad.

xp: Xhuxk, yeah, "have to" as in compulsion. I'm sure I'm taking "obsess" more literally than others on this thread: Of course I deeply care about and love writing and music, and think about both every day, but is that obsession? These streams of advice are really about the nature of learning, but the thing is, you can know a lot about music or writing, and know very little about how people learn.

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/126317-whats-the-write-word-part-3-greg-kot-to-ann-powers

Amy Phillips: "Pithy one-liners and jokes just make you sound like an asshole. And nobody wants to work with an asshole."

u_u

Amy Philips: "At the same time, don’t be a breathless, gushing fangirl/fanboy."

http://pitchfork.com/news/27770-new-radiohead-album-aaaaaaahhh/

To be fair, at the time I posted:

This is the best thing ever.

Atease thread: http://www.ateaseweb.com/mb/index.php?showtopic=235019104

― three handclaps, Sunday, September 30, 2007 7:50 PM (2 years ago)

before i read meltzer's thing i wondered what kind of shit job he would say to get instead of being a writer. it was burger king.

Johan Kugelberg: "Don’t post shit-talk on forums."

Oh man, scott, it's worth quoting Meltzer in full:

Here is my advice: don’t. Don’t be a music journalist. All you will become in doing so is a shill. On the other hand, if you wish to be a genuwine actual WRITER, whatever the hell that might entail anymore in a functional “real world” sense (now that nobody reads; now that writing as a full-time “occupation” no longer exists), be prepared to eat shit for the rest of your life. Period. Better to change the grease, or mop floors, at Burger King.

Amy Philips: "At the same time, don’t be a breathless, gushing fangirl/fanboy."

http://pitchfork.com/news/27770-new-radiohead-album-aaaaaaahhh/

loooooooooooooooool

:-)

Andrew Philips is right with this, I think:

The key is listening. I can tell the difference between a writer that’s heard 2000 albums in their life and one that’s banked 20,000+ (so can readers, even if they don’t know why). The intangible is this: Once you’ve listened to every kind of music imaginable (even if you hated a lot of it), you understand where things fit in the larger sphere. You see associations. You have context. You have a relative sense of what an album or musician actually means. Even if that understanding isn’t made explicit in your writing, it is there, and it makes a difference. You don’t overreact; you don’t fall prey to half-assed analysis or over-aggrandizing. You have to feed your (hopefully inherent) need to understand everything. The best writer in the world isn’t worth anything in this business if they’re not in search of that kind of understanding. There’s no faking it. We’re at war with algorithms and to win we have to understand music in ways that computers can’t. You have to sit down and obsessively, methodically listen, listen, listen, listen.

Did someone pay Amy Phillips for that Sonic Youth "Murray Street" review?

xpost And then gimme an idea of what it actually sounds like or gtfo

Ann Powers also massively OTM here:

Expertise in your chosen field will come naturally, as you fulfill your lust for information about and experiences of whatever fascinates you.

Jon: it sounds like a metaphor crunching into a simile while exaltations rain down courtesy of some obscure half-referenced singer now getting a reissue. Plus, whales.

WHALES?!?!?!

Ordered.

I'm sorry, these kind of whales:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_t44siFyb4

That was after the record company rejected the original demos.

As long as the cetacean explosion was recorded with a single judiciously placed binaural mic, I'm in. I like a realistic concert hall perspective.

wait, what if you have heard 20,000+ records, but are REALLY fond of half-assed analysis and over-aggrandizing.

cuz that about sums me up in a friggin' nutshell.

:-D

I sympathize with Whiney here:

http://twitter.com/1000TimesYes/status/15195228274

xpost - Thanks for the Oregon shout-out Ned! That whale footage is classic.

Real talk: do y'all writer types find value in using Twitter? i don't currently have an account -- just manually type in the URLs of some feeds i like to check in on -- but i'm thinking of joining

As someone who basically used Twitter to review the Bottled Smoke fest this weekend, yes, I do find value in it.

I never use Facebook or my blog for quips, so Twitter is beyond me now; besides, I don't want any more chances to waste time online.

genuinely, yes

I do find Twitter valuable. I don't live-tweet events, but I exchange ideas with people and find links to interesting things.