Leo

Well-known member
have to say I am a bit surprised the wire assigned it to him. and if they didn't know about the chip on joe's shoulder beforehand, they could have rejected the piece when it was submitted, or asked for a revision. it would be one thing if muggs spent a sentence or two on the topic, but it's literally the majority of the review.

what happened, @Diggedy Derek ?
 
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Benny Bunter

Well-known member
My copy arrived today and I've read the first couple of chapters - brilliant writing on Vybz Kartel and the Gully vs Gaza wars. I like how, though he clearly knows the music deeply and is more than capable of speaking about timelines and technical details, he doesn't get bogged down in record-collector style nerdery or bang on about sound design or whatever, and instead concentrates on elevating the whole thing to the mythical level it deserves with his prose.

I reckon I'll fly through this in a couple of sittings.
 

xenogoth

looking for an exit
This thread has been very illuminating. I haven't even read Neon Screams yet and had no idea there was any beef or history. I just wanted to read the Grouper cover feature because I love her...

You can tell he's trying to hide the animosity (even saying he was being "polite" in that tumblr post) but the wire review is still a real pants-shitting, and reading that tumblr post after the fact only makes it worse, as if he's taken to shitting his pants with the mask off (as if it wasn't also covered in bits of shit from previous outings).

Feel for Kit though. I'm sure he's got a thicker skin, but nothing more disappointing than wanting someone to engage with your book and finding a review is used as an opportunity to drudge up an old beef. Felt the same about when my book and Macon Holt's got dual-reviewed in the Wire last year. It was more a review of "Exiting the Vampire Castle" than anything to do with the musical content of either book.

It makes Muggs' idea that the Wire is a place somehow above blog / comment section drama a bit rich. All your doing is elevating your beefs to print media, and that's even more pathetic than shitting your pants on tumblr. It's at home on the latter at least!
 

xenogoth

looking for an exit
But yeah... Sorry. Not to derail from the book again. Repeater Radio content was ace and I'm gonna take it with me on holiday in September. Excited to dig in.
 

luka

Well-known member
His skins not actually all that thick but he took the review well. I think it starts by saying his writing is magnificent, which took the sting out of the thing
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Gotta say, I like Joe Muggs (turns out we went to the same school although I never met him and I only found this out a few years ago - it's not his real name) but that review was really very weird indeed. Someone just flicking through and happening to read it would think the book was by Simon Reynolds which just can't be a good thing.
I agree with sentiment above that The Wire shouldn't have printed it if he couldn't at least pretend to rise above...
Although, at least in that respect it is honest, if he had not mentioned SR at all and just spitefully slated that would have been worse. I can totally see why author was not disheartened by review in that it pretty much says "Yeah well written book by an exciting talent- anyway now here is why I hate Reynolds".
 

version

Well-known member
Feel for Kit though. I'm sure he's got a thicker skin, but nothing more disappointing than wanting someone to engage with your book and finding a review is used as an opportunity to drudge up an old beef. Felt the same about when my book and Macon Holt's got dual-reviewed in the Wire last year. It was more a review of "Exiting the Vampire Castle" than anything to do with the musical content of either book.
That seems to happen quite often, not necessarily in terms of the reviewer attacking someone or thing, but that a review ends up being something other than a review. You see it on LRB quite a bit. They list whichever books are being reviewed at the top then the article barely mentions them and they just write their own article on the subject or something adjacent to it.
 
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xenogoth

looking for an exit
That seems to happen quite often, not necessarily in terms of the reviewer attacking someone or thing, but that a review ends up being something other than a review. You see it on LRB quite a bit. They list whichever books are being reviewed at the top then the article barely mentions them and they just write their own article on the subject or something adjacent to it.
I'm not against this in principle, tbh. I actually quite like when a review waxes lyrical a bit, using the book or film or record under consideration to examine the lay of the land a bit. Ironically, that's what I think Reynolds is particularly good at, and what gets him into trouble — people don't always like what he sees. But all I get from Muggs' review is a sense of the end of his nose.
 

version

Well-known member
I don't mind it too much, but I might if someone were reviewing something of mine. That, and it means I'm none the wiser as to whether the book's any good.
 

thirdform

pass the sick bucket

Yeah but hes a fucking ambulence chaser still obsessed with The Smiths and Burial like his shags haven't gone past first year freshers.

Granted this is me externalising my never to be resolved beef with k-punk onto him, but the amount that Kit owes to Reynolds is Infinitesimal compared to Matt's debt to the theory of lost whiteboy labourism circa 1983.
 
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thirdform

pass the sick bucket
have to say I am a bit surprised the wire assigned it to him. and if they didn't know about the chip on joe's shoulder beforehand, they could have rejected the piece when it was submitted, or asked for a revision. it would be one thing if muggs spent a sentence or two on the topic, but it's literally the majority of the review.

what happened, @Diggedy Derek ?

This is the wire, they got so woke before Sophie outed herself as trans that they commissioned a hitpiece of male appropriation in electronic music. No wonder it took them ages to fuck off Nina Power.

What else can be expected from posh music writers.
 
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