dnb and The Wire

dubplatestyle

Well-known member
i would happily write about dnb for the wire. unfortunately i dont really have time to pitch them. (from what i hear from people who have written/write for them, it's a veeeerrrrry long process between initial query and actually seeing something in the paper.) nor do i necessarily think they'd be interested. i mean, after all, there's people with beards and acoustic guitars to write about and i'm pretty sure we need another editor's note about throbbing gristle.

the wire's electronic coverage has definitely changed since sherburne took over from shapiro doing critical beats. which is fine; phil's got his own agenda, as does everyone. but i would like to see a LITTLE more of something in there other than techno/house.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
dubplatestyle said:
i would happily write about dnb for the wire. unfortunately i dont really have time to pitch them. (from what i hear from people who have written/write for them, it's a veeeerrrrry long process between initial query and actually seeing something in the paper.) nor do i necessarily think they'd be interested. i mean, after all, there's people with beards and acoustic guitars to write about and i'm pretty sure we need another editor's note about throbbing gristle.
Not to mention a ten page feature on someone who used to be in a prog / improv band in the seventies and has done very little of any note since. Who needs vital and exciting new music when you've got someone whose brother once met Cornelius Cardew?
 

owen

Well-known member
no-one has ever adequately explained to me why shapiro, penman, simon and so forth didn't lead a coup at the wire at some point to stop it going this far up its own arse. it's also all a little self-defeating, ie surely more people will read something with someone born in the last 30 years on the cover rather than mayo fucking thompson
 

stelfox

Beast of Burden
oh let's not start wire bashing again. what's the point? props to matt for getting the dirty canvas night in there, but i'm pretty convinced that wouldn't have happened were it not held in an art gallery. in that regard, the wire has decided what its job is and does it pretty well (regardless of whether or not it reduces me to screaming jags of boredom). really, saying you want new urban music in there is like saying you wish razzle would run more pieces by malcolm gladwell.
 
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droid

Guest
I think the original point was more about a failure on The Wires' part to engage with those who (articulately) register their disagreement with its dismissive attitude towards DnB.

In general I think that those inhabiting the Olympian heights of the Wire office could do a lot worse than occasionally acknowledging the existence of more earthbound commentators...

Might help with their image problem as well...
 

dubplatestyle

Well-known member
it wouldn't bother me so much dave if this wasn't a magazine that once put gang starr on the cover, ran the first in depth interview/feature on timbaland i read anywhere, and published simon's 2-step piece. though i admit they've been doing their new thing long enough that maybe it's a wholly new magazine.
 

stelfox

Beast of Burden
oh, don't get me wrong. you know as well as anyone exactly how much these things used to annoy me, jess, but i think it's moved away from that without the potential to go back, not just under this regime but ever. i could be wrong but i also seem to remember hearing that a phase of popular artists on the cover a little while ago (shadow, radiohead, bjork etc) actually sold quite badly, too, so i think they're just catering to their audience now (a group of people who have my limitless pity, as it so happens)
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
stelfox said:
oh let's not start wire bashing again. what's the point?
It's easy and fun?
it's decided what it's job is and does it pretty well (regardless of whether or not it bores me to screaming jags of boredom). really, saying you want new urban music in there is like saying you wish razzle had more pieces by malcolm gladwell in it.
From my point of view, it's not that it doesn't cover new urban music - it does, in its own way. It's more that for a magazine with a focus on new and experimental music, it tends to have a very backward looking feel to it - a sense of history is one thing, lengthy articles on two decade old micro-scenes is another, particularly when there seems to be a lot of interesting stuff within the Wire remit at the moment that's under-exposed.

I guess I'm also a bit dissatisfied with the tendancy to focus on a couple of long interviews per month, which means that given the astounding (and commendable) breadth of what they're trying to cover, you never get much sense of cohesion - they had Simon's fantastic grime primer a year or so ago and they might well be editorially behind the scene, but have never had the space to fit in a full length interview with a grime artist, so you get the impression that they've forgotten about it - and with the general complete lack of excitement in most of the writers styles, whatever they're covering.

The former could probably be dealt with if they did a lot more short interviews and thinkpieces, or pitchfork-esque 'month in' columns. The latter - erm, acid in the water cooler?
 

stelfox

Beast of Burden
Slothrop said:
The former could probably be dealt with if they did a lot more short interviews and thinkpieces, or pitchfork-esque 'month in' columns. The latter - erm, acid in the water cooler?

They only have to ask!
 
S

simon silverdollar

Guest
stelfox said:
i think they're just catering to their audience now (a group of people who have my limitless pity, as it so happens)


ha ha!
i read the wire, on occasion. it's like eating brown rice, or jogging. not fun, not particularly useful, but makes you feel virtuous.
 

Rambler

Awanturnik
Slothrop said:
It's easy and fun?

From my point of view, it's not that it doesn't cover new urban music - it does, in its own way. It's more that for a magazine with a focus on new and experimental music, it tends to have a very backward looking feel to it - a sense of history is one thing, lengthy articles on two decade old micro-scenes is another, particularly when there seems to be a lot of interesting stuff within the Wire remit at the moment that's under-exposed.

I guess I'm also a bit dissatisfied with the tendancy to focus on a couple of long interviews per month, which means that given the astounding (and commendable) breadth of what they're trying to cover, you never get much sense of cohesion - they had Simon's fantastic grime primer a year or so ago and they might well be editorially behind the scene, but have never had the space to fit in a full length interview with a grime artist, so you get the impression that they've forgotten about it - and with the general complete lack of excitement in most of the writers styles, whatever they're covering.

The former could probably be dealt with if they did a lot more short interviews and thinkpieces, or pitchfork-esque 'month in' columns. The latter - erm, acid in the water cooler?

This is all far enough, but it runs the risk of making the mag's coverage of anything much more shallow than it already is. I like the fact that they give proper space and depth to their interviews and articles, but like other posters here I only end up reading about one every other month. There's only so much music you engage with in that much detail.

The Wire's problem is that they try to cover everything that's outside the pop circuit, and do it in commendable depth, which is an impossible and slightly daft remit. They'd be better served admitting that they don't really 'do', say, jazz, urban, or anything vaguely mainstream any more, and be done with it.
 

mms

sometimes
simon silverdollar said:
ha ha!
i read the wire, on occasion. it's like eating brown rice, or jogging. not fun, not particularly useful, but makes you feel virtuous.

have you ever eaten camargue red rice - its the tastier and more esoteric salternative to brown rice, but it requires slightly longer to cook.
what do people think of plan b?
it's got some really heavyweight pretention, they kinda cover music i like with joy and enthusiasim rather than detached weight but it's not quite there for me , some kinda hybrid mix of that, fact, the wire would be good, with more dance music.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Rambler said:
This is all far enough, but it runs the risk of making the mag's coverage of anything much more shallow than it already is. I like the fact that they give proper space and depth to their interviews and articles, but like other posters here I only end up reading about one every other month. There's only so much music you engage with in that much detail.

The Wire's problem is that they try to cover everything that's outside the pop circuit, and do it in commendable depth, which is an impossible and slightly daft remit. They'd be better served admitting that they don't really 'do', say, jazz, urban, or anything vaguely mainstream any more, and be done with it.
Yeah, that's kind of what I was getting at. But it'd be nice if (for instance) they gave a few more scene or label profiles just to get the sense that there is a continuum behind the individual artists that they cover in depth. I'm not complaining about their free jazz prog improv folk ambient slant so much as the fact that if I didn't have other sources, I wouldn't realize that a load of stuff existed because the only space it gets afforded is reviews, and I'm not likely to read through all their reviews to figure out if there's anything particualr going on. The Primers are a great step in the right direction, although they're bi-monthly, and tend to be the only mention that any given scene gets in about a year.

The letters page has some entertainingly pretentious stuff sometimes, though, and it's quite fun when they get someone with an obvious axe to grind to review a book. And to temper all this negativity, they do often have fantastic interviews with really interesting people - it's actually people who can write interviewing people who can talk for people who can read.
 

henry s

Street Fighting Man
I found I was only buying it when certain writers had a piece in it...and now that they all have blogs, where you can get them in spades, I dunno...

it's probably (maybe?) the case that the crowd that gets into Evan Parker, or Phill Niblock, or whoever, spends less time online than the likes of me (us?), and subsequently spends more at the newstand...(me, I tend to absorb more than purchase there)...it's been years since I've bought more than one issue (the recap) per year...

still, I'd run into a burning house to save my back issues from '90-'95...I'd fight you for them...
 
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Logos

Ghosts of my life
I've enjoyed the last few issues, but then I like Niblock as well as boundry-pushing jungle, grime and dubstep , techno etc.

Saying that though the current issue wound me up a bit - The dub reviewer 'reviewed' dub dread which is an album put out by Ray Keith's Dread label, and is to all intents and purposes a shockingly bad release, by whatever artistic criteria you care to judge it.

Gist was he saw it fit for comment because Ray Keith was a important DJ/producer in 95 and said record (Dub Dread) had some reggae acappellas and the odd dub stab in it.

To me this shows you how disconnected the Wire are with dnb...I think they treat it like a form of 'world music' which just 'is' instead of something to be engaged with on an emotional, intellectual or critical basis.
 

alo

Well-known member
The former could probably be dealt with if they did a lot more short interviews and thinkpieces, or pitchfork-esque 'month in' columns. The latter - erm, acid in the water cooler?

I agree. I got bought a sub to The Wire, and to be honest, it's good in a library sense-ie- retrospectively. But for NEW music, forget it most of the time. The cds you get free are, bar a few rareties, quite samey: Abstraction for abstractions sake, acoustic guitars, laptop cut-ups, Kieran Hebdan, some old tired breakbeats and a Fall track.

Thats why the Grime Primer was fresh. They need more stuff like that, and more in it generally. If i've never heard of the guy with the Invisible Jukebox for instance i don't read it, so thats one of the main features gone already.
They had Edan on a couple of months ago but he's hardly progressive. (Psychedelic Hiphop my arse. Another Wire trait: making music sound more exciting than it is)

Brrr...Its a thin, cold read most of the time.
 

minikomi

pu1.pu2.wav.noi
maybe they need a spinoff mag? wire jr or wire kidz haha.. seriously though, they could call it something like 'tension' to keep the wire-ish theme and make it all about well established writers interfacing with current music . . the guy who usually interviews mr specticles & contact mic on tabla could interview shitmat or jammer.
 

ChineseArithmetic

It is what it is
Hmmm, The Wire. In theory it ought to be something I'd want to read, but in practice, like others here, I've rarely bought it. The perennial missed opportunity of it's dance/electronic/techno/hip-hop coverage is probably the central reason. The long features they've done on the likes of Gangstarr/Premier, El-P/CoFlow/DefJux, Juan Atkins and others have been outstanding, really thoroughly researched, in-depth and perceptive. And they'll do great guides to PFunk, Lee Perry, old school electro or whatever, that suggest that their ethos is that plenty of good old funky music can be as as cutting edge and avant as free jazz or Charlamange Palestine or whoever's on the cover this month. But the review coverage really drops the ball. They could be flagging up interesting stuff from within the various scenes (house/techno, hip-hop or indeed grime or dubstep ) that their readership might be into, say Theo Parrish or Omar S of stuff I've liked recently.

Instead, they're way too keen on acts who can spin some pseudy theoretical toss around what they do- fuck knows who most of the electronic acts are that they review, but like someone said, the sampler cds are as dull as hell (It said it all for me that someone later admitted that when they ran their first piece on DJ Spooky, a big Wire poster boy for a while, no one had actually heard his record). And then in the end of year poll they stick in some crappy MANDY/Booka Shade thing off the chronicly overrated Get Physical, in order to look as if they're up to date.

The only person I know who buys it religiously doesn't really know much about the music, and tends to believe the hype in there (like someone said earlier, they're very good and making stuff sound amazing that isn't all that). I think a lot of people who buy it think that they'll become part of this Wire world of cogniscenti, if they can only spend seventy quid on that box set of some guy twiddling a shortwave radio that's album of the month.
 
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