the wire

bassnation

the abyss
the oldest posters are matts old school mates like sufi and the ones who used to read woebot and do blogs i spose.... eden, meme, me, craner, silverdollar...

me too, i think i've been here from the off - was invited by matt when he first set it up.
 

bun-u

Trumpet Police
must admit that I'm liking the influx of new writers in the mag (biased of course cos I've followed their blogs and met a few)...though the mag's problem is that its suffered from the creation of its own demographic - if you say 'Wirey music or Wire-style crowd' musos will know what your talking about and I'm sure some musicians/artists are seeking out a Wire-style fanbase (a handful of people in all the big metropolitan cities to fund a nice jet-setting lifestyle). So it's kind of killed off its own aesthetic, that it had when I starting buying it in 94 which seemed to be more about an hidden tour through the margins of different music styles...styles where the protagonists would have very little awareness or knowledge of the other style being covered. Now you wouldn't bat an eyelid if you saw in the next issue that burial was doing a collab with derek bailey
 

bun-u

Trumpet Police
hehe - okay so I'm not up with which of the Wire's untouchables are still with us, but you catch my drift man!
 

Ivan Conte

Wild Horses
Now you wouldn't bat an eyelid if you saw in the next issue that burial was doing a collab with derek bailey

... or if you read in an invisible jukebox that Andre WK has produced the new Lee Perry cd.

Reading your opinions I am wondering which styles or bands you would like to see on the cover of The Wire. Personally, I wouldn't mind if they were less afraid of covering areas closer to the "mainstream", and by this I don't necessarily mean that I'd like to read an article on Britney Spears... I quite liked the article on J Dilla, for example, it's not as good as the classic Timbaland article, but a brilliant primer for the uninitiated. I think they did this quite often in the 90s, and this is the main reason why those issues are so nice to read, even today!
 

nomos

Administrator
bassnation said:
me too, i think i've been here from the off - was invited by matt when he first set it up.
i'm olde too.

pfft! i joined hours before you stragglers wandered in :p mms is a champion poster though.

anyway... how's that dexplicit piece in the new one? it won't be out here for a while.
 

bassnation

the abyss
pfft! i joined hours before you stragglers wandered in :p mms is a champion poster though.

anyway... how's that dexplicit piece in the new one? it won't be out here for a while.

we all pre-date the great k-punk / padraig schism too, an event with the import of the reformation, as far as dissensus is concerned.
 

stelfox

Beast of Burden
i don't take any offence whatsoever to the dilla piece not being quite as great as sfj's audience with timbaland. that's a pretty high bar after all: one of my favourite pieces of hip-hop writing ever. however, sfj did have a bit of an advantage from the start, if only in so far as his subject was alive!
 

Ivan Conte

Wild Horses
however, sfj did have a bit of an advantage from the start, if only in so far as his subject was alive!

Yeah, you're (obviously) right :D

As I said, I actually quite liked J Dilla's article. I think they are both mandatory reading if one wants to understand the evolution of hip hop / RnB in the last decade.
 

wonk_vitesse

radio eros
In defense of The Wire, there was some excellent stuff played on their Resonance FM show last week, I think Biba Kopf was selecting.

It seems the radio show is amusing because for such a verbose and opinionated magazine the presenters seem quite mic-shy and just about manage to tell you what the tracks are. The playlist is always enlightening and broad, loathed by the SoulJazz DJs afterwards :D and free of the smug chat of the ex-R3/Mixing It- 'Where is the skill in that.'
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
and free of the smug chat of the ex-R3/Mixing It- 'Where is the skill in that.'
I always found that quite entertaining, actually. "It's not bad, but are they really doing anything that King Crimson didn't do better?" The posh show-and-tell vibe seemed quite endearing, rather like a scaled down version of those sixties things where they give a BBC journalist acid and get them to describe their experience.
 

polystyle

Well-known member
I have to give The Wire credit for having Gudrun Gut on this cover ...
Never buy it, rarely read it though.
But have found I've enjoyed parts when I have.
 

noel emits

a wonderful wooden reason
I always found that quite entertaining, actually. "It's not bad, but are they really doing anything that King Crimson didn't do better?" The posh show-and-tell vibe seemed quite endearing, rather like a scaled down version of those sixties things where they give a BBC journalist acid and get them to describe their experience.
Yeah the bitchy banter between those two can be really funny.

It loses some of it's comedy calue from not being on R3 though, always enjoyed it when the follow on announcer would have to plummily declaim that we've just been listening to the gentle strains of 'Come On You Slags by The Aphex Twin' or some such. :)
 

nochexxx

harco pronting
if anyone form the wire is reading this please do the following.

have harco pront on the cover.

in the same issue have torture doing an invisible jukebox.


review the UM / ascoltare picture disk.

also do a chrome primer and a ron hardy retrospective.


and most importantly do an mp3 / data wire tapper, this way you can fit more artists and those who run smaller and less sucsessfull labels can afford the admision cost.

just for the record i still love you.
 

psherburne

Well-known member
What's up with Harco Pront, anyway? I reviewed a couple of his releases for the Wire's Critical Beats column, years ago.... haven't heard a peep from him in ages though. Always dug his stuff.
 
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