rock writers on the teevee

Not interested here in rock writers in their current haggard state, of which there are innumerable examples on YouTube.... but rather, rock writers in their original pristine prime. These are much rarer, as rock journalism was not taken seriously by the gatekeepers of the mass media. 

In roughly chronological order   

There are some TV clips of the young Coon here amongst the looking-back stuff.

She also appears here from 14.35 onwards in this next clip, a TV program about The Alternative Society

Richard Williams (Melody Maker) presenting The Old Grey Whistle Test, with a natty mustache

Clip of Legs McNeil and the other fellow from Punk magazine which you'll have to go to YouTube to watch

Danny Baker, pre-NME, and Mark Perry, both then repping for Sniffin' Glue

Apparently the Clash totally fan-boyed Tony P

Charles Shaar Murray

The earliest clip of me on the box is from The Late Show  -  a live-on-air discussion of Jimi Hendrix. This must be 1990. I was brought on to represent the younger breed alongside more venerable rock pundits like Richard Williams and Charles Shaar Murray (during the long wait, CSM took me in the stairwell for a smoke and tried to ascertain how cool I was about weed. I certainly was not going to get stoned immediately before going on national TV). 

I have to say, I looked quite dreamy. Extremely soft-spoken, almost whispering through a cloud of long curly hair, as I unfurled my Dionysian argument: better by far that Hendrix shot across the sky like a meteor than for him to have carried on, gradually dwindling to an ember of his former incandescent intensity.  Only the most bourgeois metric would measure a life in terms of mere duration. In his brief transit, shooting star Jimi burned through lifetimes more "experience" than we mere mortals eke out across our cautious, play-safe spans. 

Young man's talk, obviously... 

It used to be online but no more.... somewhere I have it still on a VHS tape. 

UPDATE: Actually you know what, being a hoarder, turns out I saved it from YouTube... 

there is also this.... from 1998, the electronica doc Modulations. 

I don't look quite as terrible as I remember... When it was premiered in a movie theater, my bad hair blown up on the big screen, I was aghast. 

Kodwo Eshun in the middle of the Reynolds sandwich there, looking very natty indeed. 

Another Kodwo bit

 I remember being peeved that they used him talking about gabber, and not me!  

The full film - I think we are the only journos in it

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I said I didn't want to show the legendary critics in their current haggard state, but chanced on this the other night and it's full of them in varying states of disrepair  (and this is quite an old look-back prog, must have been made in the 2000s I should think)

Garry Bushell - The Clash - London Calling - Sounds - December 15 1979

Resuming the series of reviews in which a critic is wrong-footed in real-time, with Garry Bushell giving a measly two-stars to the record that Rolling Stone would later anoint as Best Rock Album of the Eighties (even though technically it came out in the 1970s, at least in the band's native land, and at the very end of the decade, the last weeks of '79).

But, thinking about it, I don't even like London Calling. And all the reasons why Rolling Stone would rate it so high are exactly the reasons why Gazza finds it so boring - the relapse into Presley-Stones-etc rock's rich tapestry-ism. 

And within five years Strummer himself would be in resounding agreement with Gazza and would attempt to restage The Clash debut with Cut the Crap. 

Yes, despite various attempts over the years, I've never clicked with London Calling, apart from the title track single, and "Lost In the Supermarket," which I find affecting. 

The rest bypasses me....  it's like the Clash submitting belated candidacy to be part of the Last Waltz line-up....   a truce between New Wave and Old Wave.  (Getting Guy Stevens to produce - the man who more or less created Mott the Hoople - is totally the Old Wave into New Wave truce move).

I prefer Sandinista...  on points....  but also because they sound confused and dispirited...

The spiritedness of the Clash is one of the things I find least appealing about them - probably why I never clicked with the debut either. 

(That's why I'm endeared towards "Lost in the Supermarket" - a Strummer song, and Strummer sentiment-admission of frailty - even though it's Jones who sings it, with trademark wetness).

Garry Bushell - Gang of Four - Entertainment! - Sounds - October 6 1979

Not quite an example of critics totally missing the significance of an epochal record in real time, as this does get a measured 3 and a half stars out of five from Gaz, with Entertainment! further described as "erratically brilliant".  

Included in the series more because the critique comes from a well-informed position (SWP member conversant with Brecht etc) yet advances a stance contrary to the now historically sanctioned viewpoint (here it is arty postpunk that's deemed is the wrong direction out of punk, the diversion of energy).  Instead of "rip it up and start again", it's more like "reiterate it and stay street". 

Garry Bushell - Malcolm Owen of The Ruts RIP - Sounds - July 26 1980

 

I have been accused of being a Garry Bushell fan. (Admittedly just by one, slightly potty person). Not at all - but there's no denying he was a phenomenon, and it's a certainly an interesting arc, from a paid-up member of the SWP (who referenced Brecht in his review of Gang of Four's Entertainment - see below) to a "telly" columnist  for The Daily Star.

In Sounds he identified an aesthetic and formed + named a movement - you may not like it, I may not like it, it might even have been problematic. Still, there's not many music journalists you can say who molded an actual youth subculture. And in the positive side of the ledger, Gazza was early to celebrate 2 Tone and wrote about a lot of good bands, including The Ruts. 

He got flak almost from the start (see below) and well deservedly. The Oi! compilation liner notes are a retrograde embarrassment. 

Still, I think we can see that quite a bit of the loathing for Oi! came from the same place as Chav-snobbery. 

Somewhere there must surely be an academic paper titled:

"Fear of the Oi! Polloi: Images of the British Working Class from Butskellism to Bushellism".   

Interesting that at the start, Bushell and Dave McCullough were allies (see below) - before Dave went off in what Gazza would think of as the pseud direction out of punk. This is the not the only piece where they shared a byline - they jointly interviewed The Clash and I think there's a slag off with both their bylines on it of  Alternative TV's Vibing Up the Senile Man. 

Dave McCullough + Gary Bushell - The Clash - Sounds - July 14 1979

 

Garry Bushell - Gang of Four: 'Entertainment!' - Sounds - October 6 1979