radiofreemidwich seeks new staff writer, condition applies

January 12, 2015 at 1:56 pm | Posted in blog info, musings | Leave a comment
Tags: situations vacant

The RFM offices yesterday…

Radio Free Midwich is not an explicitly political place. Given that my own views are a deeply felt but jumbled mix of hard left, anarchist and libertarian sentiments tailored to make my own hypocrisies comfortable (in summary: ‘aging punk’) that is probably for the best, but I recognize that any pretence of ‘neutrality’ is merely tacit support for the status quo. In particular, whilst remaining proud of our achievements, I am shamed by the fact that, like much of ‘noise’, RFM is and has always been a bit of a boys’ club. I consider myself a feminist, despite a shameful lack of book-learning on the subject, but what that seems to amount to ’round here is tutting at the porn/horror imagery favoured by people like Lee Stokoe and donating a few quid to the hairdryer excommunication #TeamHarpy fund before sheepishly backing away from the wider discussion Kev hoped to boot up. Not very impressive is it?

However, I intend to move things in the right direction a little. Scott McKeating has retired from his position as RFM staff writer to focus on the refurbishment of his undersea lair and I would like his replacement to be a woman. I would be interested to read, and happy to publish, feminist think-pieces on the nature of the ‘scene’ and a woman’s experiences within it but the new incumbent will not necessarily be expected to be a torch-bearer for her sex. What I am mainly after is an enthusiastic female voice, able to turn a decent phrase, that I can offload some of this bloody review pile onto.

Here’s the spec:

—ooOoo—

RFM requires a female writer to produce essay-reviews of roughly 800-2000 words covering between 1 and 5 releases each on at least, say, a monthly basis (though there are no deadlines here). Whilst there will be review copies provided occasionally, the writer will be encouraged to present her own ideas for review topics.

The style at RFM is enthusiastic, anecdotal, whimsical, storytelling but deadly serious in its heartfelt sincerity. RFM has no interest in ironic distance and does not publish bad reviews (well…). Ideally, our new writer will already be a regular reader of RFM and thus have some idea of what goes on but if not, may I recommend tasting the articles linked to in the Zellaby Awards top-ten album of the year chart to get a flavour. A wide range of styles within experimental/noise music is covered, the majority of which is produced in very short runs, or as downloads, and can be gathered under the leaky umbrella term ‘the no-audience underground‘.

There will be no reward other than the odd freebie tape/CD-r/download code and the warm glow of positive karma. Joe, Luke and I write about this stuff for the same reason the artists create it: we have no choice, we are driven to. Hopefully any new staffer will feel the same way. RFM is moderately successful, despite its subject matter, so your work will at least be appreciated by a loyal and knowledgeable readership.

Fair warning: I can be an intrusive editor and as well as correcting typos and punctuation I may change words and even shift whole chunks of text about in my quest for the semi-mythical ‘flow’ that Joe and Luke are sick of me harping on about.

—ooOoo—

OK, if this sounds enticing then get in touch via email to r dot w dot hayler at leeds dot ac dot uk with an idea or two or, if you like, an example of your writing and we’ll talk.

EDIT: POSITION FILLED!  More details to follow…