misunderstanding the discussion: thoughts on the wire

April 12, 2020 at 8:56 pm | Posted in musings, no audience underground | 9 Comments
Tags: the wire

On 10th April 2020, in the depths of the coronavirus pandemic, Derek Walmsley of The Wire magazine posted the following tweet:

Equating promos drying up with a lack of activity is a familiar complaint from music journos and would usually only evoke eye-rolling.  However, Derek’s references to ‘waiting’ and the ‘current moment’ mean he is obviously referring to the situation now, under the pandemic.  This tweet garnered exactly the response anyone paying attention might expect: the DIY underground people pointed out that there is actually a vast amount of activity going on at the moment, more than anyone can keep up with, and the biz people pointed out that businesses were closed and revenue uncertain and as such any delays were unfortunate but simply explained as a result of the pandemic.  It also got a bunch of likes and a load of ‘pick me!’ tweets from those with warez to punt (no shade on them, by the way, gotta take yr chances).

I pushed back in this exchange (you may note that the times are a little screwy due to whether I was replying to a tweet in reply to me or in reply to Daniel Gregory who was also early into this discussion):

Derek clarified/doubled down with a response I thought was, at best, tone deaf:

…and I somewhat lost my rag:

I was going to leave it there but when I noticed Derek’s jaunty one-line sign off this morning I couldn’t help but further express my exasperation.  Mea culpa:

Fiery stuff. So why do I care?

The first issue of The Wire I bought was #121, March 1994, Elvis Costello on the cover.  I was a third year undergraduate philosophy student looking to ‘upgrade’ from the weekly inkies, by then in terminal decline (and if it sounds like I was insufferable, that’s because I was).  Rarely has a product so neatly fit the requirements of its consumer.  Each issue would be closely read and I would carefully note the publication date of the next.  Eventually I subscribed and, all told, didn’t miss or throw away an issue for more than a decade.  I lugged the pile – IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER – with me through several house moves.

Then I got sick of it.  For years my sub was renewed on the strength of the music it covered.  There was nowhere else I could get the skinny on the stuff I was excited by. Also, coming from philosophy (BA, MA, two years of a part time PhD in philosophy of language before I jacked it in) I had a very high tolerance for the hackademic tone.  Increasingly, though, I had confidence in my own taste and knowledge and had friends who also shared both.  At this point I was able to step back and see the medium was actually clouding the message.  The white space and angular design that, ironically, makes it feel cramped and claustrophobic.  The dry house style that vacuumed joy and colour out of even the most thrilling subject matter.  The unchanging reliance on established formats.  And so on.

At a time when the blogosphere was rapidly expanding and starting to suggest strategies for dealing with the phenomenon of limitless availability The Wire was still recommending which album we should spend our pocket money on.  I called Oxfam and asked them to bring the van ’round.

Since that cathartic bowel movement (it’s true about the van) I’ve bought The Wire once or twice a year for long train journeys (remember them?) and remain largely underwhelmed.  You may ask why I still bother.  I think I approach it in the same spirit that Charlie Brown approaches a football being held by Lucy.  I live in hope that despite my experience telling me otherwise, things will change for the better.

Here’s an example of me hoping for the best.  Aside from getting arsey with each other in the twitter exchange above my limited personal interactions with Derek have been perfectly lovely.  I also have it on trusted authority that the magazine has noticeably improved under his stewardship so fair play.  We met face to face following his interview with Mariam Rezai at TUSK 2019 and, via email afterwards, he commissioned me to write a short piece on ‘hobbyism’ for the last end of year issue (#431).  I was sceptical at first but I thought that if anyone was going to do it then I was a pretty decent advocate.  I also thought it would be churlish of me to refuse given that I’ve always banged on about the paper needing more voices from the no-audience underground.

And so the curtain was drawn back.  I was given a deadline, a word limit, beats I was requested to hit and the term ‘hobbyism’ (or ‘hobbyist’) which Derek suggested and isn’t really part of my usual critical vocab.  I submitted a draft then a surreal, breakneck editing process began.  Small changes made or suggested which seemed to me to reduce the fluidity and vividness of the piece.  The word ‘bollocks’ was removed (yes, The Wire emasculated my writing).  Clarifications and additions were requested and then mostly not used.  At the last minute the alleged final draft had to be re-edited as they’d managed to somehow duplicate a passage in the text.  When published I was pleased at its reception but, as a writer, it isn’t an experience I wish to repeat.

In-between submission and publication I spoke to a comrade at a gig who’d had a similar experience. “It’s infuriating isn’t it?  If they didn’t want me then why did they ask me?” They said, summing it up precisely.  “Bollocks” thinks Charlie Brown, falling on his back as Lucy pulls the ball away again.

To raise concerns over The Wire, though, is a lonely business.  The gigantic majority of people obviously don’t give a monkey’s, which is the objectively correct response of course, but those with skin in the game are guarded.  At gigs, and in my DMs, people are willing to express exasperation but actual criticism is vanishingly rare, weirdly taboo, in public spaces like this.

I’ve puzzled over this before.  There is no reason not to be polite (well, usually) but are people really so desperate to keep in The Wire’s good books?  For the exposure?  A friend in the actual music business once laughingly told me that ‘no one plans campaigns based on coverage in The Wire’ and I know from eye-witnesses that a play to the hundred-odd people who listen to the radiofreemidwich show can lead to more downloads than a positive mention from Byron Coley.  I’m not judging though, if I had anything to lose I’d hesitate to burn bridges I suppose.

Is it because The Wire is ‘ours’?  Because it covers ‘our’ music?  I can’t find the exact quote but I remember the comedian Josie Long saying that it hurt to be criticised by The Guardian because that is like being told off by your parents (though, as an aside, if my folks were war-mongering, neo-liberal, Corbyn-hating, TERF publishers spending all day pissing on their legacy I wouldn’t care what they said, even if their cultural coverage was occasionally interesting).  I get this.  Who doesn’t want the validation of being mentioned in a magazine sold in railway station newsagents?  But the idea that The Wire is somehow… Daddy is, er…, no, I wish I’d never started that thought.

Anyway, seeing as I’m being frank let’s have it.  The Wire’s ‘journal of record’ demeanor is becoming increasingly absurd as barriers to access shrink and available content may as well be infinite.  Likewise the formats and approaches to criticism used are, to be charitable, extremely well suited to the monolithic distribution systems of the late 20th Century.  However, real questions need be asked as to the fitness of The Wire to account for this unprecedented moment in music.  Especially given the cloth eared tweets of its editor.

Speaking of whom – yes, we’d forgotten Derek hadn’t we?  My final tweet was, shall we say, ‘heartfelt and boldly expressed’ impertinently suggesting that he and his publication need to up their game.  How will he respond?  A blocking might be in order – I couldn’t complain, I suppose.  A positive acknowledgement of some kind would make him the bigger man.  As long as he doesn’t lean on that cliche of professional journalism: the weary dismissal of the pleb, as if the simpleton had just got the wrong end of the stick.  We’ve all seen it a million times but it never gets less disappointing as a tactic.  I mean that would be embarrassi…

..oh.

—ooOoo—