Tuesday, January 08, 2008

The risks of reviewing

A new piece by Steven Wells is always a delight, and today he's appeared on the Guardian's music blog writing about artists who respond less-than-pacifically to bad reviews.

Mind you, as horrifying situations go:

I [...] was savagely pushed in the back at a gig by a furious Sci-Fi Steve out of Bis. Or it might have been Disco John - he ran too fast for me to tell.

... is hardly on a par with being chain-whipped by Sid Vicious.

I once had a bloke send his wife over to remonstrate with me over a review I'd written of his live act.


1 comment:

Alex B said...

I once annoyed scottish no-hopers Degrassi with a comment on a messageboards. They'd had their lock-up rehearsal space broken into and all their gear nicked. They posted asking if anyone knew who it was....I flippantly replied 'Probably music lovers'.

This resulted in FIVE years of them badmouthing me at every turn. Their mouthbreathing drummer twice put up a site called 'Alex is a Cunt', and twice complaints from other people to his ISP got it removed.

Eventually I was at a gig they were playing in Dundee, and they decided to 'have a word'. Basically this involved turning up en masse (minus their guitarist, a former member of Idlewild who clearly knew better) and getting a bit 'shirty'. I told them to stop being such a bunch of pricks and to leave me alone...then I walked away from them.

Later, as I was waiting outside the venue for a friend to collect his coat, the gaggle of frowning fuckwits came out and half heartedly threw a bottle of beer at me. Their inability to aim, combined by their swift exit back into the venue meant that nothing touched me.

The bottle was almost full, so all Degrassi had succeeded in doing was spilling their drink in my general direction. They split up a short while later in the face of continued indifference to their useless guitar spew from the world in general.

A member of the wretched Dundee 'anarcho-punks' Eat Yer Greens (sample lyric-'DIY not EMI, cos EMI makes children cry') did manage to spit in my hair when I had my back turned to him at a northern Ladyfest event - an evening all about tolerance and this unwashed dicksplash decided that gobbing at someone was better than asking why his band had been given a bad review.

Still, neither are as good as being pushed by a member of Bis.

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