"So who's ready to give me a job mixing their next ultra-delicate eai session? Jon?"

I was actually operating under the assumption you were legally deaf, no? :)

seriously, are there hearing tests for that certificate? frequency range, that kind of thing?

Steve Albini seems to have done pretty well by pushing bass and treble up to the max and taking out all the middle.. That and a set of really good mics and a well designed studio should do the trick.
An Erstwhile remix album, huh? How about Weather Sky with slammin' beats! (Well, erm, nope)

"Steve Albini seems to have done pretty well by pushing bass and treble up to the max and taking out all the middle.. "

You think so? I disagree. Steve gets a bad rap for studio trickery but he does that the least of anyone.

If anything, he is a recording engineer in the classic BBC documentarian style.

What might appear as EQ boosting of the bass and treble is probably a result of him NOT using compression heavily - the records he records need to be cranked up loud vs. most modern recordings of rock bands where they appear LOUD at any volume level.

His notoriety eclipses his actual work. He just happens to record loads of nasty(or great)-sounding rock bands.

From the Festering ass site:
"
One thing to consider BEFORE you choose to apply:

We want to publish writers and artists with specific, interesting perspectives or experiences. This is NOT another avenue for people who like to hear themselves speak. That's what Blogspot and Livejournal are for."
http://www.festeringass.com/archives/entries/apply_for_a_site.phtml

Why should bags (and the wire for that matter) have lower standards?

The Wire? It made a fine start in 1982, by 1990 it had become unreadable. Grossly pretentious.

"Festering ..."? Read "Fascist ... " all those do's & don'ts ...

"What might appear as EQ boosting of the bass and treble is probably a result of him NOT using compression heavily - the records he records need to be cranked up loud vs. most modern recordings of rock bands where they appear LOUD at any volume level. [..] His notoriety eclipses his actual work. He just happens to record loads of nasty(or great)-sounding rock bands."
Good points, all.
Meanwhile: "The Wire? It made a fine start in 1982, by 1990 it had become unreadable. Grossly pretentious."
How does it shape up in 2006, Graham? Are you referring to the work of specific journalists (go on, name names) or the editorial line? Pretentious is about the last adjective in the world I'd choose to describe Tony Herrington (and Chris Bohn & Nick Cain for that matter).

Dan: I subscribed to the Wire from its inception in 1982 until some time in 1990, since when I've seen issues only sporadically. Once it became entrenched in the sort of pseudo-political claptrap with which Watson stuffed the Derek Bailey biography, I gave up with it. Music- writing is (to my mind) largely a matter of stripping out the inessentials, something I felt the Wire was unable or unwilling to do. (Herrington indeed usually writes well, but he is only one of many writers. The others vary greatly). If the magazine has changed substantially more recently, in terms of writers or editorial policies, I'd be glad to learn of it. So far I've seen little evidence to that effect.

>Once it became entrenched in the sort of pseudo-political claptrap with which Watson stuffed the Derek Bailey biography, I gave up with it.

I think once they gave Watson the shove, most of the politics disappeared with him. There's the occasional bit of rote anti-Bushism in an editor's note, but it's exceedingly rare, and every once in awhile they'll put some asshole like Matthew Herbert on the cover, so you know you're in for it then. But generally, it's all about the music, and a decent variety of music too. I'm one who doesn't feel like the magazine "should" pay attention to this or that momentarily hip dance music sub-sub-genre, so I'm happy that they mostly don't. They could ease up on the "freak folk" stuff, too, as far as I'm concerned. But it's still the best mag in the UK - the only other UK mag I read is Terrorizer.

I've read every issue of the Wire since around #100 (1992), and a handful of ones prior to that. I'd say that they tend to do very well on the longer, more historical pieces, and nowhere near as well as they should on current music. their last few year-end summaries have been really poor to the point of embarrassing, not sure precisely why (The Books as best record of 2005? even the two members probably don't agree with that).

Nick Cain seems to be helping somewhat on the reviews section, but he also seems to be pushing the flood of dubstep coverage in the last few issues, and I personally don't think Burial are worth the hype, at least as translated to record as opposed to in a club. Keenan is a little too self-serving, but maybe he's being held more in control recently, I'm not sure.

all in all, probably still the best music mag around and one I always look forward to reading, but there's a ton of room for improvement there.

oh, and full disclosure, not that it's really necessary: I've written three pieces for the Wire, two festival reviews (the 24 hour MIMEO show and a Dafeldecker-curated fest in Ulrichsberg) and one of their post 9/11 reaction pieces.

10-12 years ago, if you'd asked me my dream job, I might have said writing full-time for the Wire (not that such a job actually exists, but I didn't really know that then), but I'm far far happier with the job I came up with instead. after spending a decade at Time, I'm not a big fan of journalism in general, at least as a career for myself.

Jon:

And you've delighted all our ears with the "job you came up with instead".

Things don't always stay the same, the Wire is getting better.
Yes, there is a always some hack bragging about not being able to read music but there are just as many things worth reading - some written by PDF. I am not into the bad joke posts he makes at bags but even his reviews are a long way from NY is now.

There was this great performance venue in Seattle called the Polestar. It was a fantastic room, the prompter Henry Hughes and Peggy treated you really well and the bathroom was stocked with Wires.
It was there that I learned the proper location for reading the Wire....

>I personally don't think Burial are worth the hype

Holy shit! Jon and I agree on something! Bookmark this page for posterity...

I bought that CD a few weeks ago and found it to be a watered-down version of ideas Witchman had explored much more thoroughly nearly a decade earlier.

Yeah, Burial album's OK, but I don't hear what Wire journos are hearing in Dubstep. Prefer Kode9's regular stuff (assuming Burial=Kode9, which I think is highly likely). Journos confusing portentousness with profundity methinks. Grime and Ragga have far more to commend them - much livelier, many more strange noises. There have been quite a few snide anti-Grime remarks in The Wire recently, pushing an orthodoxy that Grime was a false dawn, Dubstep is the real deal, but I've never heard any Dubstep that's anything like as impressive or out-there as Dizzee Rascal at his best.

I for one miss Ben Watson's writing. The Wire's less colourful without it. There's too much standardized, streamlined blokey music writing ("a real gem" et al) in its pages. Still read it regularly though...

Congrats on the certificate.

Watson's writing? The Bailey biography, 450 pages, was to my mind 350 pages too long.

Allow me to quote the Cadence issue of May 2005, where Barry Guy writes: "So beware of this dull, selective and ultimately tragic addition to the history of improvised music".

The Bailey biog has been discussed to death elsewhere on this site.

Sticking to the Wire, though, I found his writing to be the most entertaining in it actually. he got some good music that wouldn't otherwise have been covered into its pages. I knew where I stood with his reviews, whereas a lot of Wire-endorsed product often turns out to be very lite and fluffy, or just more of the same. I doubt he'd have had much time for the Burial album, for instance.

Never heard The Books. Burial neither. You can't listen to everything. Anyway, the whole idea of a Best Of is silly to start with. I don't know why they do it (I don't know why I do it either).

after perusing a copy of The Wire at a newsstand, i always feel like punching someone immediately afterward. feel free to draw your own conclusion on that one. i'm going to stop before i say too much. "necessary evil"

ww

ww:"after perusing a copy of The Wire at a newsstand, i always feel like punching someone immediately afterward. feel free to draw your own conclusion on that one. i'm going to stop before i say too much. "necessary evil" "

You're not the only one. "Neccessary Evil" is a good way to describe it, since it is the only widespread publication that readily reports on our music, with the possible expection of Signal to Noise. However, I haven't brought myself to actually purchase an issue lately. Typically I give it a 5 minute run through at the newstand, after which I decide that there is nothing of interest and put it down. Generally, if there is even one article that looks good I pick it up, but that only happens a few times a year. But it's not just the Wire, it's pretty much any music rag that gets me angry, even just the entertainment section of the newspaper. Hey, fuck this music; I'll just get same tattooes, a cool hairdo, and a good gimmick. That seems to be what people want.

"it's pretty much any music rag that gets me angry"
Why?

Because of what gets attention. Because of what gets written up.

Not there is not good quality music journalism out there reporting on good quality musicians, but...it's hard not to notice that there is definitely a bias as to make makes music news. 1) Classical Music, because it's "serious", 2) Indie Rock kids with cool hair because they "have cool hair", 3) anything with a gimmick, b/c it's "catchy" and has "an angle".

Nothing new here. This is the typical gripe, rant, etc.

The Wire is actually the only musical publication that I bother to read, which says something. But that makes it all the more discouraging when I pick it up, hoping to find some articles addressing free-improvised music, and all I can find are pictures of kids with cool hair.

Disclaimer: This is Rant with gross generalizations....but you asked.