Prompted by a thread on urban75, here’s two of my worst reviews – and boy are they shockers!
This one below appeared in NME about my punk band, Beggar. We later heard the writer Roy Carr wasn’t actually at the gig (hence the curious stuff about “waving leaks”) but I liked being compared to a revving car “plagued with big end problems”.
Back in Wales, the final line gave us much kudos too: “Not surprisingly, the evening ended in a fight,” because just about all our Valleys gigs ended up like that.
There’s not much else to do in Tonypandy on a Saturday night, you see.
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Kau Tau kicked
Things were looking a bit better for a band I was in a few years later called Kau Tau.
I hated the name with a vengeance, but we put on good live shows, were managed by Hanoi Rock’s team and managed to bag a publishing deal with Virgin.
The band members were a right laugh too, so we had loads of fun on the road.
Sounds journalist Mary Anne Hobbs seem to like us a lot too, lovingly reviewing us as, “these latest wet knicker wonders are Grade A cutie pies”… “radiating Ray Ban cool.”
Unfortunately, Jane Simon, her colleague at Sounds, wasn’t quite so keen, and penned this hilarious review.
Sure, it smarted a bit at the time (I doubt if the the poor singer ever got over his neck being described in such a manner!), but no one’s going to complain about a half page review in what was then one of the UK’s biggest music papers:
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Notably, Mary Anne Hobbs went on to become a Radio One DJ and is still playing big gigs as a DJ, but where’s Jane Simon with all her smartarse quips, eh?
Firmly residing in the “Where Are They Now?” file, that’s where!
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Where is Jane Simon now? Doing TV reviews for the Mirror by the looks of it – http://journalisted.com/jane-simon#tab-work
I looked that up too but wasn’t sure if it was her or not.
I can find out if you like.
It’s a great review though. The Sketch’s Mother bit is hilarious.