Possibly Apocryphal Story About Mark Ellen / The Beginnings of Q Magazine

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Not sure where I heard this. Might actually have read it on old ILX but I was wondering if anyone knows if there is any truth in this story. First editorial meeting of Q, editor Mark Ellen walks in and reads a review written by Paul Morley or Ian Penman to the gathered writers. It is of course full of dense prose and wildly subjective opinion. He finishes reading turns to the writers and declares:
“We don’t want anything like that in Q.”
I mentioned this anecdote to someone recently and they were sceptical a magazine would begin with such a defensive, negative remit. Does anyone know if this story is true? If it is it’s kinda sad…

― acrobat (acrobat), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 12:37 (seventeen years ago) link

Don't know if it's ever been positively verified, but it would seem likely - Penman brought it up on his blog some time ago.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 12:44 (seventeen years ago) link

I've read this one in a couple of places in the past, but not for a long time. I've no idea if it's true or not, but it certainly seems plausible, doesn't it?

― Norman Phay (Pashmina), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 12:46 (seventeen years ago) link

.. and yet, that's what I want to read in "Word" mag.

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 12:49 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh no, Word is all Danny Baker Nick Hornby Mark Radcliffe all a laugh and remember Take Me I'm Yours on pink vinyl WE WAS GIANTS innit

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 12:50 (seventeen years ago) link

Well, it has Mark Ellen's matey "I'm not the bloke off Men Behaving Badly, but it's an easy mistake" style,

and the other blokes "Hmph" grumpiness.

A bit like the bits inbetween the music, when the Old Grey Whistle Test pegged out.

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 12:53 (seventeen years ago) link

The Old Grey Whistle Test, co-presented in its dying days by Ellen's great personal mate David "Biggest Hate: Liberals" Hepworth.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 12:55 (seventeen years ago) link

yeah, him.

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 12:57 (seventeen years ago) link

I used to watch OGWT when they presented it, and I could quite happily have set fire to the pair of them, smug, cynical, seen-it-all-before prats. It takes some doing to be worse than whispering bob, and they managed it w/ease.

― Norman Phay (Pashmina), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:01 (seventeen years ago) link

Possibly the worst radio show ever: David Hepworth's Executive Drivetime, which ran on GLR throughout the '90s at Sunday teatime, for all the FWDs returning from their country estates. Lots of Crowded House.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:04 (seventeen years ago) link

to go all grandiose for a moment was this moment the most important in the last 20 year of British music writing? was the Q mentality a key factor in getting rid of the morley type writing style. cos i guess reynolds and that lot were writing at this point... i guess it took until britpop to get rid of them. i mean when i was reading the nme / mm round the turn of the century the only person doing "subjective opinion" was steven wells and he's ancient. i was flicking through either collins or maconies book in smiths and i came across a piece where he quoted a review of wire written in a very stylistic way and was all like "lol writing. we wrote properly for normal people" ok maybe not that bad but you get the drift...

― acrobat (acrobat), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:06 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, well, Maconie got turned down by the Wire...

Situation in 1985/6:
NME circulation plunging through the postmodern roof (although Morley and Penman had more or less left the building by then);
Smash Hits not doing quite as well in the immediate pre-Kylie/Bros age;
Underlying principle: Smash Hits for adults, humour and colour not black-and-white Ballard train journeys and Neubauten.
Q immediate success.
Who can say, on a purely commercial basis, that they were wrong, even if morally and aesthetically Q was the wrongest idea ever?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:08 (seventeen years ago) link

The fact that they are still going means that no one can say they were wrong on a commercial basis.

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:12 (seventeen years ago) link

As opposed to "Vox" which did go wrong.

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:12 (seventeen years ago) link

"Vox" was wrong from the start! It was never any cop or any fun either.

― Norman Phay (Pashmina), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:13 (seventeen years ago) link

surely they've changed a bit in 20 years... i was flicking though a pile of back issues and the words Mark Knopfler THE ONLY INTERVIEW made me chuckle a bit. is Razorlight or Keane today a paralel to Dire Straits in '86?

so, were there lots of morely / penman imitators? how were melody maker / sounds / others faring?

― acrobat (acrobat), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:14 (seventeen years ago) link

I heard that the spur to Q's formation was Live Aid and specifically the NME's coverage of it, which I've never seen as my newsagent hadn't a copy that week.

― Billy Dods (Billy Dods), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:15 (seventeen years ago) link

There was a period (post smiths/pre britpop) where Melody Maker seemed to be written entirely by TERRIBLE mo/pen imitators. I remember buying it week after week, and it was just literally unreadable. I actually wound up stopping buying it for a while.

― Norman Phay (Pashmina), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:16 (seventeen years ago) link

ditto.

We're allowed to mourn the passing of "Select" now, right?

Some decent CD freebies, but all too late it seems.

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:17 (seventeen years ago) link

"Select" was great, I thought. I was genuinely sad when it stopped publishing. They probably missed an opp when they published an editorial basically saying that all the boundaries to what music they covered were gone now it is the internet age etc etc, then they went on to cover the exact same indiepop/dancepop mix they'd covered up till then.

― Norman Phay (Pashmina), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:23 (seventeen years ago) link

Yeah, but how many "Download" type mags have been and gone?

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:24 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh god knows, I lost count (& interest tbh) quite a few years ago.

the thing w/"Select" is it already had a readership it could have expanded on, maybe. Basically, I think they should have started covering metal as well as the stuff they did cover.

― Norman Phay (Pashmina), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:27 (seventeen years ago) link

Yes, what was the name of that useless last editor of Select again?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:28 (seventeen years ago) link

but who the hell could an editor of an indie type mag pu ton the cover during that era and sell anything. i remember select having blur, badly drwn boy, blink 182 on the cover and never buying it once.

― acrobat (acrobat), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:31 (seventeen years ago) link

Alex S Peter Dish, or something like that, wasn't it?...

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:34 (seventeen years ago) link

It wasn't, was it? lol.

― Norman Phay (Pashmina), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:34 (seventeen years ago) link

I still mourn RAW Magazine going Britpop(Bluetones cover) then dying on it's arse after a few issues. WHY?!

― pfunkboy (Kerr), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:35 (seventeen years ago) link

er, Bluetones cover...

Norman, it certainly was.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:36 (seventeen years ago) link

because it was Metal, and so all the readership left.

And Britpop was already well covered.

Kerrang kept the faith, as it were, and hey! survived and thrived.

That could have been Raw! , that could have been.

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:36 (seventeen years ago) link

It's a bit like the Wire suddenly deciding to go POP and putting H and Claire on the cover.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:37 (seventeen years ago) link

No, I mean why did they become a britpop magazine and put the fucking Bluetones on the cover. It used to be a great mag!

― pfunkboy (Kerr), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:53 (seventeen years ago) link

chasing the shiney penny!

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:55 (seventeen years ago) link

Focus groups?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:56 (seventeen years ago) link

Jan akkerman?

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 13:57 (seventeen years ago) link

What sort of focus groups would recommend The Bluetones?!!!

― pfunkboy (Kerr), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 14:03 (seventeen years ago) link

Steve Lamacq played them quite a lot.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 14:06 (seventeen years ago) link

""Vox" was wrong from the start! It was never any cop or any fun either."

― Jaap Schip (burgje71), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 14:16 (seventeen years ago) link

when did Vox [end] and Uncut [start]?

In terms of a publishing concept - there wasn't that much of a difference.

Both IPC published.

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 14:20 (seventeen years ago) link

What i meant to say:

""Vox" was wrong from the start! It was never any cop or any fun either."
Latterday VOX wasn't that bad, was it? When True/Thackray was the editor?

― Jaap Schip (burgje71), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 14:22 (seventeen years ago) link

The last "Vox" was "LOOK! WE'RE SORRY COME BACK LOOK WE HAVE SHERYL CROW ON THE COVER"

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 14:23 (seventeen years ago) link

Allright then, it wasn't exactly Plan B/Loose Lips.

― Jaap Schip (burgje71), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 14:24 (seventeen years ago) link

I'd forgotten about that, but yes, Everett True did edit it for a while.

My main memory of it (I used to buy any music bagazine back then) was that it just never seemed to be very into anything in any kind of enthusiastic way, really. It was just kind of drifty, and didn't seemto be there for anything.

― Norman Phay (Pashmina), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 14:26 (seventeen years ago) link

"The Monthly NME"

― Jaap Schip (burgje71), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 14:28 (seventeen years ago) link

Vox = UK Publication From the makers of NME .

Ist published September 1990. Last edition June 1998.
http://www.rocklist.net/vox.html

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 14:29 (seventeen years ago) link

Uncut started in 1997 - but which month?
http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/uncut.htm

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 14:31 (seventeen years ago) link

did select launch just before vox?

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 14:33 (seventeen years ago) link

Dylan has to top Uncut album polls by law.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 14:33 (seventeen years ago) link

Select IIRC was a little while after Vox, but a good couple of years after Sounds (which was its actual predecessor) was wound up.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 14:33 (seventeen years ago) link

Vox was shite.

― pfunkboy (Kerr), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 14:34 (seventeen years ago) link

I liked early Select, particularly the boxed issues they sometimes put out with free packets of Coco Pops etc.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 14:34 (seventeen years ago) link

Skipping 33 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

You didn't see the special 1991 issue with extensive Knopfler interview and 20-page Philips technology pull-out, together with a grovelling five-star review of On Every Street on pain of no interview/sponsorship, then?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 15:22 (seventeen years ago) link

Well, from 1986 to 1991 is quite a long time.

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 15:24 (seventeen years ago) link

Not if you're Annie Lennox.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 15:27 (seventeen years ago) link

For her, it's not long enough!

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 15:30 (seventeen years ago) link

The main thing I remember about early Q was when they used to do those mini reviews of bands album back catalogs, and the did Genesis, and Nursery Cryme, Selling England by the Pound etc all got 2 stars, and Invisible Touch go 5 stars, and I was reading it, thinking "what the fuck is wrong with you people" See also Peter Hammill, IQ etc always getting 2 stars for their albums w/some snidey comment about how if they ditched all the prog trappings they might be quite good.

― Norman Phay (Pashmina), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 15:31 (seventeen years ago) link

Prog hadn't been rehabilitated at that stage.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 15:33 (seventeen years ago) link

(despite Marillion)

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 15:33 (seventeen years ago) link

when Q started in 1986 it's core artists were the AOR / stadium rock types such as Dire Straits, Queen, Genesis / Phil Collins, Sting, and yuppy pop of Simply Red and Level 42 etc

― DJ Martian (djmartian), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 15:34 (seventeen years ago) link

its core artists were PEOPLE WHO PLAYED LIVE AID

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 15:35 (seventeen years ago) link

i was thinking that the approach delinated in the annecdote is possibly responsible for every article discussed on the Petridish Punchbag thread...

― acrobat (acrobat), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 15:38 (seventeen years ago) link

Yes, I'd agree with that.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 15:41 (seventeen years ago) link

I enjoyed the last issue of Plan B with the Sunn o/Boris cover.
-- pfunkboy (pfunkbo...) (webmail), December 12th, 2006 2:57 PM. (Kerr) (later) (link)
You certainly won't be getting that sort of cover six months hence.

-- Marcello Carlin (marcellocarli...) (webmail), December 12th, 2006 2:57 PM. (nostudium) (later) (link)

with all due respect, i'm pretty sure you don't know what you're talking about here, Marcello.

new Loose Lips some time in 2007. we haven't started on it yet, but are looking forward to it. we put on a show last friday with josh pearson, HTRK and tenebrous, which was good time. another show on the 22nd, at the luminaire. this is what the poster looks like:

http://static.flickr.com/127/320530732_f341fc5581_o.jpg

― stevie (stevie2), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 15:58 (seventeen years ago) link

See what I mean?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 15:59 (seventeen years ago) link

not really

― stevie (stevie2), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 16:04 (seventeen years ago) link

Was the poster intentionally left blank, then?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 16:06 (seventeen years ago) link

http://static.flickr.com/127/320530732_f341fc5581_o.jpg

^that's the poster, Marcello.

― Norman Phay (Pashmina), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 16:06 (seventeen years ago) link

i can see the poster... hmm. (xpost) thanx norm - was my html spooked?

― stevie (stevie2), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 16:07 (seventeen years ago) link

No, I could see it as well. I'm getting random images not appearing for some reason, maybe Marcello's getting that as well.

― Norman Phay (Pashmina), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 16:10 (seventeen years ago) link

Oh I see what it is - lovely workplace Websense filtering out.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 12 December 2006 16:14 (seventeen years ago) link

were there any other music monthlies before Q?

― acrobat (acrobat), Wednesday, 13 December 2006 13:01 (seventeen years ago) link

Plenty of non-rock ones - Blues And Soul, Black Music, Jazz Journal - but rock-wise there were only a few, e.g. Let It Rock, ZigZag, and Street Life (which latter admittedly may have been fortnightly), and then there was Jamming! when it went glossy.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 13 December 2006 13:05 (seventeen years ago) link

Ah, ZigZag. I found a box of these in my attic when getting the xmas decorations down, from 1979 or so. Oh, and Jamming published a long letter I sent them!

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Wednesday, 13 December 2006 13:31 (seventeen years ago) link

-- Marcello Carlin (marcellocarli...), December 12th, 2006. (nostudium) (later)

sorry to go a bit thatcherkid but did this period, as good as it may have been, actually turn a lot of people, such as pash, off leading to sales downturn? has that style of writing ever been comerecially viable?

― acrobat (acrobat), Wednesday, 13 December 2006 13:38 (seventeen years ago) link

Not everyone likes to read smart arse articles I suppose.

― pfunkboy (Kerr), Wednesday, 13 December 2006 15:27 (seventeen years ago) link

The real answer: not everyone likes to read.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 13 December 2006 15:33 (seventeen years ago) link

Norman likes to read and it still turned him off enough to have stopped buying it.

― pfunkboy (Kerr), Wednesday, 13 December 2006 15:37 (seventeen years ago) link

Without knowing who the writers were who turned him off it's impossible to comment.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 13 December 2006 15:39 (seventeen years ago) link

All I remember, Marcello, is that it got very consistently boring, self-indulgent and badly written for a while, and just about the only writer who's writing I enjoyed & looked out was kris kirk, who wasn't terribly prolific anyway. I stopped buying it for about a year, and when I started picking it up again, it seemed to have got a whole lot better, "a whole lot better" in this case meaning I enjoyed the writing (usually a fair bit more that I enjoyed the bands ppl were writing about, which was always MM's weak point, when I used to enjoy it[a lot]) and when I read stuff at that time, it didn't seem to have been written by people who just wanted to be paul morley, but not as clever anymore. It was all a long time ago, and as I've never been that big a music writer fan, it's not something I've kept in my mind. I mean really, the only reason I remember kris kirk was that he wrote 2 very good articles, one on camp and one on dagmar krause, which I remember (the dag krause article leading me to actually look for some of her records, and getting me into henry cow, slapp happy etc, the late k kirk thus having done me a big big favour in this respect.) So maybe yeah I'm dissing stubbs/reynolds, maybe not. there were more writers that those 2 writing for the paper anyway.

― Norman Phay (Pashmina), Wednesday, 13 December 2006 16:31 (seventeen years ago) link

Wasn't it "The Stud Brothers" or something?

Every question to every artist seemed to be "Why aren't you as good as Front 242?"

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Wednesday, 13 December 2006 16:32 (seventeen years ago) link

It was the stock MM question, to balance out the stock NME question of "Why aren't you campaigning for Red Wedge?"

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 13 December 2006 16:38 (seventeen years ago) link

I liked that question.

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Wednesday, 13 December 2006 16:54 (seventeen years ago) link

Which?

― pfunkboy (Kerr), Wednesday, 13 December 2006 16:57 (seventeen years ago) link

The red one. It's less rhetorical somehow and made some people go "I don't think so, maggie oh!"

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Wednesday, 13 December 2006 17:07 (seventeen years ago) link

" I tried Googling a few old MM writers a few weeks back for an article I'm thinking of doing for Styluz, and found out that Daniel Booth now appears to write solely for one of those "Here's some funny things I found on the internet this week" blogs. "
-- Dom Passantino

Hey, I have a name kind of like that guy! And yet that's not me! Who is this "Daniel Booth" of whom you speak, and was he any good?

― dad a (dad a), Wednesday, 13 December 2006 18:00 (seventeen years ago) link

new Loose Lips some time in 2007.

Rock. Now to think of something to write for it, hmm hmm.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 13 December 2006 19:08 (seventeen years ago) link

most definitely!

― stevie (stevie2), Thursday, 14 December 2006 00:57 (seventeen years ago) link

An article on GHOST

― pfunkboy (Kerr), Thursday, 14 December 2006 01:03 (seventeen years ago) link

Hauntology is so July 2006.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 14 December 2006 08:51 (seventeen years ago) link

Unless Girls Aloud are doing it.

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Thursday, 14 December 2006 09:57 (seventeen years ago) link

Why haven't MOJO put GIRLS ALOUD on their cover yet?
Wake up Grandad! It's the 21st century, not the 19th!

-- DJ Punctum (marcellocarli...) (webmail), December 12th, 2006 3:00 PM. (nostudium) (later) (link)

There's a letter in this month's MOJO in which a reader is complimenting them for opening up a world of new music to him while accepting that they must continue to put Bob Dylan on every second cover to keep sales up. The letter is captioned with "SOMEONE GETS IT!"

― that is just a Gerry named Onimo (nu_onimo), Thursday, 14 December 2006 10:22 (seventeen years ago) link

I wonder which MOJO staffer wrote it?

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 14 December 2006 11:36 (seventeen years ago) link

I see no reason why MOJO couldn't do a Dylan AND Girls Aloud cover with Bob sitting on his throne and GA draped around him Austin Powers-style.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 14 December 2006 11:39 (seventeen years ago) link

I like bob but oh theres somethng about seeing him on another mojo/unclaat/theotherone front page that makes me think time is standing still...

― M Grout (Mark Grout), Thursday, 14 December 2006 11:44 (seventeen years ago) link

*cover: dylan getting frogmarched out of the room, kicking and screaming, by a cackling girls aloud*

tag line: THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN'!

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 14 December 2006 11:45 (seventeen years ago) link

A Bob Dylan/ Girls Aloud duet would be the highlight of everyone's career.

― Johnney B has zeros off the line (stigoftdumpilx), Thursday, 14 December 2006 12:30 (seventeen years ago) link

Recently came to conculusion that Girls Aloud are no longer vanguard of popism, due to too much broadsheet acceptance (see also: producer led R&B in 2003, ABBA ongoing). Maybe Dylan being frogmarched out of a room by MCR?

― Dom Passantino (DomPassantino), Thursday, 14 December 2006 13:16 (seventeen years ago) link

MCR are not pop.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 14 December 2006 13:22 (seventeen years ago) link

No, but they are Pop.

― Dom Passantino (DomPassantino), Thursday, 14 December 2006 13:30 (seventeen years ago) link

Incorrect. They are rock pretending to be pop, guitars, smelly leather, blokes, yeucch.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 14 December 2006 13:44 (seventeen years ago) link

There was a period (post smiths/pre britpop) where Melody Maker seemed to be written entirely by TERRIBLE mo/pen imitators.

this was actually its best period.

― The Real Dirty Vicar (The Real Dirty Vicar), Saturday, 16 December 2006 23:59 (seventeen years ago) link

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