NME
used to be one of three music weeklies, if you can believe that, and
there were also loads of music magazines knocking about. People were
thirsty for music writing back then, and were happy to pay for it.
Or, prepared to, anyway. The Internet has pretty much killed that way
of thinking, particularly with news exclusives – even a daily paper
couldn’t compete with social media’s unbelievable pace of
scrolling new info. But back then we didn’t have broadband so there
were no pics or music coming down the pipes.
NME
and its ilk served as news aggregator, gatekeeper, trusted reviewer,
and general touchstone for the current music scene. Because there was
also Melody Maker, Record Mirror, and loads of mags to be had, you
could find most of your bands across the various publications.
More
than that, the only way to hear this new music was either by catching
a song on the radio or by someone taping it for you. Someone with
more money, or someone who knew someone who’d bought the original.
You’d go ahead and buy the LP if you liked what you heard, most of
the time. Originals were always better. You could double-check by
going into a listening booth in the record shop and spinning the
record to make sure. People with headphones, bopping away behind
glass, every day of the week.
But
you couldn’t do that with every band in the mag – you’d be
there for days on end.
So
NME and the rest would from time to time have cover-mounted
compilations on cassette tape, then later on CD (and sometimes
flexidisc, but that’s another matter for collectors to worry
about). No extra charge: the paper, and a cassette of the music they
were talking about – absolutely brilliant.
One
week me and DD knocked up a load of cassette copies of our Dogshit on
Toast EP Yamaha
Potatoe,
which had as its A-side a song called ‘Poppers Blues’, which was
my mate on drums backing me on guitar doing a fairly dunderheaded
12-bar riff. DD’s job was to sing the lyrics and do a guitar solo.
Both
takes – vocals, then the guitar - done whilst sniffing amyl nitrate
constantly. DD can’t play the guitar at all anyway so it hardly
made that much of a difference, although he was groaning for respite
in the background. I think it’s got an authenticity to it that
really does make the music quite extraordinary as a result.
We
did the inlay cards, put stickers on the tapes, and whilst the
Saturday staff were all busy in WH Smiths we stuck as many as we
could to copies of that week’s NME.
So
if you were wondering what the fuck that weirdo no-fi tape that you
got free with the paper was that week, now you know.
Way
before Banksy did that thing with Paris Hilton’s album. Way
before. She might not even have been born yet.
Gloriously
futile; but then, life is isn’t it?