RIP Steven Wells
 

RIP Steven Wells

Some of you might know him as the only living journalist that wasn't shit. He's now one of the dead ones.

Woah, shit. Can't say I often (ever?) agreed with him musically, but that's still quite a shock.
Anyone remember his goading A Thousand Leaves-era SY interview in the NME? Funny shit.

If I remember rightly, he was taking the piss out of SY for being record collecting trainspotters and SY declared him the 'greatest journalist in Britain' in Melody Maker a week or so later.

If anyone has that article, I'd totally love it if you uploaded it.

Yeah, more or less, along with a whole "you're nearly 50 - not exactly "Youth", is it?" spiel. IIRC, he gave the album a 0/10 review too. Google turns up plenty of references to the interview, but no text of it :/

RIP, ya mardy fucker.

terribly sad new..he will be missed for certain!

just read a lot on everett trues facebook and blog about him....

Damn, thats a shame. He was great fun to read, you could smell the years of accumulated spilt beer and piss on his words.

Im sure he'd have had a chuckle if he knew he'd get an RIP thread on the sonic youth messageboard.

Goodnight Swells, you cantankerous, contrary sod :(

That's a crying shame. I remember him as 'Seething Wells'. Pure gold.
He'll be missed.

i remember that nme article he did. he was very much into kasabian and all that stuff.

My feelings about him too. I didn't agree with a a lot of his opinions, and much of his taste, but I've always found him really entertaining.

Yeah, that interview was good, and SY seemed to really enjoy his banter and piss-taking.

no, he did that to stereolab and squarepusher.

an insane amount of famous deaths today, and this is the one i am saddest to hear about.

from reading his stuff it seemed to me like he was unable to distinguish agression and antagonism from wit.

He was a lesser Glice, basically.

RIP.

Cant believe he didnt like Stereolab. Maybe it was a general anti-French thing.

I feel this thread is far more important than Michael Jackson's.

I've had a massively quiet day at work, and it's quite worrying precisely how much shpiel I've half-inched off him. No shame in that. But thanks.

I think a lot of people saw him as "unable to distinguish agression and antagonism from wit." but I always saw the hyper-rhetoric* as falling into absurdism. I think the thing for me is that all hacks are worthless scum, but some hacks at least take it upon themselves to take pride in their scummery.

*'hyper-rhetoric' is precisely the sort of joke that no-one ever gets, largely because even if you get it it's not funny.

There was a spine behind what he wrote. He was far more an agitator than an antagonist I think. He had a belief in something that I didn't always believe in but which i always admired his commitment to.

It's tempting to say something like 'the last great entertainer of the old left', but the old left were always a boring bunch of cunts.

And then you look at the void that's replaced him. A red flag might be boring but it's infinitely preferable to the white one currently flying above NME Towers.

he was an opinianated loud mouth twat, he died.

they got nought out of ten for being middle class i think

hahaha