No, not the one that’s all over the news (although yeah, he died too). There’ll be quite enough written about MJ, I don’t feel any need to add anything.
No, the death that hit me this week was that of one Steven Wells.
For those that aren’t particularly familiar with me, I, like probably most British folk with an interest in any music that’s even slightly “alternative”, spent years reading the NME. Generally, I hated the fucking rag. Sometimes though a piece would force your attention and more often than not it was written by Swells.
Whether it was giving racists and homophobes in music and in the World a well deserved kicking, on ripping apart bands you liked - NIN and Belle & Sebastian spring to mind right away - his articles were pretty much always worth reading. Frequently you’d disagree with what he wrote, sometimes I’d be furious after reading a Wells piece, but it was always interesting, regularly laugh out loud funny and of course filled with swear words.
Two things to read. Steven Wells’s last column for Philadelphia Weekly and The Guardian’s tribute.
And one song. Something I certainly never expected to post anywhere, never mind on a blog generally dedicated to Scottish music…
Daphne & Celeste - Ooh Stick You
Upon learning of the cancer that would kill him Steven Wells wrote, as only he could “Anyhoo. I put the phone down and let out a huge, self-pitying “Why me?” The answer, of course, is the same as the answer to Travis’ shit-awful 1999 international breakthrough hit, “Why Does It Always Rain on Me?” Because you’re a fucking dick. Now shut the fuck up and grow a pair.”
That says it all really, don’t you think?
