Behind NME Lines

Happy birthday NME. You might still be the arbiter of cool and the supporter of bands with unwieldy names and daft apparel. But some of us know that you are actually 60 years old, that you were once twinned with Accordion Times and that back in the early days, you were rather fond of Dixieland jazz.

But still we love you. For establishing the first record sales chart in 1952. For getting loose in the early Seventies with writers like Nick Kent and Charles Shaar Murray. For making sport with punk rock and indulging writers such as Tony Parsons, Julie Burchill and Danny Baker. After punk you might have veered to the over-indulgent with Paul Morley and Ian Penman, but hey, such were the times. And anyway, with those cover images of Anton Corbijn, the paper still felt iconic, a rare institution.

My own NME tour of duty lasted from 1988 to 2000. It was still an amazing place to work then, and I witnessed the ages of Madchester, acid house, grunge, Britpop and superstar DJs. You had the best access to bands, a license to hang with the likes of Radiohead, U2, Primal Scream and the Manics. And then you could write 5,000 words of supreme babble in return.

I was flattered to be interviewed by Pat Long for his new book 'The History Of The NME: High Times and Low Lives At The World's Most Famous Music Mag'. My instinct on opening it today was to check out my name in the index. I was never one of the star performers, but there I am, commenting on the habits of cracked freelancers, describing the first Morrissey war, the Kurt Cobain obit and remembering how we invented the Battle of Britpop. Noel Gallagher may not thank me, but I've still got a few campaign medals.



I might blog again about the book when I've actually read it. Surely, the story will be a fierce one.