The Onion is a English arts and humor newspaper, a mix of the Onion and Clash, funny enough at times it mistakes cruelty for relevance from time to time but it is a good read. Sometimes they appear to be the National Enquirer for recent college grads but most of the time they appear to be going where no one has gone in the recent past.
There’s a scrappiness to them, whether doing beyond the grave interviews with the Cramps or publishing tell alls by Lana Clarkson (Phil Spector’s murder victim) lesbian lover, they go where no one else will or even wants to.
In other words: I like em but not a lot. And anyway, on February 6th, 2013 they “closed themselves down.
No great loss or maybe it was an I I am just pissed because like so many
writers I am addicted to the rock critic cliche and their Guide To Journalistic Bullshit, http://www.thestoolpigeon.co.uk/features/news/an-a-z-guide-to-music-journalist-bullshit.html , hit a little too close to home. The article is funny but not entirely accurate. The thing is, if you are writing in the New York Times about a civil war, is it a cliche to write “war torn Syria” or is it an accurate assessment? How can she write about guitar shredding without writing “guitar shredding” or
eagerly awaited albums without “hotly anticipated”? Really, why wouldn’t you write hotly anticipated before the new Vampire Weekend album.
Still, this is funny stuff… “Impossibly catchy”, “Number one in an alternative universe”, “Soundscape” (I love that one: “Substitute for ‘song’ used to describe boring shoegaze, post rock and elecronica records whose alternatively ‘majestic’, ‘eerie’ or ‘glacial’ instrumentals are supposed to evoke grand vistas of some sort. Dimly, the writer perceives that this is all Brian Eno’s fault”) . Read it yourself amd play spot the chiche with rock nyc wrters!! I use soundscape all the time!
Stool Pigeon hung it up this February after an eight year run. Editor Phil Hebblethwaite wrote in his farewell: “I wanted to do much more online, but the newspaper sucked up nearly all our resources and time. It’s proved impossible to do both as well as we’d like and, to be frank, we’re knackered.”
I’m just sorry I came to it too late to steal stuff off em (laughs).