Clueless Outsider Journalism

[Brad]

...

[bitewerksMTB]

You're only "in" after you've been around for 20+ years. ha. Really, I have no idea. I've never felt "in" anything.


"palaeontologist by training"- that's more interesting than Industrial music!

[Andrew McIntosh]

You seem to have a lot of anxiety about how your zine will be accepted by both interview subjects and readers. If your interest in your subjects is sincere you have nothing to worry about, regardless of how "in" you feel yourself to be. You're not trying to do SI again, you're doing your own zine, so the rules for SI should not be your rules.

Keep in mind that there is a need for real diversity when looking at these musics. Your own interests and feelings should dictate what it's content is and how it is presented. Obviously there'll be room for criticism and you'll need to prepare for that but if you're committed to what you're doing you'll be able to accept the valid criticism and discern it from whatever whinging will occur (sadly, it always does).

[Nyodene D]

A while ago I attempted to start my own fanzine, that was sort of influenced by Special Interests and some older industrial zines I had collected.  This was a very small edition, non-profit zine that I put together on my own and distributed for free at concerts and record stores, and I think both issues are out of print.  I haven't put out a new issue in about a year because I keep thinking back to the goal, "From fanatics to fanatics. No clueless outsider journalism," and how do I even know if I'm guilty of that?  (Cue "If you have to ask...") I hate to think I'm wasting the interview subjects' time or cheapening their image by featuring them in a clueless outsider publication.  Or making a fool of myself in front of them, of course. 

I'm not someone who makes industrial music, or a person who really "lives the culture" on a daily basis, whatever that means.  I just like to collect industrial records, go to shows, research the history of the art form.  I'm actually a palaeontologist by training, I guess that's why I like learning the history and taxonomy of various subgenres.  I guess everyone who writes for SI was born a clueless outsider, so was there any point you realized when you were "in"?

I wouldn't worry about it. You sound pretty "qualified." I think the call for "insider journalism" is one against things like Pitchfork trying to pick apart extreme music cultures ironically. 

[Andrew McIntosh]

That question pretty much answers itself. I'm not sure what examples Mikko had in mind when he wrote that but that's only because I don't read a lot of music journals anyway and tend to be cynical of exposure of genres like PE in more established magazines like The Wire or Terrorizer or whoever. "Clueless outsider journalism", as I read it, refers to self-appointed music experts who are not really fans of something like PE but think they are qualified to comment on it anyway. As opposed to "clued-in insider journalism", ie fans who know their shit and can write. It doesn't mean people who go to every gig or are at the centre of their local scene or whatever, just people who love the musics, know about it or are prepared to do some real research to know about it, and have some decent writing abilities. If that fits you, you've got nothing to worry about.

[FreakAnimalFinland]

Clueless outsider journalism would be the insincere and routine job done by music journalists. Who write for magazines about bands they hardly care for. And the corrupted ones who write the suck up promo texts for releases made by labels that buy adds in their magazines and so on. You can often find the material in magazines, which covers music in broader sense, that they will cover noise in ways that its merely as weird phenomena. Or that you could basically replace band and album names in reviews without anyone noticing. Where Death Squad "sounds like Merzbow" or Incapacitants is power electronics singing about cocks, like once expressed in Finnish tabloid, hehe..

Of course, it will be utmost help if one knows what he's talking about. That to review piece of noise, he has actually heard and knows what has been done. That it is not all about subjective experience, but critical analysis of material.

SI is most of all fanzine, not "magazine". I don't take that as offense, but rather celebrate that there used to be time when even rock journalism here included people making a lot of effort to find the best material out there and write about it for others to find it too. Instead of lame lame lazy glossy mags being just incestious sale speeches within "business" or clueless remarks of those who hold the "power of media". Noise writing by noise listeners to noise audience. I'm all for it and becoming "expert" in field is not a task. It just happens accidentally when you do what you like.

[Nyodene D]

Clueless outsider journalism would be the insincere and routine job done by music journalists. Who write for magazines about bands they hardly care for. And the corrupted ones who write the suck up promo texts for releases made by labels that buy adds in their magazines and so on. You can often find the material in magazines, which covers music in broader sense, that they will cover noise in ways that its merely as weird phenomena. Or that you could basically replace band and album names in reviews without anyone noticing. Where Death Squad "sounds like Merzbow" or Incapacitants is power electronics singing about cocks, like once expressed in Finnish tabloid, hehe..

Of course, it will be utmost help if one knows what he's talking about. That to review piece of noise, he has actually heard and knows what has been done. That it is not all about subjective experience, but critical analysis of material.

SI is most of all fanzine, not "magazine". I don't take that as offense, but rather celebrate that there used to be time when even rock journalism here included people making a lot of effort to find the best material out there and write about it for others to find it too. Instead of lame lame lazy glossy mags being just incestious sale speeches within "business" or clueless remarks of those who hold the "power of media". Noise writing by noise listeners to noise audience. I'm all for it and becoming "expert" in field is not a task. It just happens accidentally when you do what you like.

YES. THIS.