Leighton Buzz Radio’s Solid Rock Show 28th September

Leighton Buzz Radio’s Solid Rock Show this week features an interview this week with Paul Gorman, author a new book about the music press titled Totally Wired: The Rise and Fall of the Music Press published by Thames and Hudson this month. The interview will air during the show between 7 and 9pm on Wednesday 28^th September.

Here’s Steve Ashwell to tell us more:

I recently had an interview with the charming bloke Paul Gorman about his new book charting the rise and fall of the music press. We start out by discussing how some of the well-known music press titles like New Musical Express and Melody Maker are much older than you might imagine. There are some surprising facts about the NME’s heritage. We discuss teen idol magazine Smash Hits and the superb fashion/music/photography magazine The Face and it’s related Jason Donovan legal case. Moving on to how Sounds poached some of the writers from other magazines to lead the way in the 1970s by scoop interviews with artists like Nick Drake before his sad young death. Paul is a font of knowledge and during the interview he casually drops in how he has lived in LA and found a rich vein of great small independent music magazines like one published by The Beastie Boys. The book charts the advent of star writers like Nick Kent who looked like a rock star as a journalist and was mistaken for one even amongst real rock stars. Other stars to come out of the music press include Tony Parsons and Caitlin Moran. We discuss the music press today and how it is much more of a niche market but one that survives because people (some people) still prefer print to digital. I hope you like the interview as much as I did. It was a great chat with a knowledgeable and articulate author and the book is out now so go and grab a copy!