A Crazy Musical Fortnight - Part 3 - My Week at NME
So THEN I travelled back down to London for my NME work placement on the Sunday of getting back from Muse.
I stayed with my lovely friend Anna in West Norwood, so it took roughly an hour to get there every day, which includes walking to and from stations so that's not bad at all! I always find it fascinating, working out how to get from one place to another in London. It's all just so clever! So every day I would get into the London Bridge overground station, next to The Shard:
And I would walk to the Blue Fin Building in which NME is based. Here's a view from the top of the building:
On Monday we were given a tour of all the important bits of the building that we'd need to know. Karen Walter is the Editor's PA, and was basically in charge of us whilst we were there. She gave us two tasks to complete by the end of the week; one was to go through last week's edition and analyse it by saying what we liked and didn't like about it. The other was to pick three of the six songs we were given and write up a review of them in 100 words... As you can tell from reading my blog, you may realise this was quite difficult for me to do! Anyway, the first day they didn't really need us to do that much, so we were mainly looking for news stories that the news writers may not have picked up on and that may be of interest to the news team, and send them to Jenny Stevens, who is the Deputy News Editor at NME.
Tuesday morning, Lucy Jones who is the Deputy Editor, came over and said they were looking to write an article on 60 interesting, lesser-known facts about Kanye West. As there were four people doing work experience in total, including me, three of us were given the task of finding the facts. We split it 20 each, so it wasn't so intense. That pretty much took up all of Tuesday and some of Wednesday.
Wednesday I actually found something useful for the news team! Huzzah! They wrote it up and published it here: http://www.nme.com/news/the-doors/70684. I also took the rest of the day to do the tasks that Karen set us to do. Here are my reviews below:
I stayed with my lovely friend Anna in West Norwood, so it took roughly an hour to get there every day, which includes walking to and from stations so that's not bad at all! I always find it fascinating, working out how to get from one place to another in London. It's all just so clever! So every day I would get into the London Bridge overground station, next to The Shard:
And I would walk to the Blue Fin Building in which NME is based. Here's a view from the top of the building:
On Monday we were given a tour of all the important bits of the building that we'd need to know. Karen Walter is the Editor's PA, and was basically in charge of us whilst we were there. She gave us two tasks to complete by the end of the week; one was to go through last week's edition and analyse it by saying what we liked and didn't like about it. The other was to pick three of the six songs we were given and write up a review of them in 100 words... As you can tell from reading my blog, you may realise this was quite difficult for me to do! Anyway, the first day they didn't really need us to do that much, so we were mainly looking for news stories that the news writers may not have picked up on and that may be of interest to the news team, and send them to Jenny Stevens, who is the Deputy News Editor at NME.
Tuesday morning, Lucy Jones who is the Deputy Editor, came over and said they were looking to write an article on 60 interesting, lesser-known facts about Kanye West. As there were four people doing work experience in total, including me, three of us were given the task of finding the facts. We split it 20 each, so it wasn't so intense. That pretty much took up all of Tuesday and some of Wednesday.
Wednesday I actually found something useful for the news team! Huzzah! They wrote it up and published it here: http://www.nme.com/news/the-doors/70684. I also took the rest of the day to do the tasks that Karen set us to do. Here are my reviews below:
NME short reviews
Glasvegas – “If”
I’m
gonna be honest and straight with you here – I’ve never been a massive fan of
Glasvegas. Which is odd, as this genre is right up my street. I don’t know what
it is though, I’ve always found them just a bit… well, boring. This is one of
their better songs that I’ve listened to, it’s got a marching-drum beat
underneath which is pretty interesting, and the guitar work is good as well.
But the dreary melody just does nothing for me and the song doesn’t really go
anywhere… Yawn.
90 words.
Temples – “Colour To Life”
If
it’s sunny where you are, then put your speakers outside, get yourself a nice
drink, make sure you’ve got some shorts on and put this song on. It’s just the
perfect combination. If it’s not sunny where you are, don’t let that deter you.
Search for some pictures of a beach and you can listen to it with your
headphones and your dressing gown on. It’s psychedelic rock, perfect for the
coming months. The video is exactly what you’d expect, a kaleidoscope
background with the spaced-out band members playing on sleepily in the
foreground, fronted by Noel Fielding’s long-lost twin brother, James Bagshaw.
104 words.
Peace – “Lovesick”
I am
a huge fan of this Brummy band – their album “In Love” that this song is on is
probably my favourite album so far this year. If you like mature riffs mixed
with stroppy-teenager vocals and a general fun-loving feeling, then you’ll love
this. It’s just so easy to listen to.
It’s no intellectual masterpiece lyrically, the words aren’t
particularly strenuous or difficult to follow, but the playing of the other
instruments just gives Peace an edge in my opinion. This is another song that
will be a great summer track, and will, I think, sound fantastic at festivals.
100 words.
I also transcribed an interview with Sam Halliday of Two Door Cinema Club on his opinion of bands who charge fans money to meet and greet them for David Renshaw, a news reporter. After that, I was finding around 15 bands that people "must see at festivals this summer" for Lucy Jones to add to the ones that were already there - published here: http://www.nme.com/photos/50-awesome-bands-to-see-at-festivals-in-2013/305308/1/1
Thursday I was transcribing an interview with Tom Meighan of Kasabian for Kevin EG Perry, Assistant Editor, on what it means to be a mod (he said he's the epitome of one), how he feels about The Who (big fan) and what bands he likes at the moment (Deap Vally). I was then asked by Jenny Stevens to write up a news story about Paul McCartney!!! Yeah, it doesn't have my name on it but I know I wrote the foundations of it! http://www.nme.com/news/paul-mccartney/70713 We had all been asked by Kevin to think of songs that would be good to listen to in the car on the way to a music festival and to write a little caption for each, which was fun! That can be found here: http://www.nme.com/photos/the-50-best-festival-road-trip-songs/309307/1/1
Friday there wasn't too much to do again, so we were scouring the internet for more news stories. We also got feedback on our reviews. My feedback was given by Rhian Daly who was very very nice! She said she liked my writing but I needed to faff about less and make it more third person, which I can understand.
I had such a brilliant time at NME, it's just the sort of place I would love to work at when I leave uni. The experience has only emphasised my want to do music journalism as a career, and how doable it actually is.
Plus they gave me a t shirt and it is sick.
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