Blog: Niceness Of The Rich And Famous

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When I sent out the review copies of the album, ages ago, I also sent out a few extra copies to people i LIKED. That's not to say I didn't LIKE the people I sent press copies too - the majority of people I sent copies too have been lovely - but there was one specific group of people who recieved copies that I didn't, and still don't, particularly admire. That group is, of course, the mainstream music press, whose idea of looking for news is to open press releases from the major labels and who refuse to have anything to do with anyone who isn't buying adverts (if you think this is overly cynical, flick through the NME and see exactly how many live reviews, and especially album reviews, have come from genuinely independent bands, and how many are released by fronts for the majors).

ANYWAY, despite how it appears in that last sentence, I'm not really THAT bothered by this fact, having come to accept that they're not going to be arsed with anything we send them, but I do always feel sentimentally obliged to send stuff to them, if only so I can legitimately WHINGE about them never reviewing our stuff (the ONLY AAS release that ever got into the NME was the Pala single. COINCIDENTALLY that was the only release that we ever paid a publicist to work with). In an attempt to OFFSET the grubbiness by association of this transaction, I resolved to send out copies to people who I ADMIRED, whose WORK brought me pleasure on a regular basis, and also who I thought might actually like the album.

THUS I sent Nigel Blackwell a copy, and he sent me back a very nice postcard, as he is such a terrific chap and, indeed, GENIUS. I sent Richard Herring a copy (as Warming Up is one of the first things I read every day) and he too sent me a nice postcard... OK, it was saying he hadn't had a chance to listen to it yet, but still, it was a nice thought. I also sent one to the author Mike Gayle, who wrote "My Legendary Girlfriend", "Mr Commitment" and so on. When I finished reading the former I'd decided that I was going to write my first ever fan letter, because it was SUCH a brilliant book that, frankly, made me cry like a GURL at the end. I never got round to doing it (probably because it meant looking up the address of his publishers), but EVERY one of his subsequent books ALSO filled me with JOY and ALSO ended up making me BLUB. He was an obvious choice to send a copy too, and the other day he sent me an absolutely LOVELY email to say he'd listened to it and really liked it. He also said it sounded like The Brilliant Corners, which made Rob very happy indeed!

I just thought that was a really nice thing to do, and as with the other responses, it was HEARTENING to find that someone I thought SEEMED liked they be a Jolly Nice Chap actually WAS. HOORAH!

posted 23/10/2003 by MJ Hibbett

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