From: Kevin J. Bonham, sleepycat@eudoramail.com Subject: Response to John [long despotic rant] Date: 2/26/2002 5:29:17 AM To: seance@lists.no-fi.com In response to John Micek's comments (which I would have quoted, but they're in HTML and it's tiresome to pull words from that, so I haven't), to start with, this is not a flame - just an expression of differing opinion. A flame is a harsh personal attack. Sorry about the length of this, but please bear in mind that I'm replying to several different posts at once: * I don't feel we've been particularly vituperative, we've simply pointed out that the critic has provided an incompetent review, a reasonable response to their claiming firmly that a band we like is incompetent, and failing to adequately support their case. * We haven't "flooded" any boards - that would involve repeated pointless postings. We just go there, make our points once and get out with no real disruption to boards which often have quite high posting volumes anyway. * With the exception of one critic who was particularly rude, not only toward the band but all its fans, we have not "flamed" the reviewers much - simply attempted to refute them - personal attacks beyond what is contained in the review have generally been mild or absent. * "That said, I can't help wondering about this quasi-Orwellian business of shutting down free speech". No-one's free speech is being "shut down". The critic exercises their free speech by dissing the Church. We exercise ours by replying. That is what free speech is all about. In the brilliant words of - well, it was that crook Spiro Agnew actually - "The right to free speech does not include the right to be taken seriously." Shutting someone's free speech down means getting their magazine banned, taking an injunction on them, or attacking them physically. Please let's not have any references to "fascism" here either, particularly not while seeking to call someone else's comments "hysterical". There is some small difference between criticising someone who has criticised someone for criticising someone else, and forming a totalitarian centralised far-right industrialist nationalist and possibly racist police State. Indeed, John himself is presently engaged in the former, so if he' * Deadlines, short word limits, pressure, not knowing enough about the band etc are sufficient excuses for making errors while meaning well, but not for making unsubstantiated negative comments about the artists as well. I'm an editor myself, and I'll check hostile claims made by reviewers and remove them if they are not sufficiently justified within the piece. Indeed my crummy little rag has regulations which say we will not publish disparaging opinions where no attempt has been made to found them in fact. Good enough for me on a pittance salary for that particular job, is good enough for rich music mags and TV show spinoffs fat on advertising and high sales - which in some cases including this one have been the sources of bad reviews for AENT. * There has not been an absolute link between the ratings the album has received and the level of criticism by us. Often the harsh reviews have been less bright and the good ones more so, but in the middle there have been some that while less than positive were acceptably written and factually accurate, others that while fairly positive have contained silly stuff. When HOB was released, Alister Thomas bagged it repeatedly on Seance. Some people on Seance became angry, but several (me included) respected him because he was trying to argue his case logically, and it takes guts to do that on a fan site. Likewise, I saw several bad reviews for HOB which I ignored because they were simply opinions - nothing misleading, just wasn't the reviewer's cup of tea. That the bad reviews for AENT have been generally very badly written compared to the bad ones for HOB might be a sign of the quality of the album. * The reviewer made three claims that I took exception to in factual content: (1)Most Australian bands sound like U2 (2)The Church imitate U2 (3) that Radiance creates a portrait of an incestuous community. I do not believe these claims are especially subjective. (1) is testable by simply adding "to the average interested listener" (which is implied anyway) and testing it empirically. (2) more or less ditto (yes, one Church song in about 25 would sound passingly like U2 ... or Hawkwind ... or the Cure ... or the bloody Beatles ... or one of 200+ other bands). (3) yes, interpretations are subjective, but in terms of stating as that a song is definitely about something (rather than "I think it's about this maybe"), you should at least be able to defend it somehow - very difficult given the existing lyrics in this case. Small town plus three sisters equals incestuous community? Not in any dictionary I've read lately. * "Countering that the Church has rocked you harder than U2 does not disprove someone's opinion that the Church, musically speaking, resemble U2." Quite correct. That's why I made it a seperate point, and made it very clear that that particular point was not an issue of fact. I addressed the issue of the Church resembling U2 or not in a different point. As a general comment, I find it difficult to comprehend that when a reviewer bags the Church, John thinks they are doing their job under pressure and simply expressing their opinion to which they are entitled, but when we bag the reviewer we are crushing their opinion, supressing their right to free speech, being hypocrites and possibly tending towards intellectual fascism. I would really like to be able to see some consistency in the way John has treated the roles of reviewer and reviewer-reviewer, but I'll be completely frank here: I can't. Anyone who wishes is free to reply to this online, but that's all I'll say on this one for a while. Offline if you want. Over and out. Cheers, Kevin. Join 18 million Eudora users by signing up for a free Eudora Web-Mail account at http://www.eudoramail.com