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BOOK REVIEW! ASK - THE CHATTER OF POP BY PAUL MORLEY (FABER AND FABER, 1986)

Yeh, there are a whole lotta people out there in rocksnob land who really hate Paul Morley. 'n y'know, I can see why given his involvement with the whole Frankie Goes To Hollywood sordid affair and hey, what rock scribe out there isn't immune to the barbs and insults of a whole load of subhuman sputum who kinda make me wish there was a new Dr. Ishii out there in need of fresh specimens. Believe you me, I should know given the kneejerk retarded responses to some of my way more astute than ever comments I have bestowed upon you these past fortysome years. 

But with a whole lot more worthier clumps of cells out there to loathe until death why should anyone really bother loathing the man!  After all he was one of the new gunslingers to grace the seventies NEW MUSICAL EXPRESS and a much better one than Julie Burchill if not as keen a mind as Nick Kent. Not only that but Morley's one and only issue of OUT THERE remains a highlight of mid-seventies rock fanzineing that sure reads a whole lot sweller'n alla the gunk that has clogged up the rockscribe arteries from the eighties onwards.

Perhaps this collection of various Morleyisms lends credence as to why the ol' fanabla seems to be persona-non-gratis as far as highly visible rockscreeding goes. Not that the stories that appear in ASK which consist of various NME scribings from the v. late seventies until mid-eighties were dire --- far from it --- but the subject matter Morley had to contend with is far from the kind of sounds that any true rock 'n roll maniac would care to spend their time cluttering up their already dizzified heads with.

Of course the mid-seventies sputum that the ol' pooperoo heaped praise upon was worthy of the introspective pieces that were published, and you too might remember just how exciting finding out about the under-the-counterculture rock of those days were with each and every review from people like Morley and others that passed your eyeballs. Morley's talents were capable of describing just why the Stranglers and Ramones were good and his puzzlement over why the poopulace went for some of the more offal-esque sounds was something that a whole buncha us folk really could identify with. But when the 1964-1981 period of rock gave way to MTV glitz and rock critzy types who we once lent ear to started waxing overbearing praise to the likes of Prince and Van Halen in the same fashion they once rah-rah'd the Stooges, well...

I gotta give Morley credit for making his way through these interviews, gabbing it up with such lightloafers as Quentin Crisp and Boy George when he coulda been devoting that precious time to some act he thought truly deserving of publicity. But still Morley gets to sink his fangs in on a scant few occasions like when he lifts the mask off of a few Phantoms out there. I particularly found it quite high-larious when Morley actually got Ted Nugent to admit he really liked --- the Police??? Never woulda seen that comin' inna millyun years. But still, why would anyone with a sense of spirit want to read about such fluff as Duran Duran and Phil Collins even if Morley's natural snide permeates the entire shebang like --- y'know --- read between the lines 'n you'll find out what real one-dimensional types alla your big name idols REALLY are!

I suppose that the hardcore fan of English Weaklies rockscribing would really enjoy these interviews and essays reflecting the strange yet sad world of eighties rock 'n pop. But frankly I suppose that if Morley had never received that telegram from NME we'd be graced with even more issues of  OUT THERE to keep us all awe-struck and in-the-know about a music that thankfully transcended the triteness that can come with stifling ranch house kiddie upbringings. Well yeah, that second ish that promised not only a piece on Roxy Music but John Cage sure sounds delicious even over forty-five years later, as it most certainly should...