Ian McMillan: The life and times of an NME showbiz journalist

When I was a teenager with long hair, a noisy LP collection and an ex-Army greatcoat that was badly in need of a good scrub, I couldn’t wait for Thursday to come because that was NME day. To the uninitiated or the deeply ungroovy, that’s the New Musical Express, the weekly music paper that’s celebrating its 60th birthday this year. I’d grab it from the shelves and devour it from front to back, back to front and then middle outwards, both ways, and because the ink came off on your fingers, by Thursday night I looked like I’d done a double shift down Darfield Main coal mine.
By The Newsroom
Published 23rd Jan 2012, 00:00 BST

In the early 1980s, I made the progression from reader to writer. I went to see some bands at Rotherham Arts Centre and sent a review in and, amazingly, they printed it. I kept that review for years but eventually lost it and all I can remember is one of my sparkling phrases about a band called Mystic Orange. I wrote “they call themselves a rock and pop band and that must be because they eat rock and drink pop.” Genius! After that I went to loads of gigs and sent reviews in and they printed them; my policy was to see unknown bands in small venues so I went to places like the George Hotel in Low Valley and the Dearne Youth Club in Goldthorpe. I usually paid my way into the gig and didn’t announce I was from the NME because, technically speaking, I wasn’t from the NME: I was just a kid with a greatcoat and a notebook.

Once, though, at a community centre in Halifax, I was skint and I told the bloke on the door I’d come to review the show. The band (mercifully, I’ve forgotten their name) refused to come on until I’d left because they were scared I’d give them a bad review. I went into the dressing room and told them I’d heard their EP and I liked it and I was always kind but they wouldn’t budge so I had to skulk down to the station and go back home with my notebook blank.

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In January 1982, a breakthrough of sorts occurred: the NME rang me up and asked me to review the electro-pop duo Soft Cell at the Porterhouse Club in Retford. I was so excited that I combed my hair: that’s how excited I was. I enlisted the help of my mate Martyn as driver and we set off in plenty of time on a freezing cold Saturday night. I don’t know why, but we got there at 7pm; perhaps I’d seen too many gigs at the Dearne Youth Club. I strode up to the door and told the bouncer I was a journalist from the NME and Martyn was my photographer. “Where’s your Press card?” he asked and he didn’t believe me when I said I’d accidentally put it through the washing machine in my jeans, so we had to pay to get in. We walked past the cloakroom and they wouldn’t let me back out so I had to wander around all night in my greatcoat; worse, Martyn had his duffle coat on. We looked like early 20th Century Polar explorers who’d slipped through some kind of hole in time. By now it was ten past seven and at that point I found out that Soft Cell were due on stage at two am to do a fifteen minute set. Ah, the glamorous life of the showbiz journalist…