Letters To The Editor

Sir, the new-style paper looks great, even if its reduced size does make my hands seem freakishly large, and features some really top-notch content to boot. Good to see acts like Cube, Pharrel and Cee-Lo in there, rather than just cover-to-cover white indie whiners and the odd worthless grime fart. Hats off to you. Bagging Nile Rodgers was plain off-the-fucking-chain; he’s a god among men.

However, as a self-confessed pedant and former editor myself, there is one small faux-pas I must bring up from the page 65 sidebar paragraph titled ‘Re-Jigga Man’. What exactly is a ‘fine toothcomb’? Some kind of exquisite grooming device for dentures? I think the writer meant a fine-toothed comb. Further evidence of our free-falling standards of written communication and how people simply write down phrases they’ve heard without thinking about how they’ve come into use. Slags.

Line that one up against the wall with such gems as: “I can’t come out, I’m brassic,” “she’s so coal-hearted” and “you could of done better”, and so on and so on, forever and ever.

‘Brassic’ should actually be ‘boracic’, by the way. It’s from the rhyming slang ‘boracic lint’, meaning ‘skint’.

Our men, Spock of the North, The North

Sir, I have now read most of the new issue. Do you know if a dubstep act has ever said anything interesting?

Alexander Steward, Via email

Sir, having “and you’ve probably never heard of him” at the start of the Nile Rodgers piece was about as smug and self-righteous as it’s possible to get. Are we supposed to bow to The Stool Pigeon’s superiorty for having interviewed one of the major names of pop music in the last 40 years? Honestly, who do you thinks read your publication?

Andrew Miller, Via email

Sir, The Stool Pigeon is my favourite music mag/rag but I’m bothered by some pointless and misplaced elitism on evidence in the editorial of the current issue.

“This man has sold over half a billion records (and you’ve probably never heard of him)”

Way to come off like a dick. Why bother making these kind of assumptions about your readers? Many people that read SP are at least as knowledgeable about music as the writers (the valuable difference being the skill of writing about music, not knowing).

If you don’t get why this is an insult to those that have heard of Niles [sic] Rogers [sic] then imagine some dick you’ve just met at a party saying “my favourite artist/band is/are Can/Bonnie Prince Billy/Flying Lotus, but you’ve probably never heard of him/them”. You’d wanna punch the cunt.

And for people that haven’t heard of Niles [sic] it’s some kind of elitist shit that I thought you were way above stooping to.

“Plus plenty of other interviews and stories to alienate fans of indie music”

On the cover? What the fuck is that about? Are you retarded enough to think that something called an ‘indie fan’ exists? Who do you know that only likes/listens to one type of music? What the fuck is indie music these days? Is this 1990 or something? Get a grip.

No one reads SP for one type of music only, it’s about all and you’ve made it obvious. If you’ve been reading it for a while you know that; if you haven’t, well, look at the fucking contents every issue.

You’re not alienating anyone. SP isn’t some alternative music press. There is no fucking mainstream music-dedicated press. Imagine what that would be… papers about X Factor and Bieber? People that read music dedicated magazines and papers are by definition music nerds and love music as much as you do.

Otherwise… you’re doing a fantastic job so quit making assumptions and talking down to people, it’s just annoying and makes you look stupid. These small things do make a difference.

AZ, Via email

Sir, I manage a drug team in Worcester and would like to have copies of The Stool Pigeon in our waiting area to amuse our service users, as I can’t think of any better substitute for drugs, or perhaps better still an enhancer! Class A all round.

All the best, Jon, Worcester Community Drug Team

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