Artist: Kid Sam

Venue: The Troubadour, Brisbane

Reviewer: Ruth Bailey

Brisbane Times, 2010

Writing Disorders: Jargon Palsy, Idea Fever








Stuffiest Phrase: “some fairly uncategorised musings resting under this umbrella classification”




Ruth, up until now I’ve stayed away from ripping concert reviews because they’re more like stories, yarns, or anecdotes. Recounting a show doesn’t just involve dissecting sounds. Live music is a living, breathing experience with distinctive people, sights, smells, drinks, ass-grabs, etc. And for the most part, writers in attendance write stories.

They don’t usually take it as an opportunity to turn the blood of their own life experiences cold. You might want to hire a licensed professional to check the “fun” software loaded on your android brain because whatever you wrote here is one big error message.

First: the formatting. Ruth, this concert review wasn’t even 500 words, but consists of 18 paragraphs. Did you just type out your notes and call it a day or do you actually have a clotting disorder that prevents your thoughts from gelling? The thing reads like a Twitter feed with a longer character limit. After scanning through it and grouping your ideas, I came up with three paragraphs — four tops. Here’s one to illustrate:

“Music genres are usurped as `trendy’ as quickly as they are borne, but the `new direction’ appears settled on Indie-folk as an established leader.

This is largely attributable to international bands like The Fleet Foxes and Grizzly Bear leading a renaissance for once popular folk styling.

Even Indie-folk is in danger of being overtaken for the latest sub genre, `Experimental Indie-folk’.

The `new black’ in live music, barely a Saturday night passes in Brisbane these days where you’re not unable to sample some fairly uncategorised musings resting under this umbrella classification.”

That’s one paragraph, Ruth. If you’ve got shaky hands, you might consider enlisting someone else to type your hard returns. Short controlled bursts are okay for fighting aliens on four pulse rifles with about 50 rounds each, but they’re not the best tack in descriptive prose. The start of a new paragraph usually signals the start of a fresh idea.  I can only speak for my brain, but it instinctively clears space for new meat after a double line break. After a while, I stopped caring about whatever you were explaining because your style kept killing connections between ideas.

Second problem: everything else. This was some sloppy writing, Ruth. I also blame your editor, but some of it’s inexcusable coming from someone writing for a major paper. Read this:

“The mellow, pop-infused guitar whirring enveloping the crowd, who appeared mesmerised for the vocal abilities of front man Nic McKenzie.”

Where’s the rest of the sentence? Either you need a comma after “McKenzie” so you can continue talking about the “guitar whirring” or you need a different verb tense. I’d recommend a useful tool called re-reading. It helps to clear up clogged phrases, bad punctuation, and faulty grammar. Speaking of that unholy trinity…

“Illustrating that these Melburnians brought new meaning to the verb `jam’ but also that here-in lies the answer to why today’s live music-lovers allow themselves to be romanced by this Experimental Indie-folk analogy.”

Ruth, I don’t like to rag on my former students, but that thing you wrote is more baffling than some of their essays, and they had Asperger’s to deal with. I’m not even going to try to offer suggestions because frankly I have no clue what you’re getting at here. Utter confusion isn’t the best recipe for a closing sentence.

Also, if you’re going to write sentences as long as Mandingo’s pecker, please use the right tools. Once again I’m going to ask you to read a sentence you wrote. I’ll give you a couple of minutes.

“Regardless of the Sydney-sider’s acerbic tongue, the band played a tight and concise set, fervour for sixties bands The Monkeys and The Beatles was especially evident particularly in Don’t Be Sorry and hit of the moment, Lonely in Your Arms.”

Notice how things take a U-turn after the word “set?” Can you imagine how a reader would need to stop and go back to make sure he was reading it right? The good news is that you already know one possible cure: the period. You might also consider the key right above it: the semicolon. Read any book and you’ll learn its uses.

Eh, Ruth, I’m going to end this because I’m getting bored and anything else I could point out boils down to you reading and editing your work before you submit it. Just…do those things…please.

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