RIP Neil Kulkarni

Corpsey

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Really shocked to learn this news today.

I was a (VERY) latecomer to his writing, which I read on his blog and latterly Substack, and although I often vehemently disagreed with him on musical matters I also thought he was a fantastic writer and clearly a hugely passionate music lover.
 
jenks

jenks

thread death
Corpsey said:
Really shocked to learn this news today.

I was a (VERY) latecomer to his writing, which I read on his blog and latterly Substack, and although I often vehemently disagreed with him on musical matters I also thought he was a fantastic writer and clearly a hugely passionate music lover.
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oh no - that is genuinely awful. I know his wife died a few years ago and has a daughter. Really shocked about this.

At his best he was great writer - especially about things he hated - and proper funny writer.
 
craner

craner

Beast of Burden
I loved him and read him from the day he started at Melody Maker. I even remember the Clifford Clavin letter that is now doing the rounds. He was always one of my favorites. I brought Tical, The Sun Rises in the East, The Infamous and Goodfellas straight off the back of his reviews and never looked back. He helped me find the music I loved as a teenager in the same way that Simon Reynolds and Simon Price did, and to understand why I loved it.

He's one of those ones who never really got the platform they deserved. Even worse, he was considered barely worth thinking about and was dismissed as a ranter, a has-been, somebody not important enough to listen to by those who'd been careful and cunning enough to carve out their own careers. I remember all those NME cunts like Dorian Lynskey and Eve Barlow going after him for being "old" and out of print a few years ago, and to be fair, he did start it, but he was also right about them, their paper, their shit writing and their shit music. The fact that the only come back they had was to mock him for being old and having to write on a blog revealed plenty about their own values and views.

Back in the 1990s, when he probably meant the most to me, it seemed incredible that he wrote for Melody Maker and didn't move to London. He stayed put in Coventry! Aged 17, I thought that was mental, and for many reasons. I knew Coventry pretty well, because my dad lived near there and it was one of those places (the others being Leamington Spa and Birmingham) that I used to spend hours walking around when I went to see him (usually trawling through the record shops). I think I actually saw Kulkarni strolling through the centre of Cov once, or at least a guy who looked very much like his photo in the Melody Maker singles page and was wearing a Paris 'Guerilla Funk' T-shirt, a record I knew he loved. But I was too star-struck and shy to go and speak to him. It's not that Coventry was a bad place to live, if all your mates and family lived there too, but it was a bit like Swansea, a place I couldn't wait to leave when I was 17. In retrospect, I admire his choice, and his refusal to play the game.

I can't believe he has died so suddenly, so young. I'm gutted.

RIP
 
D

DannyL

Wild Horses
craner said:
I loved him and read him from the day he started at Melody Maker. I even remember the Clifford Clavin letter that is now doing the rounds. He was always one of my favorites. I brought Tical, The Sun Rises in the East, The Infamous and Goodfellas straight off the back of his reviews and never looked back. He helped me find the music I loved as a teenager in the same way that Simon Reynolds and Simon Price did, and to understand why I loved it.

He's one of those ones who never really got the platform they deserved. Even worse, he was considered barely worth thinking about and was dismissed as a ranter, a has-been, somebody not important enough to listen to by those who'd been careful and cunning enough to carve out their own careers. I remember all those NME cunts like Dorian Lynskey and Eve Barlow going after him for being "old" and out of print a few years ago, and to be fair, he did start it, but he was also right about them, their paper, their shit writing and their shit music. The fact that the only come back they had was to mock him for being old and having to write on a blog revealed plenty about their own values and views.

Back in the 1990s, when he probably meant the most to me, it seemed incredible that he wrote for Melody Maker and didn't move to London. He stayed put in Coventry! Aged 17, I thought that was mental, and for many reasons. I knew Coventry pretty well, because my dad lived near there and it was one of those places (the others being Leamington Spa and Birmingham) that I used to spend hours walking around when I went to see him (usually trawling through the record shops). I think I actually saw Kulkarni strolling through the centre of Cov once, or at least a guy who looked very much like his photo in the Melody Maker singles page and was wearing a Paris 'Guerilla Funk' T-shirt, a record I knew he loved. But I was too star-struck and shy to go and speak to him. It's not that Coventry was a bad place to live, if all your mates and family lived there too, but it was a bit like Swansea, a place I couldn't wait to leave when I was 17. In retrospect, I admire his choice, and his refusal to play the game.

I can't believe he has died so suddenly, so young. I'm gutted.

RIP
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Lovely eulogy Craner
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Corpsey said:
Really shocked to learn this news today.

I was a (VERY) latecomer to his writing, which I read on his blog and latterly Substack, and although I often vehemently disagreed with him on musical matters I also thought he was a fantastic writer and clearly a hugely passionate music lover.
Click to expand...

Couldn't believe this when I saw it this morning. It's a huge cliche but cos I am friends with him on fb etc and seen him wittering on about normal stuff just a couple of days ago he just seemed so... boringly and mundanely alive. Part of everyday normal stuff. I thought it must be a mistake.
 
R

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
wow, never read him in the 90s, but if i saw a recommendation by him in wire mag, id often try to seek it out. eg - dont think id be into jpeg mafia otherwise. RIP.
 
B

bassbeyondreason

Chtonic Fatigue Syndrome
Even his legendary hatchet jobs had these incredible lines like "Indie is the only type of pop that hasn't superseded poetry."

SLEEPER
Digbeth Institute, Birmingham
Melody Maker (21 Oct 95)

INDIE is in Birmingham. Indie goes down a rapturous storm. Indie makes everyone happy tonight. Indie is lovely. Indie is the fleetfooted reduced to leadboot toetap. Indie is every single embarrassing moment of your life returned to like eternal dog's vomit. Indie's emotional limit is the delineation of when you feel a bit shit. Indie succeeds in this. Indie is tight T-shirts and rhythm sections. Indie is everyone wanting to look like one of the Beastie Boys even though the Beastie Boys have stopped doing this.

Indie doesn't see any point in voting because everything stays the same and comfy. Indie reaps the benefits of democracy and is unwilling to try and preserve it. Indie is communal contentment over mass ecstacy. Indie is an overheard conversation that makes you want to stab in the halfdark.

Indie is four people getting together wanting to create something sublime and immortal having had their lives swallowed by pop and needing to do the same, surveying the infinite possibilities and deciding three guitars some drums and some good songs will just about do. Indie is the scornful look from people your brain could eclipse and burn a million times over. Indie is every single transcendent spirit of humanity withered and died to the desire to succeed.

Indie is musical bigotry, political apathy, casual racism. Indie is a popularity contest that hates shallowness. Indie is revenge. Indie is the class weirdo with their own thrown in the sixth form centre. Indie is the dual luxury of the glamour of alienation coupled with party invitations. Indie is sauce over sex, ignorance over intuition, Gene over Gravediggaz, Powder over Pram and if you think that's petty you weren't here tonight, this was petty-lite. Indie is utterly wonderful.

Sleeper are great and I love them as much as you do. WILL THAT DO ARE YOU HAPPY NOW IT'S DOWN IN B&W JUST REREAD THIS SENTENCE FOREVER JUST FOR CHRISSAKES DON'T TALK TO ME. Indie is the only world in which Wener's cretinous Tory! Tory! Tory! blathering would not only be tolerated but applauded for their "bravery". Indie is the only type of pop that hasn't superseded poetry. Indie is happy. Indie is harmless. Indie is in love. Indie is moving with a bounce and a skip tonight and is proof that nothing is more revolting that the sight of the inheritors of the earth enjoying themselves. Indie has won. Indie will always win. Indie is where your assumption of universal complexity crumbles into the stark realisation that some people really are complete cunts. Indie is dead and buried. Indie is alive and well. The crowd roared.
 
R

rubberdingyrapids

Well-known member
im not really a major oasis fan but he did seem to spend a lot of time being hung up on the shitness of britpop and oasis and its pernicious effects on british music (and writing etc). entertaining to read his takedowns though. that style of music writing is not really fashionable anymore so kudos to him.
 
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