The Stool Pigeon's King Canute-like stand against the digital tide

Maggoty Lamb applauds the Stool Pigeon's continued success and wonders if the telephone interview is due for an upgrade
Does anybody out there like the idea of a music paper that is equally comfortable pontificating about Nas, Roky Erickson, Marc Almond and Holy Fuck, has the reassuringly newsprint-y feel of Melody Maker in the late 70s, and doesn't actually cost any money to buy? Of course you do, and the fact that such a publication already exists in the form of the Stool Pigeon is a cause for general celebration.With five issues a year, a print-run of 60,000, and even a functional nuts-and-bolts website for those unable or unwilling to leave their homes in search of the kind of aspiring hipster hangout that generally has a pile on the shelf by the door (if you run one of those establishments and would like to summon your own personal flock of papery Pigeons, info@thestoolpigeon.co.uk is the address to contact), excuses for not giving this title a go are running perilously short. The current issue has a lovely picture of Alan Moore on the cover and the graphic novel overlord's views on how Russell Brand should be punished for his insensitive attitude to victims of sexual crime in the Northampton area are just one of numerous worthwhile talking-points to be found inside.As if this whole valiant endeavour weren't already counter-intuitive, the Stool Pigeon recently celebrated its fifth anniversary with the publication of two stylishly presented and authentically pocket-sized paperbacks. We Need You Lazzaro, You Lazy, Greasy Bastard – a selection of columns by honky bluesman Son of Dave – is probably for fans only, but the 19 stories from the paper's first five years gathered together in Grace Under Pressure (Junko Partner, £6.99) make a strong case for the viability of the enterprise.Editor Phil Hebblethwaite dedicates this ringing declaration of faith in the power of the printed word to: "The short-sighted dude I saw reading a copy of the paper two inches in front of his face while walking in Soho … He tripped on a bag of rubbish, went arse over tit, then got up and carried on reading as if nothing had happened." However, the musical selection policy is anything but myopic, with Omar Souleyman, and Chavez-friendly Venezuelan pop jockeying for position with Marilyn Manson and Grace Jones.Alex Marshall's spirited encounter with Deerhunter's Bradford Cox sets the tone. The latter claims his main sources of inspiration as "girl groups, Rauschenberg collages and Tiffany lamps" and when challenged to identify an echo of the first of those in his band's actual music, Cox replies "I don't like ripping off my influences … music doesn't need to be digested a second time and re-shat out. You just lose bulk in the stool then, you get diarrhoea." While the scatological metaphor will not be everybody's cup of camomile, anyone who has ever seen Duffy or the Zutons live will know what Cox means.Inevitably – and as one would hope – areas of disputation also arise. Garry Mulholland's interview with Tricky makes the disingenuous suggestion that the ornery Bristolian's career has been somehow held back by the inability of other "middle-class" music journalists to get to grips with his straightforward proletarian essence. As a satellite of the perpetually orbiting death star that is Julie Burchill, Mulholland is contractually forbidden from accepting that anyone who earns anything like a living wage through theorising about pop music for national newspapers is by any meaningful definition a fully paid-up member of the bourgeoisie. But that's not even the real point here. The nub of the matter is that it's the reluctance of those same journalistic kulaks to call Tricky out on some of the bullshit he says and does that has helped his career last for as long as it has done. And I say that as a fan.It's intriguing to note that rather than attempting to replicate the form of the traditional broadsheet or music-press feature (as Mulholland's Tricky article does), many of the Stool Pigeon's finest moments – for example, Cyrus Shahrad's informative and knowledgeable piece on MF Doom, and Daddy Bones's less serious brush with Snoop Dogg – are unapologetically presented phone interviews. The reason these work so well here – as they used to in Andy Warhol's Interview – is that so long as both journalist and artist can commit the requisite amount of energy to the conversation, each will emerge with their dignity and mystique enhanced in slightly different ways.The subject won't have had a tiny fraction of their day-to-day behaviour – how they interact with PR people/waitresses/cab drivers etc – blown up into a generally (though not always) spurious representation of their entire personality. Meawhile the writer won't have been obliged to track down their quarry on three separate occasions in an environmentally destructive sequence of different time-zones, solely to fabricate the illusion that they have spent the last six months with their subject, when in fact they're probably looking at a total mutual engagement of a couple of hours tops.It is probably not the dirtiest of the music journalist's professional secrets that at some point in his or her career even the most honest writers – however genuine their preference for the music of Albert Ayler over that of Free or Tiesto – will have felt obliged to misleadingly imply the existence of a face-to-face encounter where only a telephone conversation actually took place. If the Stool Pigeon's more rigorous and straightforward approach promotes greater accountability in this area, that would be one more reason to be grateful for its continued existence. And let's not forget that – as anyone who has recently house-trained a puppy will tell you – an iPad's no good for insulating your kitchen floor against the toxic depredations of dog piss.Pop and rockNewspapersMaggoty LambInky Fingersguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds