Rock Reviewer Eats Shit

I guess it really is too much to ask of you to read this after your scathing attack of my 'Cry Tough' review. But in the interests of self-defense ( it is still a democratic country I hope....after reading your letter I'm beginning to doubt it!), I will answer you point by point.

Point 1. It may not have come to your attention but there is not one bum track on that album. Now in all my time of reading record reviews I have seen that a couple of times, I felt 'Cry Tough' deserved, that praise so I gave it! Hardly 'phlagarism' is it? What the hell would you have said? Something like "honestly there is not one poor cut on this album"......still means the same, there is bugger all difference! So to say I 'phlagarised' Steve Clarke on that point is just fucking horse-shit!

Point 3) Having looked at Steve Clarkes article and reflecting on what you said regarding the complexity of the song etc, it also came to my notice that he was not only refering to that one track but also the whole albums complexity in relation to Nils Lofgrens earlier albums. Take a look its at the beginning of his review. My words are simply the same.

Point 4. Anybody with a bit of musical knowledge can see that 'Mud in Your Eye' is a throwback into the sixties era, the changes are classic and what does the piano do if it doesn't fill? I also note that you take two entirely separate pieces from Steve Clarke's review and try to make it look the same as mine! Well fuck you, that what ! heard so that's what I wrote; the lyrics are the same yes....but they are the ones that also came through the headphones and impressed me, that's why I quoted them!

Point 5. What Clarke said and what I said are similar but not the same.

All that's left to say now is that I printed that review two days after the albums release on June 19, it was not printed until after mid-term break, one week later I purchased the said N.M.E. and realised just how similar the two reviews were; in fact several people pointed it out to me but realised I couldn't have plagarised simply because I wrote what I did before that particular issue of N. M.E. had seen the light of a New Zealand day.

C'mon Kerry, lets see you get your shit into one sock! Things like this are bound to happen and the number of times I have seen reviewers write similar, if not the same things, about an album numbers about 1,000 times; you want proof? Take a look at Nick Morgan's review of 'Rastaman Vibration' in last weeks Salient (13.9.76) and then take a look a Robert Palmers review of the same record in June 17 'Rolling Stone" of this year! Now I don't think that Nick Morgan phlagarised 'Rolling Stone' but there are untold similarities!

Which just goes to prove what I say about similarity between reviews.

Still I can't praise you enough in that you spent untold trouble comparing an NME review and mine and came up with your conclusion two months after my review had been printed and 1½ months after NME hit the newstands!

Finally, I wrote the review of 'Cry Tough' because I fell Nils Lofgren deserved notice. You seem to think (or imply) that I couldn't give a blue shit about the record and just ripped off Steve Clarkes piece, well bullshit! Because along with 'The Last Record Album' by Little Feat, 'Silk Degrees' by Boz Scaggs,' 'The Royal Scam' by Steely Dan and 'Rastaman Vibrations' by the Wailers that album enjoys prime lime on my stereo.

So, I dare you to write a revew of an album that tome nit picking bastard like you couldn't go back through every rock mag in creation and find some similarity with.

Thanks for telling me what thousands have,

Grant Cairncross.