Once, long ago, I told Andrew McMillen I’d keep an eye on his output and eventually review a portion of it in to the dust.

For those of you who don’t know Andrew he is a solid reviewer, with a reasonably-sized body of work behind him. He’s also, from what I can tell, one of the most industrious networkers I know, and I therefore assume that he’s the type to pitch his ass off in the hope of establishing himself as a serious freelancer. For these reasons, I never really thought we’d find ourselves in a place where I’d have enough vituperative hate-spew to offer about something he’d written for it to be a worthwhile blog post. You know?

Strangely, it happened. Stranger still, I’m not going to employ my usual 1-2 punch of tearing him down and laughing it off. I’m going to extend Andrew McMillen the courtesy of a genuine review – if not in format, then at least in consideration. That would be the very same courtesy that he did not extend to the Butcher Birds. Now, when I say he did not extend such a courtesy, I do not refer to the nature of his judgments. How could I? He has not presented them. No, what I refer to is the actual quality of this review (copied below for reference). If this had been a review of Andrew’s personal relationship with a single member of the crowd, then perhaps it would have been tolerable. If it had been an Amazon.com buyer’s guide to Andrew McMillen’s Thoughts On Etiquette, it probably would have gotten three thumbs up.

But this, my friends, was ‘ostensibly’ a gig review. Written for a publication with a reasonable amount of credibility, a decent editorial standard and a stable of writers who – from what I’ve heard – consider themselves to be Actual Journalists.

So on that basis there, I assume you can see how poorly this review went for Andrew. Have a look:

Butcher Birds

As Butcher Birds play, there’s a dude – ostensibly a friend of the band – accosting every individual in the room in an attempt to influence their decision to purchase the quartet’s debut album, Set My Bones. So far, I’ve seen no sales among the dozens leaning against the wall. He reaches me and shakes the album in front of my face, obscuring the band from view and diverting my attention.

“What?” I enquire above the noise, though by now his intentions are clear.
“Buy an album?” he offers optimistically.
“Not now. Maybe later.”
“What?!”

After I repeat myself several times – “what?!” – he dismisses my response and moves on. By now, he’s successfully distracted me from what’s happening on stage. I watch the roaming merch desk as he continues to annoy paying customers throughout the set. I’ve never seen anything like it before. If the band enlisted him – that is, if he’s not doing it off his own back, as a dedicated fan – it’s among the worst marketing tactics I’ve seen at a show. People paid to be here, so they’re fans: we’re at least marginally interested in hearing the band’s music, and potentially buying their album. We know where the merch desk is: we’ll buy their shit if we like it.

Butcher Birds released their first EP Eat Their Young in 2006, but postponed their album launch for three years. Tonight, they play most of it, and it’s a largely enjoyable display of retrospective alternative rock. Three females hold guitars and sing, while Donovan Miller keeps the beat. The metal-influenced whipcrack ending of ‘Millions’ and the hypnotic, distorted tone of older track ‘Tiger Paw’ make up for occasional plodders like ‘Sweet Sweet Cones’. Screamfeeder bassist Kellie Lloyd lends vocals to ‘Stone Fox’, and a cover of The Amps’ ‘Tipp City’ punctuates their set. There’s plenty to enjoy about their sound, but their overt marketing fails to convert this potential buyer.

by Andrew McMillen

Hands up if you have ANY fucking insight in to the Butcher Birds’ show?

Other than the fact there was a bar patron, one adult in a crowd of hundreds, who had consumed too much liquor and was acting like a fuckwit. Did you get that part? You should have. There were 212 words dedicated to establishing it. 212 words out of 325. Really?

Perhaps you are aware that there are four members of this band.

Perhaps you can divide them by gender: three girls and Donovan.

It would seem that these are the only things readers of the review are able to comment on. Primarily because there is no other content. Though, admittedly, there is a very weak, very ambiguous set list tacked on to the bottom of what should have remained Andrew’s LiveJournal update, his focus here is clearly on the ‘dude’ who ‘accosted’ ‘every individual in the room’. Unfortunately, the three girls/one boy gender ratio and dismissal was not an intended focus, but it pissed a lot of people off simply because it was an uninformed comment made in the broader context of wasting everyone’s time.

While many found cause to be offended at the misogyny inherent to a comment like, “Three females hold guitars and sing, while Donovan Miller keeps the beat,” I think it is far worse than gender politics. And for someone like Andrew, far more disappointing.

I think the problem here is not that Andrew is dismissive of women and unable to conceive of What Makes A Review. I think the problem here is that, for whatever reason, he failed to gather the information he needed. Instead of admitting that and attempting to rectify it, he wrote a short story about his feelings.

Horrific.

Ignorance in a ‘journalist’ is more distasteful than prejudice. And the demonstration of ignorance is the only way to truly fail in that role. It’s your job to gather and present information, you see.

Here’s what I think happened. I’m not going to bother confirming any of these assumptions though because it feels like that would be inappropriate, considering McMillen’s approach:

Andrew couldn’t tell which girl was which. He could only tell that the boy was called Donovan, because there was one boy name on the MySpace and one boy in the band. But there were THREE GIRLS and THREE GIRL NAMES, and so the solution was a sweeping textual gesture. I do it at parties all the time. “Them,” I say, “These, here, these bitches are my friends.” Lucky it is not my job to know my friend’s names, or I’d look like an asshole too. “LOL”.

As for the unruly punter, well. That little issue would have been solved with a dose of information-gathering too. If Andrew had asked the punter, or the band (who were hanging around the merch desk throughout the night, or outside smoking after the show), or hell – even me – whom he’d managed to contact about his +1 without a hassle.. If he’d asked any one of these people whether or not the fervent ‘dude’ fan was enlisted by the Butcher Birds or just a spastic renegade, he would not have had to waste all those words on exploring the possibilities of the man’s life, his position in the Butcher Birds’ affections or his potential marketing affinity.

But then, I fear, Andrew McMillen would have been left with no choice but to tell his editor he didn’t have a review in him. If he had not been able to dedicate two thirds of his review to immortalizing a man he apparently spent the night ogling, if he had not been able to offer imprecise, pedestrian commentary, then what in God’s name could he have written?

Personally, I would be nine times more interested in a review that said, “Shit out of luck, sorry everyone!” than in what I was actually given, which was something so irrelevant that it may as well not have existed in the first place.

I give this *** (3 stars) as a private diary entry, and * (1 star) as a review written by someone who considers himself a professional.

Oh, and by the way Andrew, there were three other bands that played. No comment on them? Performers not as relevant to the evening as the man in the crowd, I guess. Stupid question, sorry.