The world lost a wonderfully acerbic writer this week – Steven Wells. I knew Steve back in the late 70’s as he was friends with all of us in Gang of Four and was a regular contributor to the Leeds post-punk scene. In later years he wrote for the New Musical Press [fortunately before it became a shallow imitation of itself] and up until his death he had written a weekly column for the UK’s Guardian Newspaper.
Here is the Guardian’s farewell to him – in it are links to some of his best writing.
And here is another eulogy from Clash Music.
He will be missed.
It has to be said–Wells had a style that could not be stopped. His writing is indeed reminiscent of Hunter S. Thompson, but so much more focused and precise. Thompson was great, but if he had the focus of Wells…who knows? Journalism has lost one of the good ones.
June 25th, 2009 at 5:44 pm