Fanzine Writer of the Year 2005

2nd March 2005

No, not me, it’s product of Norfolk and work-shy Hip-hop loving fellow Agenzian Nick Tebbutt.

He’s just been awarded the EMAP Fanzine Writer of the Year Award at some fancy event in London, for his frankly abstract rambling on top music website Speakers Push The Air. Here’s why…

Only Nick could introduce an album review (in this case, the Death From Above 1979 album) with such pointless abandon and tangential irrelevance:

Time was when death came from below, in the form of huge robot moles built and manned by vengeful shrews intent on revenge for years of oppressive taming at the hands of Brummie playwrights. Oh, it was a dark period for the the nation’s creatives: many a rude mechanical was munched up in the implaccable jaws of the subterranean monsters, and artists’ studios across the land were filled with shrieks of horror as the Art Council redirected funding away from vapid undergraduate mewlings, and into the creation of giant mole traps to be deployed in cultural quarters across the land. And so a pitched battle was waged, pitting man against horrible, burrowing machine in an epic conflict that was to decide the future of the human race. One man stood tall in these harrowing years: Ben Brill, who fought more mechanical beasts than anyone else. Good on him. Anyway, long story short, we won, and now death just comes from above, which is much easier to deal with. Phew…

Nick spits this shit out on a daily basis. His inexhaustible supply of multi-syllabic, Kings Lynn cleverness grates on a daily basis, and his love of the quite unlovable Cypress Hill and all similar whiny bong-head Hip-hop never fails to annoy me.

Here are some facts about Nick and Speakers.

1. It brings a lot of free CDs to our office
2. It represents three of the coolest woodland animal DJs you’d ever need to meet - Lapin, Badger and Otter (formerly Mink).
3. The quality of writing on the site is excellent.
4. They interview the likes of Roots Manuva, The Rapture and smelly-headed brown-bag ‘n bass expert Roni Size for fun.
5. Nick was the first and last person to book London’s Gobsausage in the provincial Midlands.
6. The Speakers DJs play Nottingham’s Social and Orange Tree venues every month.
7. I went to Iceland on a discount rate thanks to Speakers.
8. Nick started Speakers as a way to meet girls.
9. Nick started learning Polish to impress a girl. She wasn’t impressed.
10. Nick’s desk is an out-and-out fucking tip.
11. Nick’s nicknames at Agenzia have included The T1000, T-Bot, Teapot, Teapottur (Icelandic for teapot), Trevor, Tebster and Dumb-fuck Norfolk thicky.
12. We are desperate to find time to re-do the website
13. The website is brown
14. Once, when I was very pissed, Nick stole my hat from my head and put it on a bollard. I then spent ages going on about how a bollard had the same hat as me. You had to be there.
15. Nick is in two bands. One is good.
16. The Speakers e-mailout is the funniest mailout you could ever subscribe to.
17. CollyLogic and Agenzia are very proud of Speakers.

Well done, then

The BBC like Nick, so be nice to him, as he’ll be doing soundbites on all those Top 100 shows within the year, or editing the NME. Anyway, well done Tebbutt. I expect you’ll be unbearable for the rest of your life now - like you’re not already. H’yea, right. No, seriously, well done. Nick wins 500 quid and an optional four-week paid internship at an EMAP magazine. Do they do jazz-mags, Nick?

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