Day three at NME (poet and I didn't know it)

Today was so busy compared to the rest of the week. We started, as usual with the mail, now...we were told that we would be getting more and more mail as the week went on. However, as the week has gone on so far it's become increasingly less, which I'm fine with but I thought as the new issue went out today there would be more mail today, guess I was wrong.
   After we had finished the mail we finished transcribing the interviews, Tom Howard came up to us in the morning asking us how we were doing and how we were finding it all, which was really nice. When the editors give you a task, they really are considerate towards you and understand that it's difficult. We said to Tom that we'd try and have them done by lunch time, however the interview was longer than I though, it ended up being around 40 minutes in length. If you've never transcribed an interview before, let me tell you...it's difficult. You have to listen to things several times before you really come to grips with what they're saying. We tried to get them finished by lunch time however we ran over by an hour and didn't get them finished until two. I had literally just finished my transcription when Jenny Stevens, the deputy news editor approached us, asking if we could transcribe an interview for her. I explained that I would love to do it as I really enjoy doing it, but I would have to start after lunch. She was really surprised that we had left lunch so late to finish some work. I guess she was impressed because she ushered us off to lunch. When I came back she gave me the Dictaphone she had, it wasn't hers it was Dan Stubbs' the news editor. She asked me too look through the files until I could find her interview, I thought this would be a pretty simple task however it deemed near-on impossible to find her interview, in the end I had to take it back to her and Dan seemed to find it so fast. I was so embarrassed, it made me look like such a fool and technophobe but I guess they didn't mind because it's not my fault I'd never seen a Dictaphone in real life before. I only got a third of the way through the interview before it was time to go home. I felt bad but I knew I'd be in the office all night if I'd carried on. I said to Jenny that I didn't mind going home and transcribing the rest for her, she said that it was okay. I guess she was working to a deadline because I got an email from her a couple of hours later saying that her deadline had been extended and could finish it tomorrow morning if I wanted to, of course I obliged. I felt that I couldn't leave it half done. So I guess that's what my job for tomorrow will be, I'm also hoping to do my single review tomorrow as well. I'll probably do the Disclosure track and the Swim Deep track. Karen gave us a list to choose from today, I thought these two would be okay because I'm a fan of both the bands. I haven't really written any bad reviews yet, so I didn't want NME to see my first bad review. The editors will be going through them with us on Friday, I think.

Sorry, I've been super busy lately, which is why I haven't been posting at all.

Today, I'm going to tell you about my work experience at NME. I'm not doing it to brag because that's not what I'm about at all, I'm doing it for everyone out there that has this coming up and wants to know what happens, because I know that before I started I wanted to know exactly what I'd be doing, what it looked like, everything.
   So before I turned up at blue fin building - which, by the way is super beautiful and modern and huge - I was super nervous, I was wearing a skirt a blouse and blazer, thinking everyone would be in office uniform. That was one of the biggest mistakes I made, everyone in the NME office was pretty much wearing casual. A mistake I will not make again tomorrow! When I met Karen (the editor's PA) I was pleasantly surprised, she's absolutely lovely, really helpful and friendly and very approachable. She gave us a tour of the office and gave us some handy information about the company, IPC media and how it's gone global.
   From here, she showed us to our desks, (I should explain that there are three of us doing work experience, one of the girls this is her fourth time, and then me and another girl it's our first time) gave us a run down of what we'd be doing throughout the week and throughout the day. It took a lot longer than we thought to go through all of the health and safety, but after that we got through the mail. What I mean by sorting the mail is that there are sacks and sacks of mail to go to all of the editors in the office and you have to sort the mail for each editor and personally go and give it to them. We got through this a lot quicker than Karen thought we would, so after doing that we cleared our desk. Then went for lunch.
   After we came back from lunch we honestly didn't know what to do, we weren't approached by Karen or any of the editors to give us jobs so we sat around for a bit and familiarized ourselves with the office a bit more. After this we went to speak to Karen about what to do next (we felt a bit weird talking to her all the time and asking her for jobs) she told us to speak to Dan Stubbs, the news features editor and see if he had anything for us. He asked us to go and look for some news articles that weren't featured on NME. We had no more le-way than that. So I found out that Foals are doing a UK tour, I noticed that NME hadn't featured that yet so I emailed Dan and he then featured it and thanked me for reminding him. While I was looking for other news stories another editor came up to us and asked us to re-type these Joy Division album reviews from the 1980's, it was so strange to read because I was thinking how these were written before Ian Curtis had died and it was really fascinating to read and re-type. This took up the rest of our day and before we knew it, it was time to go home.
    I am really looking forward to tomorrow!

Apologies I haven't posted in so long! I'll give you an update now.

Okay so on Monday I went to see The Drums, they were incredible. The whole show was, actually. Devin was the first support act. Now...don't get me wrong he was really talented but he was so pretentious. He was like "Hey I'm Devin and this is MY BAND". I was thinking, hey Devin your band are more talented that you are. Did I really just say that? Yes. Yes I did. Anyway, Spector were the second support act. The lead singer was hilarious! He really interacted with the crowd, which I love. It seemed as though they really appreciated being there, although they were completely hammered! They are definitely a crowd pleaser though. They are really great live with really catchy songs. I've heard their single 'Chevy Thunder' on NME radio a lot lately so I sort of knew what to expect. Now onto The Drums, they always know how to put on a great show. The best thing about them is they don't really have to talk to the crowd much because Jonny Peirce's swinging hips are enough! Just when I thought it couldn't get any better Boy George made an unexpected appearance on the stage, where he joined The Drums in singing 'If He Likes It Let Him Do It'. Everyone was going crazy, they couldn't believe it. It was such a surreal moment in music. After this they sung 'Do You Really...' Boy George absolutely smashed it! Easily a contender for the one of Top 5 gigs I've been too!

I've also been super busy with the website, apparently this week is the week for everyone to release their videos...who knows why. I must have done around 50 today! Ridiculous, I know! I enjoy it though because it means I can learn about so much more music. Discover new bands etc. Just still hoping I can start writing soon.

So as you all know I'm working with The Electric Sugar Children for their video to promote their new album. The shoot is this Sunday and after around a month of planning, video inspiration and problems galore it's all finally starting to come together. I have a good idea of what it is I want to do, what shots we need to get etc. We have camera's and a place to shoot. And that's the main thing. Oh and of course we have tapes, I nearly forgot about them though! I'll let you know how it goes, probably Monday now!

And finally! Today's song of the day has to be The Drums - 'Days'. I can't stop listening to them since Monday, maybe it's slight post-gig depression. It's such a catchy song, I adore it!