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The lost world of the music weekly: Why NME was the last of an extinct species

Stuart Maconie, New Statesman, 14 March 2018

ONE EVENING IN the late 1980s, returning from my part-time job teaching "scallies" ethnomethodology in Skelmersdale, I opened a letter with a London postmark. It was from James Brown, features editor of the New Musical Express, saying he'd liked the unsolicited "stuff" I'd sent and offering me a job. Thirty years on, it remains the single most thrilling and pivotal moment of my life.

Total word count of piece: 687

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