The weirdest review of Polly's gig in Perth was posted to her page today by whoever (whomever?) runs it. It's by someone called Ian Church and it reads like a blog. maybe it is. http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2012/01/16/3408970.htm

Here's the first line: "I, like many of other males have been introduced to PJ Harvey by my partner".

And it gets better. Here he's talking to another "male" who's been dragged there obviously by his "lady": "We talk about her music, and how although we as men are not massive fans, we both have great respect for her and her song writing." I mean, what the fuck is this?

"After seeing PJ Harvey perform at festivals, I know this lass can hold her own with the boys". Can she, really?

And on top of all this, there's the icing which includes a lot of mistakes. He calls Angelene "Angelina", All and Everyone "All of Everything", real creative there, and doesn't seem to know who the band members are.

It's clearly OK for this Church fellow to write whatever he wants, but why is this posted to Polly's page? who runs it? is it a child? or perhaps Ian Church himself.

its just a link to a review of the Perth show on abc.net.au?

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Snetta

You're not alone in your incredulousness of the Perth review:

http://www.noise11.com/news/pj-harvey-s ... w-20120118

PJ Harvey Singles Out Sexist Gig Review

by Tim Cashmere on January 18, 2012

PJ Harvey has silently pointed out a review of her Perth show drenched in gender stereotypes and the general feeling that women need to prove themselves worthy of inclusion in the gang of their male counterparts.

The review was posted on Harvey’s Facebook page with no comment from Harvey (or whoever in her camp had posted it), although it has attracted 81 comments (at the time of writing). PJ’s fans are almost exclusively outraged at the review which recounts the story of how reviewer Ian Church met a fellow “male” while waiting to go in where they discussed “how although we as men are not massive fans, we both have great respect for her and her song writing.”

It’s okay though, if you have a penis and you’re worried about feeling like less of a man for attending a PJ Harvey gig or even owning one of her albums, Church reminds us that “this lass can hold her own with the boys,” pointing to collaborations with Queens of the Stoneage leader Josh Homme and Screaming Trees/QOTSA member Mark Lanegan as evidence.

Harvey’s Facebook doesn’t regularly take to posting gig reviews so this sole post is telling and her wordless approach to giving it to her fans is deafening.

A quick search of Church’s name in Google informs us that he “is an audio engineer and produces the promos that you hear on ABC Radio in Western Australia. Ian has mixed all the stories you see in Picture This and has also recorded a few of the stories as well.” His qualifications relevant to relaying a PJ Harvey performance to his audience are unclear.

There have been more aimless reviews, struggling to make a point about the actual music – I’m probably guilty of writing some of them myself in my younger days – but it’s hard to remain silent when a review so strongly reinforces Australia’s reputation as a conservative country so stubbornly refusing to move past the sexist norms of the past. At least this time it hasn’t gone unnoticed. While Church’s review was probably “accidentally” sexist, it doesn’t excuse it. This review isn’t just offensive to women, it’s offensive to everyone.

Read it here http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/201 ... 408970.htm

UPDATE: ABC have updated the review toning down the blatant sexism in the beginning of the article and adding this indirect disclaimer at the end:

“Perth Arts welcomes audience reviews. For all information on how you can submit a review of an event go to the Perth Arts site. Reviews are the opinion of the reviewer and may be edited by the ABC.”

It’s unclear what is meant by “audience review”, but as we pointed out earlier, Ian Church is on staff at the ABC and it is not the first review he has written. He also was sent along to review Gary Numan on the 17th of May, 2011. The “audience review” disclaimer does not appear at the end of that article.

Thanks for posting that, it's a great article that needed to be written. The way they edited the review is so funny:

"I was introduced to PJ Harvey by my partner. And after just two minutes of being at the concert hall, a guy and his wife pick up on our West Country English dulcet tones. We talk about her music, and although the other bloke and I are not massive fans, we have great respect for her and her song writing."

At this point I really don't know if to take this website seriously, they clearly don't. Anyway, the real scandal here is that the review has been removed from Polly's page, with no explanation. two other reviews were posted instead, so that we won't notice or something. real bizarre what's going on here.

But did Polly's people confirm that she "singled" the review out? This "silent" criticism could just be a figment of the writer's imagination. I think it's more likely that Polly had no idea about the posting of the review on her facebook (she doesn't seem too invested in her online presence) and had it taken down when she actually read all that sexist crap.

I too think it's safe to assume Polly has no relation whatsoever to her Facebook page. I wouldn't even go as far as saying that she was involved with the removal of this piece of shit that claimed to be a review. I'm guessing the person, or people, who are actually in charge of the page are PR people of Island or something.

I have that Facebook page book marked to get the latest news in the hope I get early warning of ticket sales for gigs (that is a definite must!) or any other interesting stuff.

However, have always felt that the page was a commercially run enterprise and not very people friendly, a type of "pop fanzine" for marketing purposes only. As a consequence, I don't think its suited to Polly's style or just as bad, it's not even promoting her work. For example, their output of music videos is very sparse, almost non existent and limited in the range and depth of Polly's work. I would be more than happy to do that job for them (for a small fee of course ).

I've noticed that there is no link to "The Garden", just a link to My Space's "PJ Harvey" who haven't updated their own page for a long time.

What with that pathetic article of Church's discussed here, its pretty obvious they are just not interested in anything other than your name on some web marketing list. Which is such a shame, they could have done something a bit more special and personal with the Facebook page .

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The whole world seems to be steered towards economic gains being the only goal of worth ~ Polly Jean Harvey

https://www.facebook.com/pjharveyalternativepage

I'm not surprised much by this facebook thing. It's apparent Polly's web presence is minimal (witness the official web site). I'm sure someone's occasional job at Principle management is to keep tabs on things. I doubt Polly is involved at all.

They DO keep tabs on things however. I can recall a couple of surprising and interesting instances:

1. I snagged a candid picture of Polly and the crew in a Bristol recording studio during (or shortly after) the AWAMWB recording. This was on the official web site of Toy box studios. Only a day or so after posting it here, that single picture was deleted off the Toy box studio web site.

2. Shortly after completing the recording of LES in late spring of 2010, Mick Harvey's myspace blog had some details of the forthcoming album. After posting the comments here (with a link to them), those comments were picked up widely by many music sites and within a few days were deleted off of Mick's blog.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JelqPcoaAB8"

I remember when I posted a link to her 2009 tour rider here. Not too long after that the website that hosted the file deleted it off its servers. I imagine that was her management's work as well: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1140

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JelqPcoaAB8"