Bernard Zuel is senior music writerat The Sydney MorningHerald.

He was visiting Brisbane in early April as a guest speaker atthe inaugural Rockand Roll Writers Festival, so after a day of inspiring andenlightening discussions about all things music writing, we wentback to his hotel room in Fortitude Valley to talk more about thatvery topic. I've been reading his album reviews and featuresin The Sydney Morning Herald for years, so it w as atreat to pick the brains of one of Australia's most prolific andenduring writers in this field.

In 2016, Bernard is actually one of very few journalists inthe country to be employed as a full-time music writer for anewspaper. We talk about this very fact, and the shrinking natureof such jobs, as well as how he chooses which artists to writeabout; how he manages to juggle writing up to six albumreviews per week; how he prefers to take notes in dark rooms whenattending concerts; why he hates the five-star rankingsystem; the value he sees in writing negative music criticism,and why he now uses voice recognition software rather thantyping.

BernardZuel has been writing about music since typewriters, C90mixtapes and coming home stinking of everyone else’s smokes. Havingwritten for RAM, Rolling Stone and street press, andtalked on TV/radio for anyone who asked and paid nothing, he’s beencovering arts at The Sydney Morning Herald/Fairfax Mediafor more than 20 years, the past 12 or so as senior music writerand chief critic. He still buys records and discs and sound filesbecause it’s great.

Show notes and links to what was discussed in this episode:http://penmanshippodcast.com/episode-22-bernard-zuel/

Bernard Zuel on Twitter: @BernardZuel

Penmanship on Twitter: @PenmanshipAU

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