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Bernard Zuel\\xa0is senior music writer\\nat\\xa0The Sydney Morning\\nHerald.

He was visiting Brisbane in early April as a guest speaker at\\nthe inaugural Rock\\nand Roll Writers Festival, so after a day of inspiring and\\nenlightening discussions about all things music writing, we went\\nback to his hotel room in Fortitude Valley to talk more about that\\nvery topic.\\xa0I\'ve been reading his album reviews and features\\nin\\xa0The Sydney Morning Herald for years, so it w as a\\ntreat to pick the brains of one of Australia\'s most prolific and\\nenduring writers in this field.

In 2016, Bernard is\\xa0actually one of very few journalists in\\nthe country to be employed as a full-time music writer for a\\nnewspaper. We talk about this very fact, and the shrinking nature\\nof such jobs, as well as\\xa0how he chooses which artists to write\\nabout;\\xa0how he manages to juggle writing up to six album\\nreviews per week; how he prefers to take notes in dark rooms when\\nattending concerts; why he hates the five-star ranking\\nsystem;\\xa0the value he sees in writing negative music criticism,\\nand why he now uses voice recognition software rather than\\ntyping.

Bernard\\nZuel has been writing about music since typewriters, C90\\nmixtapes and coming home stinking of everyone else\\u2019s smokes. Having\\nwritten for RAM, Rolling Stone and street press, and\\ntalked on TV/radio for anyone who asked and paid nothing, he\\u2019s been\\ncovering arts at The Sydney Morning Herald/Fairfax Media\\nfor more than 20 years, the past 12 or so as senior music writer\\nand chief critic. He still buys records and discs and sound files\\nbecause it\\u2019s great.

Show notes and links to what was\\xa0discussed in this episode:\\nhttp://penmanshippodcast.com/episode-22-bernard-zuel/

Bernard Zuel on Twitter: @BernardZuel

Penmanship on Twitter:\\xa0@PenmanshipAU

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