I was suprised and impressed by the one track I heard from Nick Kent's band, the Subteraneans. Sort of Wah-ish, anthemic post-punk, if memory serves.

Then there's Gay Dad, whose frontman wrote for The Face and Guitarist; Lenny Kaye who met Patti Smith after she responded to a piece on a cappella music he'd written (and even compiled an Encyclopedia of Rock while he was in her band); and Ocean Colour Scene, though their singer was local newspaper journalist rather than a pop writer.

Down at Blue Square Premier level, there's Welfare Heroine, which was NME's Dele Fadele's vehicle; Fabilous, who were made up of then-NME writer Simon Dudfield, snapper Martin Goodacre and various hangers-on; while current NME journo James Jam also has a band on the go...

But go back and listen to Saint Etienne's best-of. They're a national treasure (and were pretty handy at pop journalism, too).

I believe John Robb was a musician before he was a journo, but may be wrong.

Mark Knopfler was a journalist for various regional newspapers before becoming a pro-musician, but I think he was a straightforward newshound.

...had his own fanzine if I recall. Does that constitute "music journalism"?

...Furnace & The Heatwaves

Them Pet Shop Boys

Boomtown Rats..

Geldof was a journo in the early/mid 70s.

Also - Gay Dad, anyone?

Bugger - both been cited, sorry!

The Redskins were sometime NME writer X Moore's band. And I thought they were brill. Neither Washington Nor Moscow still sounds fab today.

A brilliant writer and I have to admit to loving much of his band The Regular Fries' output.

Good work that man. Totally forgotten the Fries.

The NME's Dele Fadele art noise rock band in the 80's were ok at the time. Although it hasn't aged well, but that could be down to me not spending most of my day off my gourd.

He of top Oi punk band "The Gonads" shame on you.
Old Sounds readers will know what i'm on about.

Please.

Most definitely. I could not live without their albums. They defined the 90s for me, and still continue to make great records now....twenty years of Saint Etienne!

Wan't she a journalist? I've got her "England Made Me" cd - can't remember if I like it though. Given that, I don't suppose I do...

Not sure if he was a music journalist before the Long Ryders but he's certainly been combining the two careers with the Coal Porters and his work for Mojo.

Who wrote for Sounds I think, or one of the 70s music weeklies, had a country-rock band called Fluff on the Needle.

Another Sounds writer was front man for The Snivelling Shits. I've no idea what they sounded like - do I need to? Probably better was the work of Davitt Sigerson, who wrote for UK and US music papers, produced David and David, Blondie and the Bangles (I think) and wrote and sang one of my favourite Christmas songs, "It's a Big Country". He's now a novelist and, judging on his track record, probably a good one.

He of "boomstick" duties with the Bluebells then Lloyd Cole and the Commotions. Currently the golf reporter with the Guardian.

Apparently the chap always wears two pairs of trousers too. No really, it's in case he gets (coughs, looks at shoes) a hole in one.

Apologies for that, but it reminds me of a classic Whistle Test moment from the mid 80s, and I guess I couldn't be asking this in a better place, cos it's been bugging me for a while.

It was Andy Kershaw coming out with one of the best quotes I can ever remember. I think he was possibly referring to some perfumed New Romantic who he described as "wearing trousers that looked like they could have a good time all by themselves".

Anyone able to put me out of my misery with a name?

has made a large number of wonderful and not-so-wonderful dance tracks under his own name, and as Secret Knowledge and I think a couple of other aliases too.

The Deviants and International Times/NME.

The best music writer of those stated so far, though the band we something of an acquired taste.

...has been in a number of bands. Voices From The New Music by his group the Telstar Ponies is a decent record, albeit rather derivative of its influences; in particular, Sail Her On, which is written and performed in the style of Nick Cave.

The WORD’s own Fraser Lewry can be heard “hitting a seven-iron into a sheet of corrugated metal” on another of Keenan’s projects - Phantom Engineer. The only thing I can remember about the album is buying it on impulse in the London, Piccadilly Circus branch of Tower Records. Maybe it’s time to give it another hearing.

Sean O’Hagan of The High llamas shares a name with a music journalist. I had always assumed that they were the same person.

...did an horrendous charity single after the 7/7 Tube bombings. I have struggled to take his review judgements seriously ever since.

Marijne van der Vlugt used to be a VJ on MTV and sang in Salad, and somewhere at home I have a cd from them which I think I quite like.

But VJ on MTV might not count as journalism..?

whatever happened to Salad and her?

In a simliar psychedelic folk before it was fashionable vein as Telstar Ponies are Lucky Luke who feature writer/journalist Lucy Sweet.

Would be interesting to collate these into a list ranked according to success, because it seems to go 1) Pet Shop Boys, 2) Saint Etienne, 3=) Every single other band featuring a journalist.

I didn´t know Morrissey was a music journalist.

Didn't the daddy of them all have a band? I think he may even have had some apalling records out.
But probably not as bad as his nemesis/straight man Lou Reed puts out these days, goodness I would have loved to have read Lester on the utterly unlistenable and profoundly pretentious "Raven" or any of the other tosh The Dark Prince Of New York has "commited to wax," as they used to say, over the past decade

can thank his lucky stars that he was in Ugly Rumours before he started writing about music can't he.

Roberts was a great writer (probably still is) and sang in two bands Catwalk and then Scalaland. I purchased the Catwalk 'Damascus' EP and it really wasn't too scruffy. Roberts was a pal of Debbie Harry and a champion of The Primitives. I seem to remember him talking up great bands like The Sundays and The Blue Aeroplanes and expressing exasperation at their lack of commercial success. In the end he decided to have a go himself. He succeeded artistically, but - alas - not commercially. Which just goes to prove something or other, eh? Ah well, we still have the music.

The New Yorker's Sasha Frere-Jones was a member of American indie band Ui, if that name means anything to anyone (I get them confused with feminist post-punk act Ut), but I dunno if he was a music journalist at the same time.

Paul Morley used to front a band called the Negatives around the time he began writing for NME, and may even have briefly featured in an early line-up of the criminally underrated Manicured Noise.

Ex-Select/NME scribbler Gina Morris was in an early configuration of Stereolab, although I'm not sure if she ever recorded anything with them.

The Word's very own Andy Gill was, of course, a member of The Gang of Four*.

* - this is a lie.

YLT's Ira Kaplan was a music journo in an earlier phase of his life.

To steal a line from Smog, the argument ends there.

Are we talking about journalists who essayed an attempt on the other side of the microphone? Or musicians who decided that a journalists life would provide a more regular income? Or both?

Neil Tennant obviously fits into the former category. One of my favourites in the latter is Jim Irvin, late of the wonderful and much missed Furniture.

i don't think Florida had anything to do with journalism, but they re-emerged minus one member plus quite a few others as Morton Valence. check 'em out, they're still alive. they had a very good single out a while back.

Here's one for the teenagers! When Ross Middleton was writing about Glasgow bands for Sounds in 79/80, he used the nom de plume "Maxwell Park". Maxwell Park is a leafy park in a douce southside suburb. He reviewed many of the breaking post-punk bands who were playing at the Doune Castle including the Alleged and his own band Positive Noise, who were angsty sub-Joy Division.