Wells was one of my favourite writers back in those days, when a good writer on the music press could influence me and my tastes as much as a good band.

RIP Seething.

- a few of us once spent the night in Leeds Station having missed the last train to Bradford after a Selecter gig back the early days of ska. Swells and his poet mate Little Brother (who we knew) kept us entertained with various skits about Luddites attacking t'mills - you probably had to be there.
Next time I saw him he was Seething Wells supporting The Jam in Leeds, winding up the laddish Tetley bittermen in the audience. His NME career took off shortly after - he was Susan Williams first wasn't he? - My only letter published in the NME was in support of him refusing to review to idiotic nazi Oi band.
The last thing I recall reading by him was a live review of Nick Cave in the NME in which he managed to refer to sprouts and s odomy in the first paragraph.
Cheers, Steven. Condolences to family and friends.

Let's hope he's on the front cover of the next issue in tribute. Often his writing made me laugh, sometimes it annoyed me, but it was always worth reading.

His last few pieces for Philadelphia Weekly on the cancer that finally killed him are as good as anything he's ever done. I was once on opposing sides to him at a debate at the Oxford Union - I was on Smash Hits and pro-pop, he was on NME and pro-Redskins - but we soon forgot about all that while getting stuck into the drink after the show. Highly unlikely we shall see his like again, etc.

Despite being one of the Smiths loving bed wetters he so brilliantly derided I loved his writing. He was one of the few reasons to still read NME in the late nineties. RIP Swells.

hole in the zeitgeist that is distinctly iconoclastic in shape.

Wells along with David Quantick was the first journalist that i read because it was them rather than because they were writing about my favourite band. His mad vivid writing was just so engaging and thrilling to my teenage mind. He was politictal but not afraid of low humour (and never po-faced)and well just seemed to like the things I did. A great shame.

His recent Guardian stuff (especially the piece about fans and bands attacking scribes who wrote bad reviews) was brilliant. Hats off to him.

Here's one I fondly remember from a couple of years ago:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2007/sep/06/stingwhereisthydea...

RIP to a wonderfully cantankerous and genuinely funny thorn in the side of accepted mores and who railed against the inherent tedium of consensus.

He was funny as hell and a delightful person to speak to. His writing made me laugh and he always gave me the impression of being one of the good guys. This is a really sad day.

RIP seething...

Absolutely dreadful news but, like one of the posters on the Philadelphia Weekly page, I really hope he's up in Heaven right now, slagging off Cobain and J Morrison for the whining bastards they were... Just as I was getting sick of the NME, his writing was one the few things worth reading, even though I disagreed with about 90% of his opinions (but he was right about the Smiths wasn't he?)

In 1991, I invited Steven Wells to come to the University of Warwick to give a talk about censorship. And he did! It was a pleasure to spend an evening with him. R.I.P.

Nice to see age didn't mellow him.
RIP Swells.

Boy did I hate most of the bands he championed, but I always looked for his byline before reading anything else in the NME back in the day.Sadly missed.