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 "A gung-ho Candide with a taste for places it is wiser to avoid. . . the reports collected in 'I Wouldn't Start From Here' are graphic, comic, bemused and properly contemptuous of faith and ideology."
- Jonathan Meades, Books of the Year, Evening Standard
"An utterly sui generis report from the world's plague-spots."
- Michael Bywater, Books of the Year, New Statesman
"I can think of no more entertaining companion on a perilous journey than the ever hopeful, wildly optimistic yet clear-thinking Andrew Mueller."
- Rory MacLean, The Guardian
"A tour-de-force of hilarious, harrowing and ultimately enlightening reportage that will remind readers of the work of P.J. O'Rourke, Jon Ronson and David Foster Wallace."
- The Washington Times
"Unafraid to portray the world's warring people not just as victims and sufferers of legitimate grievances, but also as bloody-minded bastards and ill-informed fools."
- The Kathmandu Post
"A mix of dark humour and incisive political discourse."
- CNN Go
"His sardonic, self-deprecating perspective makes for unstuffy company."
- The Los Angeles Times
"Peppered with trenchant observations that reflect a nimble, cut-to-the-chase practicality, Mueller's interviews with everyone from terrorist warlords to international peacemakers are refreshingly irreverent yet astute."
- Booklist
"Travel writing in the danger zone that maintains its hipness and humanity."
- George Dunford, Books of the Year, Readings Monthly
"An addition to the genre founded by P.J. O'Rourke's 'Holidays In Hell', but it is one that pushes the boundaries."
- The Australian
"Mueller is the embodiment of what can happen with a fire in the belly and a desire to write out loud."
- Australian Book Review
"Mueller's travel writing is as incisive and entertaining as anything he's ever written about music."
- TNT
"A joy."
- Financial Times
"Delightfully laconic."
- The New Statesman
"Alternately chilling, funny and surprising, there's some great reportage here as Mueller struggles to reach an understanding of the world, quizzing the highest minister and the lowliest peasant."
- The Glasgow Herald
"His acerbic wit is matched by true empathy. . . we need this kind of gonzo journalism more than ever."
- Wanderlust
"Mueller spins what could have been the grimmest geopolitics into the finest black comedy. Like a print version of 'The Daily Show'."
- FHM
"Lively reporting from a gently humorous narrator."
- Chris Ayres, The Times
"Touching, often blackly comic reportage."
- GQ
"Brilliantly observed, articulate, often funny and immensely readable."
- The List
"Snappy, self-deprecating and sometimes outright hilarious."
- The Age
"Indelibly humorous and heartfelt."
- Sydney Sunday Telegraph
"An instructive ricochet between cities and continents and war zones."
- Time Out
"He brings to his material the mixture of rage and earthy irony that is the mark of a great satirist
. . . rewarding, thought-provoking and ludicrously funny."
- PopMatters
"Mueller's book is an excellent example of why today's brave, lucid hacks are forced to admit fear and confusion."
- South China Morning Post
"His reporting is sharp, his experiences terrifying and funny."
- Melbourne Herald-Sun
"If you enjoy your international affairs and politics with a good dose of cynicism and black humour, then this book is one to read."
- Brisbane Courier-Mail
"Often laugh-out-loud funny, the writing is utterly engaging."
- Launceston Sunday Examiner
"Mueller's irreverent reportage from abroad is fundamentally a clever cover for the author's ruminations on race, religion, revolution, rock'n'roll and other important issues since September 11, 2001."
- The West Australian
"As hilarious and sardonic a host as this ridiculous world of ours demands."
- Shortlist
"Mueller busies himself with finding the odd, the surreal and the laughable as much as the shocking and upsetting."
- New Zealand Herald
"A real eye for surreal moments of black humour. . . Mueller's work here digs much deeper than the standard newspaper travel essay."
- Sydney Sun-Herald
"His best story, about his brief, bizarre jailing in Cameroon, reads like a 21st century 'Goon Show' script."
- Good Reading
"A rollicking ride through some of the world's scariest scenarios."
- Kalgoorlie Miner
"A strikingly funny book about some seriously unfunny places."
- Perth Sunday Times
"Not bad for a guy from Wagga Wagga."
- The Wagga Wagga Advertiser
 "Andrew Mueller's piece about my band's tour with The Hold Steady is my favourite thing ever written about us. The fact that he is a war correspondent (though he claims otherwise) and music journalist and
approaches both with a similar slant makes him one of the most interesting
writers out there to me."
- Patterson Hood, Drive-By Truckers
"The most important critical anthology on popular music from a single author in a long time, its humour and insight equal with collections by Nick Tosches or Robert Palmer."
- KEXP Seattle
"Take one part P.J. O'Rourke, a healthy dose of Lester Bangs and a dash of Hunter S. Thompson, and you've got Andrew Mueller."
- Bookgasm
"Sharply observed and wittily constructed."
- Honolulu Star-Advertiser
"New edition of the rock classic."
- NY Press
"Mueller's humour makes for some enlightening reading."
- Biloxi-Gulfport Sun-Herald
"Sharp, witty and sarcastic."
- Chicago Tribune
 "Really rather good, in a barnstorming, country-punk sort of way. . . a highly capable ensemble."
- The Quietus
"A more than capable debut - allusive country-tough songs."
- Uncut
"The Blazing Zoos are undoubtedly fun, but they also have depth. . .
everything from Mueller's extensive use of brackets to the band's loving
recreation of classic country riffs bespeaks sincerity."
- Americana UK
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Laura Cantrell live at The Academy, London
The Independent, September 2005
YOU have to wonder what someone needs to do to fill a medium-sized venue on Islington on a Tuesday night. It can be concluded from tonight’s proceedings that it’s not sufficient to release three utterly astonishing albums, and be arguably the most vital new country voice in decades (John Peel described Cantrell’s 2000 debut, “Not The Trembling Kind”, as “My favourite record of the last 10 years, and possibly my life”). Laura Cantrell and her three-piece backing group are welcomed by an audience which has plenty of room to move (or, towards the back, play croquet, if they feel like it). Being part of this underwhelming turnout is not unpleasant – better this than being herded into another over-stuffed tobacco sauna – but does feel kind of embarassing, on behalf of one’s dunderheaded fellow citizens. Why would anyone pass up Laura Cantrell? What could there possibly be on television?
If she’s bothered, she’s too good-mannered to show it, and the wisdom of those here is rewarded by a performance which would have been worth it if the journey to the venue had involved negotiating towering waves and the odd sea monster. Cantrell’s take on country is resolutely orthodox. She disdains the histrionics and hats which disfigure the output of Nashville, but she’s equally averse to the punkishness and irony of the alt. country bands from the big cities – meaning that she’s managed to recoil from two sets of surroundings (Cantrell grew up in Nashville, but lives in New York, where until recently she worked for a Wall Street investment firm). Her songs are largely constructed as they are delivered tonight, from acoustic guitar, upright bass and mandolin. They could have been performed like this any time in the last 200 years, and some of them were – Cantrell has an archivist’s fascination for her genre, and the Appalachian murder ballad “Poor Ellen Smith”, a highlight of her current album, “Humming By The Flowered Vine”, also appears tonight.
Cantrell’s three-piece band look as country musicians should, which is to say they look like they were bailed out of the local lock-up about five minutes before taking the stage. They also play as country musicians should, with a dazzling virtuosity all the more impressive for its understatement. Ultimately, though, it’s all about Cantrell’s songs, each either brilliantly written or astutely chosen, and Cantrell’s voice. This is an instrument of almost shocking beauty, the more beguiling for a deceptively easy, conversational tone which somehow emphasises the pathos of her upbeat songs (“Churches Off The Interstate”, “Yonder Comes A Freight Train”), and reins in the ballads to even more heartbreaking effect. Her version of Lucinda Williams’ “Letters”, a song which could easily be whipped into gale-force Nashville nonsense, instead finds its desperation presented as the terrible dignity of restraint.
At the end, the dozens present generate an applause which sounds like thousands, and quite properly so.
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