"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

Rock & Hard Places "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

BOEING FOR BROKE

The Blue Aeroplanes live
The Independent, January 2000

IT is ironic indeed that a band who have made such a virtue of their massed electric guitar assault should require a banjo to really get their show going, but there it is. Tonight’s gig by The Blue Aeroplanes finally takes flight – science is still working on a means of reviewing them without resorting to such metaphors – about halfway through, when a twanging arpeggio introduces “And Stones”. Before this, The Blue Aeroplanes have merely been way better than average. From that point on, they are worth at least the collected output of every single band playing upstairs at the Astoria in an entire week of NME showcases of the alleged bright young things of the moment.
And yet, disappointingly but inevitably, The Blue Aeroplanes play tonight to a maybe two-thirds-full venue, which is probably less people than they’d get at a reunion of former members (at this point, this correspondent should perhaps declare an interest: during tonight’s encore, the traditional all-hands-to-the-pumps wall-of-guitars tilt at Tom Verlaine’s “Breaking In My Heart”, he was the one in the purple shirt with the borrowed Gibson). That The Blue Aeroplanes have missed their moment, commercially speaking, is unarguable: if the public at large didn’t elevate The Blue Aeroplanes to the stratospheres for the classic early 90s albums “Swagger” and “Beatsongs” – which they didn’t – they were never going to, but this extraordinary band still deserve far more than a dotage on the margins.
The Blue Aeroplanes’ new album, “Cavaliers”, isn’t necessarily their finest hour – for better and for worse, it’s the sort of uneven record made by bands resigned to a smallish audience of time-served die-hards – but, from the title down, it distills their essence perfectly. It is wilfully literate and wordy (permanently sunglassed Blue Aeroplanes frontman Gerard Langley still describes his lyrics, with an admirable lack of self-consciousness, as “poems”), laudably over-ambitious (one of the two CDs is a single 28-minute track in 12 movements), and riddled with cracking tunes. Certainly, none of the selections aired tonight are embarassed alongside such distinguished company as “Jacket Hangs” and “Yr Own World”. Armed as always by four – count ’em – guitars, and still decorated by the dancing of Wotjek Dmochowski, these songs should have been bigger than Christmas.
It might all have been different if The Blue Aeroplanes had relocated to America in the early stages of their career, where left-field bands are regularly “discovered” by the world at large in the second decade of their existence (witness the recent accolades afforded the Blue Aeroplanes’ spiritual kin Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev). Here, The Blue Aeroplanes and the zeitgeist have just kept missing each other’s calls. A shame for both parties, but on nights as good as tonight, The Blue Aeroplanes look, and sound, happily, like they really couldn’t care less.

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