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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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Richard Thompson live at Sadler's Wells, London
The Independent, September 2003
RICHARD Thompson enters from the left side of the theatre, and strides briskly through the stalls to the stage. He’s wearing a black suit, black boots and a black military beret; if it weren’t for the percussionist settling down at her kit alongside him, it would look less like he was going to play a gig and more like he’s about to unfurl a map of the diamond-rich West African country he wants us to help him invade. However, Thompson does intend to take us on a journey of sorts. Tonight’s show, the second of two nights at Sadler’s Wells, is titled “1000 Years Of Popular Music”.
As Thompson explains in the programme, the show was inspired by a 1999 call from Playboy – something that must briefly have made Thompson worry that the magazine was embarking on a commercially risky new direction. It turned out to be about one of those silly fin de siecle articles that were all the rage a few years back – they wanted him to name his 10 greatest songs of the millennium. Aware that what Playboy really meant was the 10 greatest songs of the last 40 years or so, Thompson called their bluff and wrote a real 1000-year list. Tonight, his main set starts with “Summer Is Icumen In” – the oldest known round in the English language, written down by a monk at Reading Abbey in the 13th century – and ends with Britney Spears’ “Oops! I Did It Again”. He’s too modest to include any of his own estimable contributions to pop’s last millenium, but that, and a curious blind spot about punk, are the only minor quibbles with a hugely entertaining and invigorating evening.
No other artist would be better equipped than Thompson to lead such a tour. Though ably abetted by the percussionist, Debra Dobkin, and another vocalist, Judith Owen – whose “Cry Me A River” is a particular highlight – the twin stars tonight are Thompson’s acoustic guitar, and Thompson’s voice. The guitar, in Thompson’s supremely nimble hands, becomes a thing of astonishing versatility, as capable of providing the blistering rhythm’n’blues of The Who’s “Legal Matter” as it is of impersonating the orchestration for “There Is Beauty?” from “The Mikado”. While his instrument articulates dozens of wildly disparate styles – Thompson’s odyssey includes 1950s country, 19th century music hall, 16th century Italian madrigals – Thompson’s voice is what gives what could have been a bewildering mish-mash an engaging constancy. It’s hearing that same gruff bark delivering the ancient folk ballad “”King Henry V’s Conquest Of France” and Prince’s “Kiss” that proves Thompson’s point – that our idea of popular music has become extraordinarily tunnel-visioned, and that the loss is entirely ours.
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