Three months before his untimely death last week at the age of just 44, former NME Features Editor James McMahon wrote one of several farewell messages to his many thousands of Twitter/X followers. Listing achievements, regrets and the things he was grateful for in a “life filled with love and adventure”, he paid tribute to his wife and friends, his beloved Doncaster Rovers football club and this title.
“Part of my life’s sadness is I never really worked out anything I wanted to do other than work for NME,” he wrote. And as much as his followers might have connected with McMahon for his posts on mental health and OCD, his many podcasts, or his open-diary battle with the cancer which took him, for those who knew him, this forthright passion for music and writing is what defined him.
Such was McMahon’s dedication to the music he loved that he continued to work hard on his James McMahon Music Podcast throughout his illness, relentlessly championing some of the lesser-sung heroes of alternative rock, pop and metal, of which he was a fierce fan. Music didn’t just soundtrack his life but moulded and directed it. Growing up in Doncaster in the mid-’90s, inspired by a Bis album sleeve notes, he started a Teen-C culture fanzine and adopted the pseudonym James Jam.
He chose to study Media And Cultural Studies at university in Sunderland because one of his favourite bands, Leatherface, were from the city, and continued to champion new acts by organising gigs and club nights such as Boyeater, promoting and supporting acts including Kenickie, Arab Strap, Idlewild and rising local favourites The Futureheads. He also performed, playing across Europe with his band Mavis and bagging John Peel plays and an XFM session.
Music writing was his true calling, though. “He was wildly enthusiastic and passionate,” wrote former Reviews Editor Anthony Thornton in an online tribute of his first contact with the work McMahon began submitting to NME in the early 2000s. “Already a great writer with an uncanny ability to get inside a subject and inside your head. And he just kept getting better… Each [review] was terrifically opinionated and unflinchingly honest.”
Beginning as a freelance contributor, McMahon’s drive and enthusiasm saw him taken on as New Music Editor in 2006. “We were floored by his knowledge and his passion,” says then-editor Conor McNicholas. “He made us feel like being New Music Editor at NME was all he ever wanted to do. Probably because it was.”
In the role, McMahon supported a broad and diverse range of music with the trademark fervour of a man as excited to discuss thrash metal acts as the latest sounds from the Yorkshire underground. McNicholas credits him with helping shape the noughties indie landscape, and in 2007 he was promoted to Features Editor, where his breadth of interest saw more hardcore acts such as Gallows, Biffy Clyro and Fucked Up become cover stars alongside Lily Allen and Florence + The Machine.
“James brought wide eyes to the role, being inspired by social injustice as much as the latest indie dancefloor banger,” says McNicholas. “He was perfectly placed to make the most of the My Chemical Romance explosion when ‘The Black Parade’ album was released, and he became firm friends with Gerard Way in later years. James was never stuck in any indie pigeonhole.”
One memorable cover overseen by McMahon was the famous Beth Ditto naked issue. Reflecting on that cover story in 2022, he noted how significant it felt, both at the time and in the years that would follow. “In future years, I’d interview other countless other bands and artists,” McMahon wrote. “It often felt like part of the cycle of press and promotion of their new record. With The Gossip it felt different, like I was part of something countercultural; something important.”
It was only in later years that NME staff learned of the psychological strain McMahon was under at the time. He was diagnosed with OCD, the symptoms of which marked his time at the magazine and which he’d come to discuss openly in his social media posts on the subject – a source of much relatability to sufferers who followed him online. “It was a very brave thing to do, and it left him very vulnerable online,” McNicholas says, “but he was a man who always did what he felt was right, not what was easy.”
After leaving NME, McMahon took up roles at both GamesMaster Magazine and Kerrang! in 2011, which he edited for six years while also contributing to publications including Q, Mojo, The Guardian, Vice and The Observer. His writing and podcasting (The James McMahon Music Podcast launched in 2021) covered a broad range of interests – horror films, video games, UFOs, wrestling; he even made a 2022 BBC Radio 4 documentary about the quiz show Bullseye – but always returned to music.
“When I think of James, I think of a brilliant writer with a fantastic passion for pop culture,” McNicholas says. “He immersed himself in pop culture like no one else of his generation. What came out were fantastic reviews, features and podcasts that will help chronicle an era. He was driven by music, but he knew that the best of it had meaning.
“He valued bands for what they had to say as much as how they sounded. He championed bands that made a statement with how they presented themselves as much as what they recorded. James burned bright while we had him. His work-rate was incredible, and from the years we had him, he’s left such an incredible positive legacy.”