Mein Gott, Alan, shouldn't he have some credit for knowing and having listened to Lindisfarne at all? The man is a Jewish immigrant to (another) one of your former colonies after all. I didn't read it as him deriding Lindisfarne at all, the man is an outright Anglophile in his music tastes: Beatles, Jeff Beck Group, Slade, The Move/ELO/Wizzard, Uriah Heep, Argent, The Sweet, Blackmore, Gary Moore, you name them. All he said was that Lindisfarne wasn't geared to conventional and commercial tastes, which I believe any member of Lindisfarne would agree to.
And for the record: Gene's mom was an Auschwitz child survivor who largely raised him single. He adored her und would have done anything for her.
Gene could have said that 'Lindisfarne weren't geared to conventional and commercial tastes', but if that is what he meant then he couched it in very Trumpian prose.
I've never really liked outright anglophile American bands. I would throw Cheap Trick into that camp, alongside Todd Rundgren, Klaatu and maybe The Cars as well. When you hear it you know it. My band has also played alongside a few American neo-psychedelic rock bands, and they all take it so very deadly seriously. They dress up like extras from Austin Powers movies and write songs that sound like they just missed the cut to make it onto the Stones' Aftermath album. Earnestly reproducing every fizzle and crackle that British artists laid down on tape 50+ years ago.
Its weird meeting people from another country who are more nerdy, and yet somehow joyless, about music that your own people made. Then again, I've met Germans who are Scottish history/music/culture nerds and that is even more weird. They know more about this stuff than I do.
