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    #26
    Current Music Books

    Two autobiographies at the moment. Neil Young's Waging Heavy Peace (bathroom reading,) and Carole King's Natural Woman (over morning coffee.)

    The latter, as you'd maybe expect from someone who's spent a lifetime crafting three minute jewels, is a masterpiece of concision. Short chapters, chronological structure, tight, well balanced, fair-minded. In contrast, while it's not all over the shop, Young's book bounces around a good deal, he also has a clear and current agenda which he returns to almost every other chapter.

    Basically Neil's a techno-nerd, he collects guitars and cars, he designs sound-effects for toy trains, and most recently he's proselytising for high quality online audio, via his own system, PureTone. It's clear his motives are as pure as his product: he really believes in hi def sound, Man! But, nevertheless he comes across as a bit of a shill. Otherwise it's a good read. I wasn't fully aware of his debilitating medical conditions in his youth — epilepsy, polio — and his devotion to his sons, who both have chronic long-term conditions, is admirable and never sentimentalised.

    In her book — which, unlike Young's is more bio than memoir — King gives us the facts, but little in the way of reflection. They're also selective, sometimes glaringly so. Those of us familiar with the controversy surrounding He Hit Me, and it Felt Like a Kiss for instance, would have liked her take on the song, but it's not even mentioned, though there's a entire chapter on Little Eva. Other things are, however. Four failed marriages. The difficulties of being only 5'2" and pushed ahead two grades in high school. A husband, and business partner, with substance abuse issues. And, of course, working on Tin-Pan-Alley in the early sixties.

    I'm only half-way through both books and I'll definitely finish them — though Young's will take substantially longer. If you had to choose one, I'd definitely go for King's.

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      #27
      Current Music Books

      AdC, I was looking at that Carole King book in the shop the other day and thinking about it - will definitely get it now.

      I've just finished Simmons's biography of Leonard Cohen that I opened the thread with - absolutely superb, as LL had pre-supposed. The Carter Family graphic novel was excellent too. Haven't got around to Bonnnie Prince Billy's musings yet.

      I also read Tracey Thorn's Bedsit Disco Queen - again, if you're an indie-child of the 80s, there's little that you won't like, especially if you were as besotted with Ben Watt and Tracey's early solo stuff on Cherry Red as this misery-faced, lovelorn teenager staring at the rain through a rural Lincolnshire bedroom window.

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        #28
        Current Music Books

        I'm about three quarters through CK's book now. There are undoubted flat bits, a lot of who played this instrument on that session, and similar completist stuff. There's also a sense of a someone both in step, but also oddly out of step with her time. This isn't surprising when you consider she was married in her late teens, and had two kids by her early twenties. At the same time she was writing million selling records for experimental boomers she was changing diapers and juggling baby-sitters. When she did emerge into the patchouli scented sixties it was almost as a creature from another universe. For example there are are several paragraphs describing what a bong looks like and what it does. I mean, how many of her readers wouldn't know?

        There are also, however, several chapters on an extended abusive relationship during the 70s that are galvanising. The book is worth reading for these alone. It's the only occasion, so far, when she really tries to disentangle her actions, attitudes and motives. Here, unlike much of the rest of the book, there's no distancing. The fear is very real, as are feelings of self-betrayal and failure. How could an intelligent, talented, professionally successful, and financially independent woman, find herself there? She admits she still finds it difficult to write about "that woman" in the first person.

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          #29
          Current Music Books

          I'm currently re-reading the estimable Louis Barfe's history of the recording industry, Where Have All The Good Times Gone?. Packed with information and trivia, and an all-round excellent read. I fear I missed a lot of detail on the first pass-through, hence the revisit. Recommended.

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            #30
            Current Music Books

            Read Tracey Thornes (Everything But The Girl) recent autobiog. Its very pleasant and amusing in places but as Im not a fan I couldnt get too involved.
            I only read it as I worked on one of their houses a long long time ago.

            Morriseys as well.
            It was better than I thought itd be but for fucks sake he needs to use learn to paragraphs. MrsRino couldnt stick it for longer than ten mins. "Too pretentious To Paragraph" was her verdict.
            Obviously no one but him had a hard time growing up in the North of England during the 60s/70s. Ferchrissakes his mam paid for him to go to America three times before the Smiths started. We went to Seahouses, Morecambe, Scarborough,Whitby, Warkworth, Bridlington, Llandudno and Ayr for our fuckin holidays. Twat.
            If his version of the court case is true then he seemed hard done by to me but who fuckin cares eh?

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              #31
              Current Music Books

              As mentioned on another books thread, I got Yeah Yeah Yeah: The Story of Modern Pop by Bob Stanley and the first of Mark Lewisohn's Beatles trilogy for my birthday from my team here.

              The former is terrific while the latter drills down to a tremendous level of detail, ending as it does with the release of Love Me Do. I loved a mini-review of it which I read on Twitter that read: "I'm up to page 675. Ringo's great-grandad has just returned a hat he bought in 1925."

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                #32
                Current Music Books

                Just finished Yeah Yeah Yeah and as Giggler says it is a tremendous book. Stanley is an extremely fine writer and conveys his love of pop music whilst also providing many hilarious catty putdowns. As it should, it made me dig out records I hadn’t played in years and investigate music I’d never heard.

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                  #33
                  Current Music Books

                  Yeah Yeah Yeah is really good. However, there are some absolutely mad omissions -- Prefab Sprout and Earth Wind & Fire, for instance -- while Scritti Politti are mentioned only in relation to their semi-unlistenable early stuff and not for the masterpieces they produced later on.

                  I asked Stanley about this on Twitter but he ignored me. Ah well.

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                    #34
                    Current Music Books

                    Selected Ambient Works 85-92 wrote: Yeah Yeah Yeah is really good. However, there are some absolutely mad omissions -- Prefab Sprout and Earth Wind & Fire, for instance -- while Scritti Politti are mentioned only in relation to their semi-unlistenable early stuff and not for the masterpieces they produced later on.

                    I asked Stanley about this on Twitter but he ignored me. Ah well.
                    Scritti Politti and Prefab Sprout are two-thirds of the Holy Trinity I headed straight for the index to find when I unwrapped the present. Nowt about the Blue Nile either.

                    No mentions for Cupid & Psyche '85, Steve McQueen, Hats and Jordan: The Comeback were criminal.

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                      #35
                      Current Music Books

                      Isn't the idea that he's going against that kind of 'top best everything of everything ever!' approach though? I personally don't read music books now cause I gorged on too many when I was younger, but I imagine the final frontier is still to get beyond the 'good taste'/'authoritative history' thing that governs most of them.

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                        #36
                        Current Music Books

                        Lucia Lanigan wrote: Isn't the idea that he's going against that kind of 'top best everything of everything ever!' approach though? I personally don't read music books now cause I gorged on too many when I was younger, but I imagine the final frontier is still to get beyond the 'good taste'/'authoritative history' thing that governs most of them.
                        Well yes, but do PS not warrant a mention solely because Paddy McAloon is on such a different level as a songwriter? Ditto Green Gartside, taking philosophy into the Top 10?

                        I've always found it fascinating that Frankie Goes To Hollywood got a song which was inspired by Kubla Khan into the charts. Was it just showing off on their part that so soon after Toxteth and the stereotyping of their generation, they gave such a show of bravado?

                        Probably veering off into a thread on the Music board here.

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                          #37
                          Current Music Books

                          Yeah, the first half of the 80s was a great for that sort of thing. Intellectual pursuits and pop culture in close proximity. Simon Reynolds' Rip It Up... is the book for all that (plenty of Scritti in it too).

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                            #38
                            Current Music Books

                            Lucia Lanigan wrote: Isn't the idea that he's going against that kind of 'top best everything of everything ever!' approach though?
                            Well, the approach he takes is more or less to mention everything. And if you're going to write two full pages about The Dave Clark Five, there's no excuse for entirely passing over acts like Prefab Sprout or the Blue Nile.

                            My first reaction was that it must be some sort of personal animus, but Paddy McAloon is famously the nicest man in the world, so probably not.

                            Leaving out Earth Wind & Fire is mental too. They were one of the best -- and biggest -- bands of the 1970s.

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                              #39
                              Current Music Books

                              Well the Dave Clark Five were a pretty big deal, and I think he was ahead of the pack on the business side wasn't he? There was a big nostalgia clip show in the 80s, The Rock N Roll Years, which his company made; I get the impression he owns things.

                              I like The Blue Nile and Prefab Sprout, but they weren't *that* big. And if you included those two you'd probably have to get Deacon Blue, Del Amitri, Texas and other big-selling groups in there, which wouldn't be much fun for anyone. Christ, writing a book like that must drive you round the bend.

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                                #40
                                Current Music Books

                                I am really thinking about getting the Will Oldham book.

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                                  #41
                                  Current Music Books

                                  I'd like to recommend it, but I still haven't got round to opening it...

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                                    #42
                                    Current Music Books

                                    Here Comes the Night: The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues

                                    There were a few months in 1963 when The Isley Brothers’ Twist and Shout had totemic importance. Not only did I play it constantly, but I’d carry it around with me all the time. At least twice a week I took it to school. It’s not important why anymore but, as well as a note-by-note scream-by-scream, memory of the song I was left with an ineradicable image of the label. “Stateside 112, a ‘Wand’ recording, Phil Medley - Bert Russell, (writers) Produced by Bert Russell, Russber BMI. (publisher)” I’d been following the small print on singles since discovering Phil Spector a year or so earlier, so I knew this Bert Russell bloke was someone to be reckoned with. It took some time for me to connect him with the Bert Berns of My Girl Sloopy/Hang on Sloopy, Piece of my Heart and the eponymous Here Comes the Night. Largely because Berns’ career at the centre of New York music was both tragically short, and a bit shadowy.

                                    So, I eagerly anticipated Joel Selvin’s biography. Three chapters in I wanted to throw it on the floor in frustration. There’s a whole lot on the Ertegun brothers, Jerry Wexler and Leiber and Stoller, careers that had been well — and better — documented. There was also a fair bit on relatively obscure figures like George Goldner and Luther Dixon, but precious little on Berns himself. I had the queasy feeling this book was going to be a lot of fluff and little substance. As it turned out I was wrong. Selvin delivers, he just does so in a rather chaotic and haphazard fashion. What I’d taken for padding was actually context. Those people were central to Berns’ life. They were his partners, colleagues, and, frequently, rivals. There are great anecdotes, Ellie Greenwich on Da Doo Ron Ron: “We couldn't come up with a second line.” and “Bill was the name of the mailman.” The book is essentially about the spontaneous world of New York record making in the late 50s and early 60s through the brief life of someone who did just that. Berns lasted seven years in the business before a heart attack ended his involvement. During that time he battled and befriended members of the mob (Selvin’s very good on how the tentacles of organised crime wrapped themselves around the Brill Building and its environs.) He also oversaw the early career of Van Morrison, encouraged him to move to the US, and fought bitterly with him during the first kicks at what would eventually become Astral Weeks. For anyone interested in the time and place, this is a worthwhile read. For anyone who’s ever been in love with its music it’s essential.

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                                      #43
                                      Current Music Books

                                      Giggler wrote: … the first of Mark Lewisohn's Beatles trilogy … I loved a mini-review of it which I read on Twitter that read: "I'm up to page 675. Ringo's great-grandad has just returned a hat he bought in 1925."
                                      I've just ploughed through volumes I and II. Terrifically well-researched and well-written. I could have lived without the family histories at the beginning of volume one, but it's fascinating stuff.

                                      I found the Hamburg period to be most interesting. A bunch of provincial teenagers take their unremarkable post-skiffle band to Germany and, following an unfeasible number of live shows in a very short time, come back as the UK's most exciting rock'n'roll band.

                                      Volume II goes up to the release of Please Please Me. I was disappointed when it finished because, although I know what happens, the sense of momentum at this point in time is palpable.

                                      It's going to take him years to finish the next volume. Bugger.

                                      I actually bought the unabridged Audible version, read by Clive Mantle, who is clearly a fan and does a very good job. However, the producer gets him to read quotes in various accents, which is fine until he veers outside the UK. Listening to him read snippets from Astrid Kirchherr and Klaus Voormann, in a cod-German accent, is a bit grating. But it's a tiny quibble.

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                                        #44
                                        Current Music Books

                                        How did you get volume two? It's not scheduled for years yet. Vol one iirc finishes in dec 63

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                                          #45
                                          Current Music Books

                                          Yes, I'm plugging my mates again, but Clifford Slapper's book about Mike Garson is worth recommending. I haven't had time to read the whole thing yet, but you can look up the Bowie tracks in the index and find what he has to say about them, so it's already earned its keep for me. also has some photos I've never seen before.

                                          Bowie's Piano Man, the Life of Mike Garson.

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                                            #46
                                            Current Music Books

                                            I've got the Robert Wyatt, Nick Drake, Bernard Sumner and Viv Albertine books on my Christmas wish list, as well as Future Days. Must admit I've never heard of Mike Garson, so that one's going to pass me by.

                                            My dad told me he's bought me one of the books I asked for, but that it's too expensive to post so I'll have to pick it up next time I'm over. That's Scottish relatives for you. Maybe he can scan it into a pdf file in time for he 25th.

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                                              #47
                                              Current Music Books

                                              Finished the Viv Albertine book, which I see has just come out in paperback. I love that all these old punks and indie-types are now bringing out their memoirs of the late 70s/early 80s music scene, and this is a gratifyingly honest and sincere account, even if it's maybe a stretch too long and it's not exactly what you'd call lyrical (nor does it try to be). I didn't think the italicised sections worked - I found myself reading them in a sort of loud, exaggerated voice, as though they carried some extra significance. They would have been better in brackets. That's a nugatory quibble, though - I looked forward to picking this up the whole time I was reading it, which is always a good sign, and of course it prompted me to slap on the mercurial 'Cut' again. I'd no idea they ever brought out a second album back then, 'The Return of the Giant Slits'.

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                                                #48
                                                Current Music Books

                                                That's a great album.

                                                The Slits (minus Viv) released an EP a few years ago, 2008? Return of the Killer Slits.

                                                The new Slits comprised Ari, Tessa, Hollie Cook, Mick Jones' daughter whose name escapes me, and a drummer (ditto), although Hollie's Dad, Paul, played drums on the EP. They were excellent, gigging from 2006-2009, with fine new material. I have a couple of the gigs on DVD.

                                                I can't stand Viv's music, although she wrote Typical Girls, which was a great Slits song.

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                                                  #49
                                                  Current Music Books

                                                  I was wondering what her solo album is like. She talks at length about how she recorded it, but doesn't say anything about its critical reception...

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                                                    #50
                                                    Current Music Books

                                                    I feel there should be some love for wingco's Future Days on this board. I just finished it, and can only slap another hearty recommendation on top of its already multiple eulogies (it's up for some new Music Book prize as well). His fair and balanced (and spot-on) assessment of post-war Germany is as far away from the wing commander as you could get, while the strong writing itself does what any good music book does - gets you clamouring for the music to listen to while you read along.

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