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I've got a copy of Kris Needs' book on Suicide which I should be getting round to reading soon.
I've got a copy of Kris Needs' book on Suicide which I should be getting round to reading soon.
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I remember reading Shane MacGowan's book and thinking how can you possibly remember this with any degree of certainty, even allowing for Victoria Clarke's prompting. The Buddha and the faeries bit at the end was a bit weird too, albeit a great band name in waiting.MsD wrote:Her book on The Pogues may be the best written, it certainly seems to get the facts (places, dates etc.) straighter than the works by band members themselves.Originally posted by MatComment
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Thanks for the prompt, Tony C - I've just ordered a copy.Tony C wrote: I've got a copy of Kris Needs' book on Suicide which I should be getting round to reading soon.Comment
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I wonder does the MacGowan book include any mention of the time when he discovered E and then unsuccessfully tried to convince the rest of the Pogues to record a 20-minute acid house track entitled You've Got To Connect Yourself.Comment
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My friend has several Shane anecdotes, and one in particular demonstrates that he had an amazing memory and could be lucid even when really, really pissed. I'm a bit that way myself but I doubt I've ever been as pissed as Shane. I don't know, "anecdotal evidence".Benjm wrote:I remember reading Shane MacGowan's book and thinking how can you possibly remember this with any degree of certainty, even allowing for Victoria Clarke's prompting. The Buddha and the faeries bit at the end was a bit weird too, albeit a great band name in waiting.Originally posted by MsDComment
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Finished Marcus O'Dair's worthy (authorised) biography of Robert Wyatt, 'Different Every Time'. I love reading books like this so that I re-discover someone's back catalogue, or listen to unfamiliar work like his Soft Machine stuff and the under-rated 'Ruth Is Stranger than Richard' album. Like the author, and seemingly everyone who knows him, I'm prepared to give Wyatt a free pass on the Stalinist thing in return for the endless pleasure I've derived from his music down the years. Neither the author not Wyatt shy away from his alcoholism (which I knew nothing about) and the difficulties it caused in his relationship with Alfie. Impressively thorough - it's really beyond criticism as a biography, yet as a book, a piece of writing, there's maybe a shortfall I can't quite pin down. But really, I'm quibbling about nothing - now that I'm finished, I'm going to miss it. 4.9 stars.Comment
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James Yorkston: 'It's Lovely To Be Here: The Touring Diaries of a Scottish Gent' (Domino Press, 2011). An easy and amusing read, capturing the ennui of road life (or what I always presume it to be - I've never actually been on tour, unless you count touring Europe to write about airports for a trade magazine), though it gets a bit repetitive in the end. Which might be the idea - you end up forgetting whether you're in Ireland, Scotland, Poland or Germany, and there's too much about what he bought to eat in, say, a particular Swiss supermarket. Yorkston's more than a little misanthropic, which he deals with by drinking, pretending, disappearing back to his hotel room, or offloading to his diary. Occasionally he seems to enjoy himself, and is surprised when a gig he thinks went badly (audience didn't laugh at his jokes) ends up with him being roared back for an encore. Having seen him live, I can say he was almost certainly called back for his music, his wit having largely fled over the head of the baffled German audience (not that they wouldn't have thought he was funny in the right context/language, but I suspect they neither got his accent, nor understood what the fuck he was on about).Comment
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Very happy that I came across DanielMak's Underground book today in DC's Politics and Prose book shop - one of two copies. Will report back in due course.Comment
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A few months late to this one sorry Jon as I haven't checked this thread in aeons, but would be interested to know whether you've read the whole book now and what you made of it? Got it for my dad two or three years back, who's a big folk fan, and he thought it was terrific.Jon wrote: Just bought Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music by Rob Young. It looks to be an exhaustive history of British folk music, from Cecil Sharp onwards. It's some 600 pages long but I'm looking forward to it as I've heard good things about it. Anyone read it on here?
There's a companion 2-disc set of CDs available, incidentally, though the user reviews on Amazon are very mixed, i.e. suggest it's not especially representative or comprehensive; I suppose it depends on what you're after of course.Comment
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I've been on a big Springsteen kick lately. Does anyone have any recommendations for books about him? I'm less interested in standard biographies. To be honest, I could care less about his childhood and would basically want to start at the point at which he has a serious band and is about to be signed up to the tour that followed Born in the USA. So, biography on that front can be ok, but maybe something that blends criticism with interviews and recording/tour stories if such a book exists.Comment
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If you haven't already seen it Robert Santelli's Greetings from E Street might be useful. It's a visually lavish book with lots of tipped-in stuff, like repro tickets, programs. posters and newspaper clippings. It's not superficial though. Santelli has a curatorial approach — he's the director of the Grammy museum and, previously, the Experience Center — so there's solid information, although it's pretty linear and he doesn't hang around in a single period too long.Comment
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I'm about 3/4 of the way through the 33 1/3 book about James Brown's Live at the Apollo. The general focus is on the recording of the album relative to Brown's place in his career at that point but there is an interesting (neither good nor bad) weaving of the Cuban Missile Crisis through the larger narrative. I like Brown's music a lot but similar to my query above about Springsteen, I'm not really interested in a lot of biographical info. about an artist's childhood or early go-nowhere bands. So this book fits that general interest. One fascinating detail is that Brown was at that time usually playing 300 days a year and sometimes as many as 5 shows in a day. That's an insane workload. If you're into James Brown or like this album but not too interested in reading a biography, this could be the book for you: short but with some interesting information.
FYI, not that anyone is losing any sleep over this, but per my query above about a Springsteen book, I decided to go with this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Talk-About-Dream-Interviews-Springsteen/dp/1620400723Comment
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Damn, Daniel. I wish I'd seen that request. Mrs WOM has read the Springsteen library and could have been a help.Comment
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Sorry VA. Just read your post. You'll probably get round to reading this one by September or so. Regarding the book, it was so big and daunting that I've put off reading it for the moment and I gave it to my brother. He said it's a great read but hard-going at times. Very thorough. Starts off with a really interesting touchstone chapter on Vashti Bunyan but then goes way back and starts to work chronologically forward. I think he's looking forward to the bit where Fairport and Steeleye Span come in but he's got some way to go yet. It then goes on to Julian Cope, Kate Bush, Talk talk et al but, when I flicked through it, there were some much more obscure artists in there so, like I said, very thorough and probably not for the casual reader. I'm looking forward to reading it myself but have such a big to-read pile that it won't be anytime soon. I think it'd probably be up Amor de Cosmos' street if he hasn't already read it. I think I heard some of the CD on Spotify and wasn't overly impressed with the selection.Various Artiste wrote:A few months late to this one sorry Jon as I haven't checked this thread in aeons, but would be interested to know whether you've read the whole book now and what you made of it? Got it for my dad two or three years back, who's a big folk fan, and he thought it was terrific.Originally posted by Jon
There's a companion 2-disc set of CDs available, incidentally, though the user reviews on Amazon are very mixed, i.e. suggest it's not especially representative or comprehensive; I suppose it depends on what you're after of course.
While I'm here, has anyone read David Hepworth's 1971 - Never a Dull Moment book? I've heard a couple of his interviews about it and it sounds like it'd be a satisfying read.Comment
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For those that are interested it seems that Kodwo Eshun's More Brilliant than the Sun is getting repressed later this year. Given that copies have been about $100+ for the past ten years this is a pretty exciting development if you are interested in music thought.Comment
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You mean reprinted — not banned — I assume?Comment
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yes, oops. reprinted. Or pressed again.Comment
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I bought that book at the time (late 1990s I think). At least half of it is excellent, but huge chunks are completely unreadable, with Eshun getting totally carried away on streams of consciousness. It's like it wasn't edited at all.Comment
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Wreckless Eric's utterly wonderful autobiography 'A Dysfunctional Success' is now available as an ebook from Amazon.
Been out of press for a while now, hugely recommended. His description of Elvis Costello alone makes it worth the price.Comment
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Not a book, but an interesting story about Bruce Springsteen's autobiography: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2016/09/bruce-springsteen-cover-storyComment
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Sounds good. My copy's been on order for some time. I have hopes it'll be one of the better musical memoirs.Comment
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I suspect I'll see it around the house shortly...Comment
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The piece in that article that was most interesting to me was Springsteen discussing his spinal operation, also Max Weinberg's health issues.
I've wondered for sometime how musicians manage to continue intense touring well into their late 60s and 70s. The physical toll must mount up. Dylan is another who continues to tour constantly in spite of severe arthritis and, of course, there was Prince's sad death earlier this year. They must really need to do it — obviously not financially — but in some primal emotional sense.Comment
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The other piece of news that was new to me was Springsteen's struggles with depression. In some sense, I think being on the road is a way to combat that (he's out, he's social, he's interacting with an extended family, the boredom and pressures of everyday life are relieved). I think this general state of being might apply to a lot of artists. Not the depression part, but the ability to just live a life. If you're Bob Dylan, you can't just go to the grocery store or wander around the streets for a walkabout. So, if your everyday life is restricted because of fame, you can just choose the road where at least you have a social life of some kind. But this is all speculation since I don't have these problems of being stopped in the store or the streets.Amor de Cosmos wrote: The piece in that article that was most interesting to me was Springsteen discussing his spinal operation, also Max Weinberg's health issues.
I've wondered for sometime how musicians manage to continue intense touring well into their late 60s and 70s. The physical toll must mount up. Dylan is another who continues to tour constantly in spite of severe arthritis and, of course, there was Prince's sad death earlier this year. They must really need to do it — obviously not financially — but in some primal emotional sense.Comment
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