Good books about music

yeah Devilin' Tune is awesome, so much good music, and the liners are great as well. i only have vols. 2-4, though. Is the American Pop thing in print?

Don't think so, at least not the CDs. I got the book by emailing Allen Lowe.

In fact maybe we don't even have to have this discussion, we can just read the organissimo thread, since both of those guys have showed up on it.

yeah i actually got my copies from Lowe via the organissimo board ... have been meaning to get the first one from him, wonder if he still has copies?

Nick Kent's "The Dark Stuff" is epic. "Our Band Could Be Your Life" is great too. I also like Chuck Klosterman's "Killing Yourself to Stay Alive", which is very funny.

I just dug out AL's email from when I ordered that stuff and contacted him. He told me that American Pop was out of print but he was working on a new project that was coming out this year that sounded good.

I've been reading Michael Moynihan's Lords of Chaos and definitely have mixed feelings about it. I'm not sure I totally accept his thesis that the rise of violent Satanism, Paganism, and Black Metal is some Hegelian rebellion against the Scandinavian social welfare state. All I got is that guys like Varg were gaping sociopathic assholes long before they got involved with Black Metal. Varg, in particular, was game for any ideology that allowed his atavistic desires to run free. If not Black Metal, then radical environmentalism, fascism, anarchism, or some other cause would’ve been used as justification for his crimes. And that seems to be true of almost all the other sensational acts that Moynihan covers in the book. If you peel back the layers of myth and bullshit, most of the crimes had more prosaic causes than Satanism or Paganism, more like drunken teenage stupidity, dude owns me money, and petty jealousy.

I really want to check this one out.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/1576874354/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

Oops, here's the pic.
http://kicknrun.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/tnbm_ad-simple.jpg

Not actually 'about' music but Edwyn Collins' Some British Birds is very lovely, indeed.

OK so I just finished Wald's How The Beatles Destroyed Rock ’n’ Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music and if you go into it with the latter half of the title more in mind rather than the attention-grabbing former, it's really a very fine book. It could definitely stand pruning and the six-page epilogue, "The Rock Blot and The Disco Diagram," is a mess (if not an offense - thanx for the parenthetical mention of gays in relation to disco). But he does a great job of recreating some of the ways in which music was actually lived and how they've been distorted by recording-based histories.

As for The Beatles, well, we already knew that they kinda sorta destroyed rock 'n' roll (as opposed to rock) in addition to laying waste to Tin Pan Alley and Johnny Mercer (although they only kinda sorta did that too).

Here's his basic theory and how he ties The Beatles to the rest of the book:

"(The Beatles) had led their audience off the dance floor, separating rock from its rhythmic and cultural roots, and while the gains may have balanced the losses in both economic and artistic terms, that change split American popular music in two. When similar splits had happened in the past, the demands of satisfying live audiences had always forced the streams back together, but by the end of the 1960s live performances had lost their defining role on the pop music scene. So the Beatles and the movement they led marked the end not only of rock ’n’ roll as it had existed up to that time but also of the whole process explored over the course of this book, in which white and black musicians had evolved by adopting and adapting one another’s styles, shaping a series of genres—ragtime, jazz, swing, rock ’n’ roll—that at their peaks could not be easily categorized by race." 246

Morton Feldman's 'Give My Regard to Eighth Street' has some good essays on music--would go along with Mark's suggestion of John Cage's 'Silence.'

Kodwo Eshun's More Brilliant than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction

Neil Rosenberg's Bluegrass is such an insane, epic read. Beyond thorough. Great stuff. I now have, like, two pages of records I need to hear.

Has anybody read Richie Unterberger's "White Light, White Heat: The Velvet Underground Day-by-Day? He just did a bunch of appearances for it in England in July and is gonna be at the Library of Congress Pickford Theater in DC Monday August 3rd and in Philly on Tuesday August 4th. He's showing rare film footage at some locations.

Bought the book last time this was mentioned, might try to see this in NYC.

On Sunday

Ah, that might be a problem.

Revolution In The Head

A few recommendations by Simon Reynolds:

http://blissout.blogspot.com/2009/08/when-acquaintances-make-books-bit-of.html

The Numero Group presents:
A Light On The South Side
Release party, Discussion, and Social
Sunday, November 1st 2pm – 6pm
Chicago Cultural Center
Discussion with Michael Abramson and Rick Kogan in the Claudia Cassidy Theater
Reception in the G.A.R. Rotunda

Peter Margasak's writeup of the Abramson book makes it sound great.

For the label’s next knockout release, Light: On the Southside, the music is actually a complement to the art: a stunning 12-by-12, 132-page hardbound book featuring gorgeous black-and-white photographs shot by Michael L. Abramson at a handful of south-side blues clubs and lounges between 1975 and 1977. http://www.chicagoreader.com/TheBlog/archives/2009/10/29/a-snapshotmusical-and-visualof-the-south-side-in-the-70s#more

Currently reading Gimme Something Better, an oral history (inna Please Kill Me stylee) about San Francisco punk. Diggin' it.

Really enjoyed Thurston Moore/Byron Coley's photo essay book about No-Wave, some really great shots, too much Lydia tho'

"too much Lydia tho'"

There was clearly a shortage of photogenic No Wavers.

I just finished Jack Chambers' Milestones: The Music and Times of Miles Davis and would definitely recommend that to anyone who enjoyed the autobiography.

Really enjoyed Thurston Moore/Byron Coley's photo essay book about No-Wave, some really great shots, too much Lydia tho'

Yep, this is a good 'un.

King of the Queen City: The Story of King Records
Jon Hartley Fox
University of Illinois Press
(280 pages, 23 photographs

I bet this book about that old-school r'n'b label is worth reading

Wanna put a good word in for Henry Pleasants' "Serious Music — and All That Jazz! (1969)"

Pleasants was more of a classical and jazz critic -- as well as a spy for the CIA, that too -- but his takes on swing, 50s jazz, and 60s pop are entertaining and fresh.

I always thought it incredibly cool that Pleasants would sometimes go to Europe to review shows, but he was really there to do espionage work.

That's pretty wild

The Good Times Are Killing Me by Lynda Barry is a powerful little illustrated novel about the relationships you have with friends, and with music as you first discover it as a teenager. I haven't read it in over a decade but I remember feeling it pinned that vivid obsession and thrill in a very poignant way. Turns out it's on Google Books if you can't find a copy or don't mind reading things online.

ok only part of it is ;_;

Yea, I remember years ago when her comic strip was in my local weekly that she periodically would include music references and story lines. I also saw her in the crowd at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Fest a time or 2.

The Luke Haines biography.

'The Fallen' by Dave Simpson.

A freebie given away by The NME in the mid-90's called Unknown Pleasures which contains reviews of writers favourite albums. You can pick up copies occasionally on Ebay for very little. depressing read in a way as it gives you a real insight into how much music journalism has deteriorated in the intervening years but contains the most perceptive pieces I have ever read on Chic and Cathal Coughlan.

Wow! Never heard of that. Who wrote the Chic piece?

It was Melody Maker, not NME. Some of the essays used to be floating around the web, and there used to be an ILX thread about it.

Here ya go

Melody Maker's "Unknown Pleasures"

Here ya go

Melody Maker's "Unknown Pleasures"

― I'm into SB (Noodle Vague), Saturday, 2 January 2010 22:07 (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

Thanks for the link. Lost my copy a while ago.

Paul Lester did the Chic one. Never heard of him. Will seek out. Thanx!

The Chic piece was by Paul Lester.

It's online somewhere but I'm not sure where.

Xpost. I have it saved on an old computer. Will find and post tomorrow. It's good.

Oooh you're awesome! Thanx!!!!!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/offer-listing/B000S548Y6/ref=sr_1_olp_9?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262473588&sr=1-9

Appetite for Destruction

anyone here read this guys stuff before? any good?

Whether it's hanging around with Marillion's Fish in Berlin, seeing Whitesnake fail to ignite 1985's Rock in Rio, talking through old times with Jimmy Page in his Berkshire pile or following Ozzy Osbourne to Moscow, there isn't a rock luminary that Wall hasn't cross-examined or kept the flame burning with at some point over the last thirty years. Here, amongst several pieces, he catches Lars Ullrich just on the cusp of world domination; has dinner with Ritchie Blackmore on the eve of a Deep Purple comeback; and is up all night in LA with W. Axl Rose. Appetite for Destruction gathers together Wall's journalism for Kerrang!, for whom he was the star writer in their eighties heyday. It also features brand-new introductions to all the pieces, written with maybe less hair but also the benefit of twenty years' hindsight.

About the Author

Mick Wall was the founding editor of CLASSIC ROCK magazine. He's the author of numerous music titles, including books on Iron Maiden, Don Arden, W. Axl Rose and Black Sabbath. He ghosted XS ALL AREAS: the autobiography of Status Quo, and is a former DJ on Capital Radio. In the 1980s he was the chief writer for KERRANG! His most recent book is a biography of Led Zeppelin: WHEN GIANTS WALKED THE EARTH.

I'm slowly working my way through Princess Noire: The Tumultuous Reign of Nina Simone by Nadine Cohodas

Cohodas did a ton of research for the Nina Simone book but quote after quote after quote from concert reviews in both major media and the African-American press kinda wears one out after awhile.

Anybody reading the latest books with Elvis Costello lyric references in the title:

Brett Easton Ellis' fiction sequel to Less than Zero. Imperial Bedrooms (I think he added an 's') is out.

Jennifer Egan's novel A Visit From the Goon Squad is out.

The latest novel from the acclaimed author of The Keep unfolds in the music worlds of punk-era San Francisco and contemporary New York. As the characters grow out of their early rebelliousness, their attention turns from performance to money-making. Egan charts the fluctuations of fortunes and friendships, exploring various notions of change and stability.

Do not know if these books are good, or necessarily about music, but figured they would fit under this thread better than over on ILE or something.

I never read Less than Zero or saw the movie. Dropping Costello references seems to big for 40-something writers. I haven't seen it, but apparently there's a scene in Treme where musician Kermit Ruffins (I think that's who it is) is told that Elvis Costello is in the audience and wants to meet him and he does not care (and then gets scolded by someone for not caring).

Not sure if "goon squad" is a reference to an Elvis Costello lyric.

Just picked up and enjoyed "We Never Learn", by Eric Davidson from ye New Bomb Turks. Fine anecdotes about, for lack of a better word, garage-punk bands from the late 80s-late 90s or so. He uses the word "gunk-punk". Despite that, a good read, good pics, fun stuff. Especially if you're a fan of Crypt Records, Sympathy For The Record Industry, etc. Good related website here: http://www.weneverlearnbook.com/

I've been reading Michael Moynihan's Lords of Chaos and definitely have mixed feelings about it. I'm not sure I totally accept his thesis that the rise of violent Satanism, Paganism, and Black Metal is some Hegelian rebellion against the Scandinavian social welfare state.

Did I read the same book? For me it's just a bunch of sociopaths saying 'Christianism is alien to Scandinavian culture'.

And am I the only one who thinks this book is well-balanced and that's why Varg hates it?

Really The Blues by Mezz Mezzrow is a great autobiography.
Early jazz stories from was an associate of Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith, Bix Beiderbecke - his lasting contribution was to introduce good w33d to NYC. Bonus, sometimes it gets so slangy that you need to refer to the "hipster glossary" in the back.

"Talking Music: Conversations with Five Generations of American Experimental Composers" (amazon)