33 1/3 Series of books

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bat mitzvahs may be another story.

― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 16 July 2006 06:42 (nineteen years ago)

ideal bat mitzvah music = the bats. obviously.

― so hongro, so angry (haitch), Sunday, 16 July 2006 07:17 (nineteen years ago)

My Bar Mitzvah was Star Wars themed.

― Steve Go1dberg (Steve Schneeberg), Sunday, 16 July 2006 16:30 (nineteen years ago)

one month passes...

the unknown pleasures book by chris ott was a waste of time. only about 20 pages about the album, the rest about the whole career of joy div. i don't think i learnt anything new which i didn't know already. the worst is that ott doesn't seem to be enthusiastic about joy div's music. i never want to read a lukewarm book like that again.

concerning joy div books there is the highly recommended ian curtis biography by mick middles. personal, insightful and touching. with lots of typos but that makes it even more loveable.

― alex in mainhattan (alex63), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 05:49 (nineteen years ago)

Are they going to do any more of these?

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 09:08 (nineteen years ago)

ahh, yeah i was gonna say, mick muddles may be a nice man, but he's barely literate.

― a rapper singing about hos and bitches and money (Enrique), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 09:12 (nineteen years ago)

I've enjoyed the Bowie/Low one and Floyd/Piper one. Both strong on historical background and critical analysis, both very well written. I also bought Radiohead/OK Computer, but it didn't gel, too drily academic. I've read that one on Eno/Another Green World is in the works, I'm looking forward to that.

― Revivalist (Revivalist), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 09:41 (nineteen years ago)

Apparently there's a 69 Love Songs one due out soon, written by L.D. Beghtol, who sings on some of that album. (?) Also the "Loveless" book is finished, although I'm sure someone said that ages ago.

― meritocracy (spencerman), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 17:11 (nineteen years ago)

Finished, and it's very grand.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 17:13 (nineteen years ago)

The only one I've actually read is the Matos one, although I've bought two others (Murmur and In the Aeroplane...) as gifts.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 17:20 (nineteen years ago)

Oddly, I bought Murmur and Aeroplane as gifts for myself the other day. £4 in Fopp!
The Murmur one is excellent. The in the studio stuff is fascinating - Easter and Dixon were brilliant producers - and the musings on Southern Gothic and the album cover are well thought out, imaginative and thought provoking.
The Replacements one by Colin Meloy was likeable enough as an unpretentious bit of growing up as an college rock fan in the 80s nostalgia, but not so good as an album analysis.

― Stew (stew s), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 17:39 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, I don't have a lot of interest in R.E.M., but I'd sort of like to read that one just because J. Niimi's a good, engaging writer.

― jaymc (jaymc), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 17:44 (nineteen years ago)

I'm going to DIY my own 33 1/3rd on Pretty Boy Floyd's Leather Boyz With Electric Toyz. Continuum can come to my pad if they have a problem with it.

― the dow nut industrial average dead joe mama besser (donut), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 17:47 (nineteen years ago)

Making noise!
TONIGHT!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 17:50 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, Niimi is very engaging. He goes into some detail in discussing the song construction and performance and studio techniques yet it never becomes dry and muso-ish. In fact, it's given me loads of ideas for my band's demos. Did you know, for example, that the weird thunderclaps at the beginning of We Walk are actually pool balls recorded at high speed, played back at normal pitch and fed through an early digital reverb unit? Wow! Also excellent on how they doubled up instruments to get interesting textures and effects.

― Stew (stew s), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 18:29 (nineteen years ago)

I've been tempted on several occasions by the one on Paul's Boutique.

― Edward III (edward iii), Wednesday, 13 September 2006 19:48 (nineteen years ago)

I got the VU one at a used book place when I was in cali.
This probably the whole of it:

"Musically, the Velvets are the
daddies of us all--and by "us," I mean anyone who has played in a rock
band since 1977 or thereabouts, the year that Punk crested the hill and
changed the music industry forever. Their albums were like alchemical
tracts that held secret formulas, passed from one musician to the next,
until "Punk Happened," as the button says, completing the job the
Velvet Underground started."

So Velvet Underground & Nico is your Big Mac and any semirevered afterworks like Unknown Pleasure or Loveless are just kid's meals. the new ones with milk and carrots.

But I'm wondering if that's what all the books give you, a THIS IS IT AND ALL THERE IS LEFT of anything credible.
i.e. I'll read Loveless and it'll convince me of the untimeliness of so-called 60s rock purveyors.
or something.

I think I just want to get another one because I like the size. It's nice and tiny for metro rides.
I might like to read ABBA one, if that's any good. I have no interest in NMH, though I'm wondering if I'm mistaken. I think Borders has Live at the Apollo so maybe that one.

― mox twelve (Mox twleve), Friday, 15 September 2006 08:50 (nineteen years ago)

and I realize that quote says nothing, note, the book is not much informative. metro rides.

― mox twelve (Mox twleve), Friday, 15 September 2006 08:52 (nineteen years ago)

i can never find these books in shops.

― wogan lenin (dog latin), Friday, 15 September 2006 09:02 (nineteen years ago)

"Apollo" is quite an electrifying read; "Sign o' the Times" is my (other) favorite.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Friday, 15 September 2006 09:07 (nineteen years ago)

The Entroducing... one was a great and very informative read. I found the style a little stilted but that's more to do with the fact that it's based around interviews over a period of time with Shadow. I thought it was very insightful and definitely fun to read how he did it all and where the passion came from. IIRC the author got all the self-referential crap out of the way in the intro and from then on it was about Shadow.

― Kv_nol (Kv_nol), Friday, 15 September 2006 10:31 (nineteen years ago)

I have no idea what mox is saying but the VU book was horrible. Systematic in the worst way possible, talking about the making of the album in purely social terms without giving me any interesting muiscological stuff, no apparent critical analyses, and lots of biases-stated-as-fact. Of course it was so bad I stopped reading it a third of the way through so maybe it got better but I wasn't willing to trust it that far.

― Eppy (Eppy), Friday, 15 September 2006 14:18 (nineteen years ago)

man I pitched Vision Creation Newsun, but they said it wasn't popular enough :/

― Dominique (dleone), Friday, 15 September 2006 14:55 (nineteen years ago)

i'd definitely get more of these if you could find them in shops, though i suspect even if you could the ones i'd be looking for would be on the less likely end to get stocked. any further reccomendations on ones that work well as books instead of extended liner notes/dull bio, making of etc.? loved armed forces though i don't think i'd suggest it to anyone w/ no taste for the album, loved loved zoso would reccomend to anyone.

― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 15 September 2006 18:04 (nineteen years ago)

man I pitched Vision Creation Newsun, but they said it wasn't popular enough :/

Hey, I pitched Violator and got the same answer! (Well, presumably the same form letter.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Friday, 15 September 2006 18:07 (nineteen years ago)

wow that's insane, there's a HUGE market for a book about violator!

― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 15 September 2006 18:09 (nineteen years ago)

I don't really get why you would buy more if they were in shops. I mean, maybe you hate Amazon or something, but most indie rekkid stores will order anything you want AND HAVE THEM DELIVERED TO YOUR DOOR SO YOU DON'T CHOKE ON THE PERVASIVE BAND-SMELL of said store.

Or are you referring to those ~~evil, corporate~~ new-fangled bookstores where you can sit there all day and just read anything they have without buying it blount?

― don weiner (don weiner), Friday, 15 September 2006 19:59 (nineteen years ago)

Impulse purchases. Any actual purchasable object right there at your fingertips is far more tempting than a mere image on your computer screen.

― M. Agony Von Bontee (M. Agony Von Bontee), Friday, 15 September 2006 20:13 (nineteen years ago)

MVB OTM

― Run Ruud Run (Ken L), Friday, 15 September 2006 20:15 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, when I bought the NMH at this indie bookshop near my place, I was on my way to the counter to check out and was like "Oh, I didn't know they stocked 33 1/3 books here, hmmmm, let's see ... oh they have In the Aeroplane ... huh, it's Megan's birthday this week ... ah, what the hell."

― jaymc (jaymc), Friday, 15 September 2006 20:18 (nineteen years ago)

don i don't frequent indie rock record stores and on amazon i tend to go for more worthwhile fare than 'the true story behind the making of chairs missing!' (eg. will shortz presents giant collosal sudoku vol 2). pure impulse buy (i don't order porn online either)(i have ordered pizza online before).

― j blount (papa la bas), Friday, 15 September 2006 21:05 (nineteen years ago)

What I meant to comment on with that quote was the book's praise without substance babble on. Just, on and on. mindwashing you into the brillance and innovation of the band and their only masterpiece and how the VU & N sound is now permanantly infused into every single rock song by every single band from a little after that until today.
And Eppy I agree, your critique was pretty on, the book didn't really get much more indepth in its latter parts.
It also feels like something you wouldn't want to give to an indiegod high schooler because he'd use it as his new pretentious cred piece. 'Man, the strokes, nothing. The Velvets are the daddies all those guys.' hah, or something.

And, what, that's dumb, VCN would be awesome to read about. It's dumb because it would probably sell just as well if not better than the rest of them. Like, all these books, their market have probably already read a ton of stuff on whoever they want to read about anyway. Who IS reading them? The people on this thread? So, not popular enough would be a plus. Books are not even in stores.
anyway. Whatever. In theory they're cool little companion pieces the music collection.

― mox twelve (Mox twleve), Friday, 15 September 2006 21:23 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah my biggest problem with this series is that the albums I would be interested in reading books about are ones which would not sell at all. Actually I am not even sure what albums would make good 70-80 page books. I love Forever Changes and Piper At The Gates of Dawn, for example, but I've read so much about those albums and Love and Syd Barrett-era Floyd in general that I can't imagine those books have much new to say to me. And a lot of great records have already seem exhaustively written about so it seems a real challenge to find an album widely known enough to warrant this treatment, yet not so extensively studied that the piece is just a retread of other pieces.

All that said Vision Creation Newsun is an album I would definitely be interested in reading more about.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 15 September 2006 21:47 (nineteen years ago)

Actually is there a good book on Agharta/Pangaea or on Miles electric period in general? I would devour that.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 15 September 2006 21:52 (nineteen years ago)

i much prefer the idea of compelling writers talking about their relationship to an album, than compelling writers talking about the creation/origin/details of an album. but i'm peculiar.

in a lot of ways, it wouldn't matter if i liked the record or not.

― sean gramophone (Sean M), Friday, 15 September 2006 21:54 (nineteen years ago)

alex:

http://www.amazon.com/Miles-Beyond-Electric-Explorations-1967-1991/dp/0823083608/sr=1-14/qid=1158360979/ref=sr_1_14/104-1248919-2000735?ie=UTF8&s=books

― gear (gear), Friday, 15 September 2006 21:56 (nineteen years ago)

Woo hoo. I will look for that.

― Alex in SF (Alex in SF), Friday, 15 September 2006 22:03 (nineteen years ago)

someone needs to get on that shaggs one

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Friday, 15 September 2006 23:03 (nineteen years ago)

(Personally awaiting the Joni volume)

― Myke. (Myke Weiskopf), Saturday, 16 September 2006 02:49 (nineteen years ago)

wow that's insane, there's a HUGE market for a book about violator!

You're telling me!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 16 September 2006 03:00 (nineteen years ago)

man I pitched Vision Creation Newsun, but they said it wasn't popular enough :/
-- Dominique (d_leon...), September 15th, 2006 3:55 PM. (later)

I'd like to figure out how much Dominique would've expected to get paid for a project such as this, so that I may just save up or get on a payment plan or something and he can just write it for me.

― Period period period (Period period period), Saturday, 16 September 2006 04:34 (nineteen years ago)

xpost

Yes, the rationale behind the rejection of "Violator" (not popular enough) makes no sense ... it's sold more copies than probably 90% of the other albums featured in the series. I guess "not popular enough" is code for "the way we see it, faggy synth pop fans don't read rock-crit".

― NoTimeBeforeTime (Barry Bruner), Saturday, 16 September 2006 16:15 (nineteen years ago)

Well, I don't want to get too much into it or anything -- obv. I was disappointed but I've moved on to thinking about other projects and things. The fact that they chose to do Pretty Hate Machine but not Depeche was a bit surprising to me seeing as early Trent *is* Depeche crossed with Wax Trax, but keep in mind that quite easily the proposal for that was just a really great one in comparison to a lot of others, including mine!

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 16 September 2006 16:20 (nineteen years ago)

(Which is in part why I'm assuming the 'same form letter' response -- Continuum sent out a batch one to everyone whose proposals were turned down, and I didn't ask any further about it, where maybe Dominique did and got something more specific.)

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 16 September 2006 16:22 (nineteen years ago)

In re: Abba/Can thing above:

I felt sure there was one about Tago Mago. No?

xpost

Not to say that Continuum decided to pick either NIN *or* DM, but I can certainly see the rationale for choosing PHM over Violator. There's a lot of mileage to be had from arguing that NIN came out of nowhere and sold a couple million records and "took the mainstream by surprise" or whatever, all of it happening before grunge got credit for doing the exact same thing (and with 100000X more press and airplay). I'm not sure you can argue that with DM, since they were a well-established band at that point. Plus, the same people who would buy a DM book are also likely to be interested in an NIN book.

― NoTimeBeforeTime (Barry Bruner), Saturday, 16 September 2006 16:41 (nineteen years ago)

violator doesn't have that obvious rockcrit cachet (bar ilm of course)

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Saturday, 16 September 2006 16:46 (nineteen years ago)

btw the armed forces one was pretty good, matos' was ok, and all the other ones i looked at were awful

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Saturday, 16 September 2006 16:47 (nineteen years ago)

violator doesn't have that obvious rockcrit cachet (bar ilm of course)

It's never had an obvious one but it's had a sometimes-grudging one. But even Rolling Stone did a positive main (but not cover) story on the band when that came out, a couple of years after they reviewed 101 in a way that could be described as 'cavemen meet aliens and try to tell fellow cavemen about the sparkly lights in the sky.'

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 16 September 2006 17:04 (nineteen years ago)

OBVIOUS ROCKCRIT CACHE

LIKE ABBA GOLD

― the dow nut industrial average dead joe mama besser (donut), Saturday, 16 September 2006 17:30 (nineteen years ago)

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