Books by musicians

"How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life" by John Fahey is a great book, really entertaining (and funny) on many levels. Can't recommend it enough.

the drumbo bk is more than a 'bit messy' - it's p much a disaster, unfortunately. the text switches between meandering first person narrative (three pages on the kind of trousers john french and pals wore back in the 1950s etc) that's interspersed w/ chunks of seemingly verbatim interview transcripts that almost never offer any additional insight or coherence. admittedly i haven't made it to the 'good stuff' yet (ie 'my years in the beefheart cult'/what a bad bad person uncle don was), but i sorta lost the will to live after the first 100 pages or so. i'm not exactly a beefheart novice, but i easily got lost in all the different names and places that flit in and out of the narrative and which a decent editor - ANY kind of editor - would've helped organise in a much more reader-friendly fashion. the mike barnes and bill harkelroad bks are def less comprehensive - and props to drumbo for trying to nail down so many of the vliet-myths and boasts - but so much better reads-as-reads

I'm really curious about this book by Alice Bag, recently published.

http://alicebag.com/sitebuilder/images/ViolenceGirlPoster-408x600.jpg

Anyone here read it yet? I love The Bags, and that whole early LA punk scene is fascinating.

Anyone read Lenny Kaye's book about crooners in the 1930s? I've had it on my shelf for years but haven't read it, and I'm thinking about putting it in the cull pile.

i read that kaye book a while back. don't recall *too* much about it, but it was entertaining in a nick tosches-kinda way. some interesting stories about the time period.

really need to read "How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life"

Fripp has withdrawn the book from the university press that wanted to publish it, because he didn't like the contract terms

oh ffs

There is another Fahey book as well, but I haven't read it yet. Gotta find it, as if it's anywhere near as enteraining as "How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life" then it promises to be a real treat.

Jonathan Meiburg out of Shearwater is an ornithologist, and he has written a book about the striated caracara:

https://media.s-bol.com/36J12qyjNGnA/550x803.jpg

the guy behind Ant-Bee put out some books on early 70s rockers including Grand funk Railroad (which I think I have but haven't looked at much)

.....apparently dude from Cromags has written a self help book....

books by Nick Cave and Lydia Lunch should be avoided at all cost.

― end of time, Thursday, January 29, 2004 10:08 AM (twenty years ago) bookmarkflaglink

can't say for sure about lydia but i wouldn't avoid nick's books. the sick bag song!