Good books about music

Yep, that's the one!

Y'all really made me just order a book by the drummer from Semisonic, and that's why I love this place.

My 2 fave rock memoirs are Crazy From the Heat and Chronicles Vol 1, maybe not in that order.

i enjoyed "cool town" by grace elizabeth hale about the athens, GA, scene of the '70s and '80s. she's an academic, so she does a good job of discussing the broader sociological context of the scene and bands, but she was also part of the scene (ran a beloved restaurant and was in a local band) so has a good personal connection too.

Enjoying the Michael Barnes book on Prog It Was A New Day yesterday. Got as far as the Canterbury scene. Just read the first chapter on that this morning

I was wondering this morning if there's a band in which every single member has written a memoir yet.

Got a slight update on a Kid congo one recently. So hope taht means its coming before too long. Which would mean 3 members out of 4 on a coupl eof occasions.
but Rob ritter is dead and not sure if Patricia Morrison is going to write one.
Enjoyed the Terry graham one though.

Patricia Morrison is legally not allowed to talk about her time in SIsters of Mercy, so that would make for a weird book.

I was wondering this morning if there's a band in which every single member has written a memoir yet.

― Maresn3st, Monday, April 27, 2020 3:46 PM (nineteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Motley Crue, if you count Mick Mars' contributions to The Dirt.

Has anyone read The Beautiful Ones?

The Police also

xpost - yes! It’s really good but incomplete for obvious reasons.

All the surviving members of Joy Division plus Ian curtis widow have done memoirs.
& is that Jon Savage thing an oral history that contains more material by each band member too

Finally getting around to Jeff Tweedy's book, I like it quite as bit - funny and very conversational.

Duke University Press is doing a half-price sale on their books till May 25--- Tony Allen one, some reggaeton ones, more

https://www.dukeupress.edu/explore-subjects/browse?subjectid=110&sortid=3

mark lanegan's new memoir!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

seeing backlashes against Lanegan from the Connor brothers and an attempted one from LIam Gallagher.
THink I want to read the book anyway cos he's lead an interesting life, i mean quite apart from the responses so far, like.

What have the Connor brothers said? I can't find that anywhere.

THing about the vitriol that Lanegan directed at them in the book when they haven't really talked in years and whenever they have done its been civil.
May have been a response on FB by Van Connor that somebody else shared. Sounded like there was an FB Screaming Trees group that he contributed to.

Actually comment came from GAry lee Conner.

Thanks!

this book is great. the liam gallagher chapter is hilarious. overall lanegan he has very little good to say about the trees (or anyone, really, with some notable exceptions -- the gun club, nick cave, johnny cash, waylon jennings, chris cornell, josh homme, layne staley, and kurt cobain). he caricatures lee throughout the book. i wouldn't be happy if i were him, either. he doesn't treat van to the same scorn but still i'd be pissed

Has anyone read It Still Moves by Amanda Petrusich?
Also curious about Will Oldham On Bonnie Prince Billy by Alan Licht, anyone familiar with it?

I have teh Will Oldham but haven't read it yet.

i've got the Oldham book it's good, basically a long interview, i'm not the biggest fan of music books or biographies tbh so maybe not the best judge but it's an enjoyable read

actually i could read it again now you've made me think of it, excuse my uncertainties

An old friend of mine who is a music professor at Syracuse University wrote a “textbook” about new wave music called Are We Not New Wave. It’s got lighter moments, but also some pretty deep and thoughtful academic discussion. I loved it! Here it is on goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11461133-are-we-not-new-wave

Cheers ordered the Oldham book and David Crosby's Long Time Gone!

There are more relevant threads to post this on, but--I know this is self-serving--I'm going to post here, where anybody who opens it up does buy music books.

I just self-published a book on pop music in movies and on TV: You Should've Heard Just What I Seen. It's on Kindle Direct Publishing, which is owned by Amazon, so that's where you have to order it.

States

Canada

A friend has also been talking to me about the book and posting clips on YouTube. The first one, 20th Century Women is here--you can find others in the same place.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UorpT9Qbhu0

Cool, just watched. Who is your friend?

Scott Woods. He runs the Greil Marcus site, and he's been my friend and co-author for years--you might even remember him from Radio On.

Oh yeah, we toss it back and forth a little bit on rockcritics.com sometimes, when I comment on his posts. Most recently re his interview w *ilxor mark s, editor of A Hidden Landscape Once A Week,* just in case any of yall didn't know about that...

Oh, nice! Will order when I get my next CESB cheque (don't tell Scheer).

In the meantime, I added the book to Goodreads, since it wasn't on there yet: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54240276-you-should-ve-heard-just-what-i-seen

Thanks, cryptosicko (on both counts)! I got out ahead of you this time and made up a playlist a few days ago (posted the link in the Spotify playlist thread).

Delighted to see "It's Too Late To Turn Back Now" on there (assuming the entry is on BlacKkKlansman). One of my two own fave song/visual media combos of recent years, along with Prefab Sprout's "King of Rock and Roll" in the Netflix series I Am Not Okay With This.

Don't know that, but I have Netflix so I'll give that a look. "It's Too Late" was an automatic pick.

Until I get the book, I am really enjoying the YouTube series. Just finished the American Graffiti, which ends with a great gag.

Wasn't that great? Scott's so good with this stuff.

Harald Kisiedu's European Echoes: Jazz Experimentalism in Germany 1950-1975 is a very interesting study of...well, the German avant-garde jazz scene of the 60s and 70s, with particular focus on Peter Brötzmann, Alexander von Schlippenbach, Manfred Schoof, and Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky (an East German saxophonist whose work I'm not familiar with). It's really good, a mix of biography and broader social/political context...and I was surprised to find a quote from a 2019 interview I did with Brötzmann for Bandcamp included in it.

I have recently read Geoff Dyer's But Beautiful and Ian Penman's It Gets Me Home, This Curving Track, really enjoyed both for their sorta fanciful insights onto the personalities of artists. So far from all the hagiography and legend-burnishing bios and magazines I read when I was a teenager.

Enjoying Ryan Walsh's Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968, even though Astral Weeks itself was never my favourite album (been a while, though). The subtitle is cribbed from Marcus, I think, and it really does feel like a secret history, with all this stuff lost to history. I do remember reading about the hype over the Boston Sound in Lillian Roxon's encyclopedia. I've got to see if I can track down that Chamaeleon Church album with Chevy Chase!

Took about three seconds.

Let us know how it sounds. I just remember the names of a few Bosstown Sound bands: The Beacon Street Union, Ultimate Spinach---I did hear a couple by Earth Opera, who were kind of on the bandwagon, I think, but more of an art-folk-rock, proto-Americana thing, with Peter Rowan and David Grisman. (Wiki sez "they frequently opened for the Doors," so maybe not too genteel!)

All three are key in the Boston Sound ("Bosstown Sound") chapter--Orpheus, too, who had a Top 100 hit that I don't think I remember.

X-post re It Still Moves by Amanda Petrusich. Saw that a little of it is available online and I skimmed the chapter re her driving to Memphis and going to Beale Street and Sun Studio. Eh, kinda underwhelming. Based on my own visits there and what I have read elsewhere, she doesn’t add much. There are also chapters on Clarksdale, Charlottsville, and elsewhere.

(xposts) Walsh quotes Chase from an interview where he looks back at that time. I won't reproduce the quote here. Big surprise: Chevy Chase is not a very pleasant person.

So I have heard

[Ghost Notes]
Pioneering Spirits of Texas Music
By Michael Corcoran

Illustrated by Tim Kerr

This looks interesting ---

[i]Ghost notes” is a musical term for sounds barely audible, a wisp lingering around the beat, yet somehow driving the groove. The Texas musicians profiled here, ranging from 1920s gospel performers to the first psychedelic band, are generally not well known, but the impact of their early contributions on popular music is unmistakable. This beautiful Tim Kerr-illustrated collection provides more background on the Texas from which these artists sprang, fully formed. Readers will learn about the black gay couple from Houston who inspired the creation of rock ’n’ roll, as well as the true story of the origin of Western Swing. They will learn about “the first family of Texas music” and the birth of boogie-woogie, the dirt-poor singers and the ballad collectors who saved folk songs during the Depression, and the accordeonista whose musical legacy was never contained on recordings but was passed on by his protégé. The pioneers of modern times include the Dallas rapper who became the wordsmith of gangsta rap, the sheriff’s son from Dumas who produced the signature tunes of Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, and the blind lounge singer Kenny Rogers called the greatest musician he’s ever known.[/i[

I'm looking to read a biography of Bob Dylan, but there are so many. Which ones are the best? Thank you.

Have you read Dylan’s own Chronicles? If not, definitely definitely read that first. One of my favorite books ever on any subject in any genre.

^