Good books about music

Budgie is wrong. :)

so, actually Muh-Gee-OcCCCHHHH.

^^^^ this

You can hear the correct pronuciation in this video (don't worry you don't have to listen to all 54 minutes)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FlyBBc8-KP8

... worth watching for that goal at the start though!

Picked this up today

https://ci4.googleusercontent.com/proxy/0GfkvAbHCHfdYYlHaXsNXdgtvRTO6_8Qjc8pbfTe1mKap-HnBju7qlCZfwm68GKf5IYddg8tBbNsTL3m0emkc7c65ooXvoEaq55vJ6QJzmASbIETQhu2_dvkYHBA4XOUdIZwS4GM2l7ldN082mT-h4NIGMnlZLtBgnvV8sTaq8MojoYj9A47WHdR_pOTP3my17H4xM5JEMHGKu5IXRg4XzFgIlctkmBbMLcYsUquVOL0UAY_x7aLRHSQXlibfGn0spI5-wrtRKH0X7Alo5butyzB1y1WiUm1hZW1zMZOqq9ZxQ2C6E1N58xiQa0TAg8ytIvJ2l2Q720_2aZWVANI9hjR=s0-d-e1-ft#https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_2420,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F27f34777-f090-4092-bb10-f31d458f4232_1210x938.png

That looks like a worthy read!

that url has at least 3 domain names in it.

Marissa Moss, Her Country

anyone wanna recommend a book (or books) available here? 40% off sale rn:

https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/search-by-category/categories/music

skip the "this one's OK" ... tell me if there's one here you really love!

The DJ Screw book is really good but Who Got The Camera? is incredible, one of the best music books I've read in years. A must-read.

I found the Chris Stamey book very interesting and wide-ranging; he originally planned to publish a songbook where he would discuss the structures and theory behind his songs, with some anecdotes and stories interspersed, but in the course of writing, the latter took over.
The variety of people and situations he's been involved with, and his insights into songwriting, production, culture and rock band dynamics might give this book some appeal even to someone who isn't familiar with Stamey's own music.

Deusner's Drive By Truckers book is great.

i haven't read it yet so obviously i would defer to someone who has, but the malone/neal country music u.s.a. book has basically been considered a definitive reference on the subject for decades afaik

xpost do you need to be a DBTs fan to enjoy it, ya think? i've tried, but never been able to connect with them ... or maybe the book would help with that.

i do, however, love the South

oh great now I find out.
Had just heard Adele Bertei on C86 last week talking about her past and teh book on Labelle
Paul Youngquist on Sun Ra looks interesting.

If i had any money I'm sure there are several there I would grab.

"don't suck, don't die," kristin hersch's book about vic chesnutt is very good though also very sad

do you need to be a dbs fan to enjoy it, ya think? i've tried, but never been able to connect with them ... or maybe the book would help with that.

Though it's his most famous project, they don't dominate the book. He goes into detail about the misery of making their second album in England and why he ended up quitting.

i do, however, love the South

Ha, the book is structured around his time in New York! Starting in about '74 seeing Television at CBGBs and ending with his move back. There's some Southern flavour, though, working with Chilton for example.

I think they're talking about DBTs? Anyway, I don't think you need to be a fan, necessarily, but it helps. There is however a lot about the south and its history, and music. And of course how a band like the Truckers fit in, or don't.

Ah, I see, thought it was a typo.

yeah, was talking about the Truckers. thanks!

Sonic Boom - The Impossible Rise of Warner Bros. Records is a breezy, enjoyable read that informatively fleshes out company figures such as Mo Ostin, Joe Smith, and Lenny Waronker, and really impresses on you the achievement of Warner Bros. growing from an afterthought of a record company in the late '50s to basically the industry leader in 1970. Some peculiarities to the writer's style and tone (he's previously known for a bestselling Springsteen bio), but as I thumb back through the pages of this I realize it's much more good than bad. Puts it all in historical perspective in 250 pages without being weighed down by too much detail.

I should mention the author is Peter Ames Carlin

He also wrote a Paul Simon book, I believe, which seemed okay.

And Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson bios, as it turns out. It seems this book isn't getting much fanfare, so was worth a mention. I'd like to see more record company stories like this.

I own Sonic Boom but haven’t read it yet.

Also would like to re-recommend Susan Hamilton’s Hit Woman: Adventures in Life and Love during the Golden Age of American Pop Music. Contains everything you ever wanted to know about Chuck Berry’s Dr. Pepper commercial, to name one thing. Randy Newman’s too.

Maybe I'm not grown up enough, but I can't get into music books about executives, A&R representatives, record companies, etc. I do remember appreciating Carlin's Wilson biography though.

I liked the Susan Hamilton one a lot too. Quite a character.

David Cantwell's critical bio of Hag.

^^just came in the mail!

The recent article in the New Yorker about Foley artists led me to The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933 by Emily Thompson. It's not strictly about music but music runs through the fabric of the book as Thompson goes through some key achievements and developments in modern acoustics. There's a chapter on "Noise and Modern Culture" that gets into Russolo, Antheil, Varèse et al a bit. I'm only halfway through, looking forward to the chapter called "Electroacoustics and Modern Sound." It's not a dry read at all; Thompson's a terrific writer.

I'm wondering about that Suicide bio from 2015. "Dream Baby Dream: Suicide: A New York Story by Kris Needs

I'm fifty pages from the end of this. It has weirdly warped priorities - there's probably less than a page about the decade of Vega's adult life before becoming a visual artist and seeing Iggy, but there's at least a page of an interview with Rev giving a potted history of Charlie Parker and be-bop. I sometimes get the feeling that the writer is trying to reach a certain page count.
It's good at filling in the mystery about what exactly they were doing between 1970 and 1977 (playing many more shows than previously reported), and describing Rev's jazz roots (studying with Lennie Tristano and hanging out with Tony Williams) but despite having a lot of interview quotes from the two principals and most of the surrounding figures, I don't really feel like I've become closer to the source of the music. Needs would probably say you have to listen with a New York attitude.

There is another book on the band called No Compromise by David Nobakht which I thought was pretty decent. I haven't read the Needs one so can't compare.

have come across a few podcasts with Martin Rev telling the story of the band too.

The recent article in the New Yorker about Foley artists led me to The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933 by Emily Thompson. It's not strictly about music but music runs through the fabric of the book as Thompson goes through some key achievements and developments in modern acoustics. There's a chapter on "Noise and Modern Culture" that gets into Russolo, Antheil, Varèse et al a bit. I'm only halfway through, looking forward to the chapter called "Electroacoustics and Modern Sound." It's not a dry read at all; Thompson's a terrific writer.

This sounds really interesting, and I might recommend one of my favorite music books of all time, Peter Doyle's Echo and Reverb: Fabricating Space in Popular Music Recording, 1900-1960, as a follow-up.

Sounds good to me too.

The DJ Screw book is really good but Who Got The Camera? is incredible, one of the best music books I've read in years. A must-read.

I really must get to this, having known Eric Harvey for some years.

xxp thanks, I'll chase down the Doyle book as well. Sounds (lol) like it's up my alley.

Maybe I'm not grown up enough, but I can't get into music books about executives, A&R representatives, record companies, etc. I do remember appreciating Carlin's Wilson biography though.

Yes?

There are various reasons which such books might be better than artist bios, but I can’t really type them right now, sorry.

The Bob Stanley book about pre-Rock Pop is pretty great so far. A lot of this stuff - Tin Pan Alley, musical theatre, cabaret - seldom gets discussed in music writing outside of Rock's "this is the lame shit we came to replace" origin mythos. Bonus that since it's Stanley, he gives attention to both US and UK pop; think a US author would probably not have given the UK a second glance, and I couldn't blame them really.

Thought this was maybe discussed here but can't find it, Paul Hanley's Leave the Capital: A History of Manchester Music in 13 Recordings is fantastic (so far).

https://www.amazon.com/Leave-Capital-History-Manchester-Recordings/dp/1901927717

Have not read that but read his fall book which completely ruled

Haven't read that but loved Steve Hanley's The Big Midweek.

Hanley bros podcast is pretty good too

Just pre-ordered this:

The Cricket: Black Music in Evolution, 1968–69
edited by A.B. Spellman, Larry Neal, and Amiri Baraka

$35.00
Ships out September 27, 2022.

Contributors include: A.B. Spellman, Imamu Ameer Baraka (LeRoi Jones), Larry Neal, Cecil Taylor, Milford Graves, Sun Ra, Ben Caldwell, Clyde Halisi, Don L. Lee (Haki R. Madhubuti), Duncan Barber, Gaston Neal, Hilary Broadus, James Stewart, Norman Jordan, Roger Riggins, Ronnie Gross, Stanley Crouch, Albert Ayler, Askia Muhammed Toure, Donald Stone, E. Hill, Haasan Oqwiendha Fum al Hut, Ibn Pori ‘det, Ishmael Reed, Joe Goncalves, Larry A. Miller (Katibu), Sonia Sanchez, Willie Kgositsile, Billy (Fundi) Abernathy, Dan Dawson and Black Unity Trio. Preface by A.B. Spellman. Introduction by David Grundy.

A rare document of the 1960s Black Arts Movement featuring Albert Ayler, Amiri Baraka, Milford Graves, Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor, and many more, The Cricket fostered critical and political dialogue for Black musicians and writers. Edited by poets and writers Amiri Baraka, A.B. Spellman, and Larry Neal between 1968 and 1969 and published by Baraka’s New Jersey–based Jihad productions shortly after the time of the Newark Riots, this experimental music magazine ran poetry, position papers, and gossip alongside concert and record reviews and essays on music and politics. Over four mimeographed issues, The Cricket laid out an anticommercial ideology and took aim at the conservative jazz press, providing a space for critics, poets, and journalists (including Stanley Crouch, Haki Madhubuti, Ishmael Reed, Sonia Sanchez and Keorapetse Kgositsile) and a range of musicians, from Mtume to Black Unity Trio, to devise new styles of music writing. The publication emerged from the heart of a political movement—“a proto-ideology, akin to but younger than the Garveyite movement and the separatism of Elijah Mohammed,” as Spellman writes in the book’s preface—and aimed to reunite advanced art with its community, “to provide Black Music with a powerful historical and critical tool” and to enable avant-garde Black musicians and writers “to finally make a way for themselves.” This publication gathers all issues of the magazine with an introduction by poet and scholar David Grundy, who argues that The Cricket “attempted something that was in many ways entirely new: creating a form of music writing which united politics, poetry, and aesthetics as part of a broader movement for change; resisting the entire apparatus through which music is produced, received, appreciated, distributed, and written about in the Western world; going well beyond the tried-and-tested journalistic route of description, evaluation, and narration.”

Link to purchase

ooh that looks interesting

spellman still with us i'm pleased to see (as are ishmael reed and sonia sanchez)

Peter Doyle's Echo and Reverb: Fabricating Space in Popular Music Recording, 1900-1960,

Just bought this! Plus the Cantwell Haggard book.

The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933 by Emily Thompson

Ordered this yesterday.