Good books about music

Given all those stiff Thurston quotes---the more earnest he gets, the more awkward the phrasing, like he's sweating through his rental formalware----don't think I'll be seeking it out, but will take a look if library gets it, esp. that Public Image experience.

Noh Mercy on the earcom comp was also Bah area I think.

Anyone else read Michael Cragg’s Reach For The Stars? Can’t recommend it highly enough.

Anymore For Anymore: The Ronnie Lane Story by Caroline and David Stafford

Published by Omnibus Press (out now)

This is a fascinating account of a key player in the late 60’s British music explosion. There are many great stories here from his peak years with the Small Faces and the Rod Stewart-led Faces. Ronnie Lane was at the heart of the storm, playing bass, singing and writing. But it’s not all “happy days toy town” – it’s depressing to read of yet another young musician ripped off and exploited by the music biz sharks, and the last section of the book describing his lingering decline and death from MS, which makes for some grim reading.

The book doesn’t dwell too long on his East End childhood, so we’re spared the usual guff about jellied eels and Pearly Kings. Fortunately, his older brother Stan was well into music and Ronnie was playing in bands from a young age.

Just read the girl group oral history, But Will You Love Me Tomorrow?. I should have been warned by a couple of the comments upthread.

Frustrating. This book really needed to be edited with a heavier hand - to clean up grammar, to explain confusing quotes, to reconcile contradictory testimony, to add any kind of context. Dates! It needed far more dates.

For better or worse it gets quite gossipy. Some big names don't come off very well. Most of the new information the book left me with has to do with developments of the last 25 years, stuff not covered in Alan Betrock's Girl Groups: The Story of a Sound (1982) or John Clemente's Girl Groups: Fabulous Females that Rocked the World (2000). Was struck by one thing, which is the seemingly high rate of depression and mental issues associated with people who were involved in the girl group business.

Now I'm in the middle of Listen: On Music, Sound, and Us by Michel Faber, which seems mainly concerned with questioning assumptions we make about music that are tied up in our listening habits. So far so interesting.

The novelist?

Yep

Would read.

Especially since the main blurb seems to be from Gary Lucas!

Oh, I overlooked Robert Fripp, sorry

With regard to the other book: yeah I read a little and it also seemed to me to be super-disorganized, unedited and too gossipy even for me. Not surprised that many people ended up unhappy. Think I told you about the one guy I know– well, met a few times– who played guitar on some of those records and also produced a bit later on but really survived later on by writing and producing jingles.

Yeah, some people got rich from the girl group phenomenon but it wasn't the performers, outside of Diana Ross.

Ellie Greenwich ended up singing jingles.

One time I asked my guy about the whole Red Bird fiasco and he just stood there for a second standing next to his wife with his jaw dropped staring at me and said “you want to talk about THAT!?” so I changed the subject. At least I hope I did.

Now recalling some notorious Morris Levy quote about “they should pay ME!”

Which reminds me to ask, does Michel Faber weigh in on record man George Goldner?

Faber book has me hooked from the first footnote!

No Faber on Goldner. He seems more concerned with the listening end of music rather than production/business end.

No worries, figured, was really just tagging up

You still reading it?

Finished it. It gets a little scattershot as it goes along, but occasionally a point is made that would be a good start to a discussion. At times it seems as if the way he expresses his musical opinions, and his opinions of people who hold differing opinions, contradict his opening statement that particular tastes are beside the point of the book.

But it did make me dig out my Nana Mouskouri best of CD. Hadn’t listened to that in a while.

I sort of confirmed in passing one of his main points last night at karaoke

new book about the Village Voice The Freaks Came Out To Write, author Tricia Romano has a section about Christgau getting into hiphop and hiring writers to cover it.

This book seems really good to dip into.

The oral history quote after quote approach of the Village Voice book sounds like it is one that one would want to dip in and dip out of .

Ha, yeah, although I did read PLEASE KILL ME straight through from front to back, in non-hopscotch order.

I'm around page 300. You could skip around--the chapters are very short and often self-contained--but I think you'd want to read it in order; there's a story there.