19 & 20 October 2013 (Days 292 & 293) – What’s A Good Music Read?

The book salesman should be honoured because he brings to our attention, as a rule, the very books we need most and neglect most - Confucius

As a consequence of my embrace of the internet, I am now working towards the objective of ensuring that my original two custom made bookshelves contain nothing but items in hardcover……. Now all I have to do is start reading them – otis.youth 12 & 13 October 2013

Most rock journalism is people who can't write, interviewing people who can't talk, for people who can't read - Frank Zappa 1978

Among the reasons why I choose to remain anonymous is that I maintain a book collection relating to popular music.  I don’t regret this in the slightest.  Although I’ve read a number of the great novels in my time, I really don’t feel any great urge to read many more.  For evidence of man’s capacity for wondrous works of art, I’m more than happy to visit a gallery, wander the streets  of the finest European cities, watch a great movie or listen to some of the finest records to have emerged from late the 20^th and 21^st Centuries.

But this is not to infer that I actually agree with Zappa’s famous comment.  Reading about music is much like art, architecture, motion pictures or listening to music.  For every Jackson Pollack masterpiece, Gaudi structure, Cohen Brothers movie or Radiohead album there is always going to be meaningless graffiti tags, fibro cement sheeted horrors, Police Academy sequels and Kenny G record.  Basically, if you’re prepared to dig there really is a lot a great stuff to find and I’d like to think that buried within my collection of reference books, anthologies, biographies, autobiographies and oral histories is material that would suit the most demanding reader. 

Finding a good reference book, such as a music guide, is a hard task as you’d want to use a guide you can trust or, put another way, roughly shares your same opinion.   Ideally, my perfect reference book would be a volume full of reviews as originally published in Mojo, Rolling Stone or Q magazines and even then there would be restrictions on when I would want to read a review from either of the last two magazines.  But these books are not likely to ever be printed as the magazines in question increasingly rely on the websites to publish this type of information.  Fortunately, I have most editions of the Rolling Stone Record Guide and these remain, in the absence of anything else, the yardstick by which I can immediately garner a review without having to turn on a computer. 

There are other guides in my collection which I use for certain genres of music.  Dave Thompson’ weighty tome entitled Alternative Rock covers many bands that never make it into mainstream guides even if his judgement varies wildly about the key works of critical acts.  Although written quite a while ago, Charles Shaar Murray’s Blues On CD and Lloyd Bradley’s Reggae On CD are both indispensable.  The latter though, really does require a second edition given the rise of various reggae reissue labels such as Blood On Fire, Pressure Sounds and Trojan’s issues of anthologies, themed compilations and box sets.

Many critics and authors have written extensively for magazines and some of the best reading in my collection comes in the form of anthologies of their best work.  Lester Bangs’ Psychotic Reactions and Carburettor Dung: The Work of a Legendary Critic is arguably the best, containing marvelous examples of his anarchic style.   Not far behind is Nick Kent’s The Dark Stuff, which contains samples of his work for the New Music Express from the punk era but is highlighted by a legendary epic piece on Brian Wilson.  Greil Marcus has published numerous books including anthologies on his writings on Bob Dylan, The Doors, and Van Morrison, as well as In the Fascist Bathroom: Punk in Pop Music, 1977–1992 which contains his magnificent description of the Sex Pistols original final gig in 1978.  He has also written a number of other books well worth tracking down, especially Double Trouble: Bill Clinton and Elvis Presley in a Land of No Alternatives.  The opening chapter looks at the impact of Bill Clinton’s presidency upon Washington DC and finds all manner of similarities to how Elvis Presley was received by American society.

I’ve always enjoyed a good biography or autobiography and my collection contains examples from all over the industry including musicians and groups, record companies and executives, producers, promoters, roadies, fans and groupies.  As a general rule, I’ve found that the best autobiographies are those which sound as though they’ve been “written” by the musician in their own hand even though it’s mostly the work of the ghost writer.  These include the autobiographies of Miles Davis, Ray Charles and Keith Richards.  Ray Davies of The Kinks X-Ray is suitably inventive being an “unauthorised autobiography” which merges fact with fiction, Frank Zappa’s The Real Frank Zappa Book is appropriately bizarre and Anthony Kiedis’ Scar Tissue makes me wonder whether he even likes himself. But all of these pale against the best of them all, Bob Dylan’s Chronicle’s Volume One a non-linear picking of some of the highlights of his career that predictably leaves you wanting more.   In some respects, he was adapting Joe Jackson’s A Cure For Sanity which limits his life story to just his pre fame years.  And for those wanting an idea of life on the road, try Bruce Thomas’ The Big Wheel, an account of a tour as one of Elvis Costello’s Attractions, Ian Hunter’s perceptive Diary Of A Rock’n Roll Star and Rob Hirst’s account of Midnight Oil’s final American Tour Willie’s Bar And Grill.

A far more recent development has been the adaption of oral history a historiographical technique where the story is told in the first person by a number of individuals linked together by third person text written by another.  Arguably pioneered in the amazing Aerosmith band autobiography Walk This Way, it has also been utilised to great effect in the US punk memoir Please Don’t Kill Me and, even more spectacularly, by Motley Crue in The Dirt.  The latter might very well be the only book whose legacy will probably outlive the music it sought to immortalise.  It’s inspired me to buy the subsequent books by band members Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee and Vince Neill even though I’m most unlikely to ever buy one of their albums.

Biographies are a harder genre to judge.  First, is the need to keep at arm’s length any book that prides itself on being an “authorised biography”.  If that’s the case, chances are that the book will be a whitewashed version of the artist’s  or act’s career with little critical balance.  Then there will be some books that will read well simply because of the amazing life or career of the artist in question.  However, when an interesting story ends up in the hands of a skilled writer, the results can be extraordinary.  Evidence for this comes  via Peter Guralnick’s two volume history of Elvis Presley   (Last Train To Memphis and Carless Love: The Unmaking Of Elvis Presley), Lauren St.  John’s  Hardcore Troubadour: The Life And Near Death Of Steve Earle,  Michael Lyon’s biography of Ray Charles Man And Music and David Ritz’s Divided Soul The Life Of Marvin Gaye.  Then there are those authors who relied upon to produce top notch work irrespective of the subject matter including Clinton Heylin, Barney Hoyskins, Phillip Norman and Johnny Rogan. 

But this is now a very much incomplete idea of what’s in my collection for this only lists those books that I’ve actually read.  I have around 60-70 books that I haven’t yet started including many of which are very highly rated.    As it is, I’ve finally started to get back in the groove recently and I’m currently going through Pete Townshend’s autobiography.  Once I finish that the real headaches begin.