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 20th
and 21st 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.
