Tag: book
-
World Records: A New Book about Record Collectors
In 2008 New York photographer Eilon Paz was shown a photo of a man, Frank Goessner, a German, who lived around the corner from Paz in Brooklyn. Goessner was wearing combat gear, holding an AK-47, surrounded by a mass of records. As a music fan, Paz was intrigued and (perhaps bravely) met Goessner to ask…
-
Read An Exclusive Extract From The New Vinyl Handbook
As the publication date draws ever nearer, an author’s day becomes ever busier. Small callouses appear on the end of fingers ill-used to holding pens for signing books. Additional respect is given to *actual successful* authors who sign cartloads of books in bookshops. I was able to spread the signing of just under two hundred…
-
Buy The Book Here: Every Record Tells a Story: A Vinyl Handbook
For vinyl and music fans everywhere: the debut book from Every Record Tells A Story is here…
-
Fantastic Beats And Where To Find Them: A Guide To London’s Independent Record Shops
London may have its downsides: traffic jams, crowds, the £10 gin and tonic, but it also has sixty-odd places to buy records. Sixty-odd reasons to put up with the stresses and strains of life in the capital. Even with a backdrop of retail woes (British Retail Consortium figures show consumer spending fell more sharply last…
-
Hard Rock’s “Yesterday”: The Story of Goldilox by Kings X
“Goldilox is the song that people just missed out on… one of the greatest songs that I had ever heard”
-
Five Things I Saw & Heard This Week
For the kids who Snapchat photos of themselves with a dog’s nose and ears superimposed, or who Instagram their every (doubtless avocado-based) meal, blogging about music may feel about as unfashionable as, well, Facebook. * Although very much the best way to keep on top of new music ten or fifteen years ago with all…
-
Wilko Johnson Cheerfully Discusses Death, Depression, Cancer….and Canvey Island
Wilko Johnson was at Rough Trade East last night in conversation with author Zoë Howe to discuss his new book “Don’t You Leave Me Here”. The former Dr Feelgood guitarist has written about his extraordinary life: chart topping success, the argument that led to the break up of the band, his time with Ian Dury…
-
New Ray Davies Biography: A Complicated Life by Johnny Rogan
Kinks fans have been spoiled of late with a number of books about the band, particularly as for many years there was no definitive Kinks bio. Both Davies brothers penned their own versions of the tale with Ray’s X-Ray and Dave’s Kink, but, naturally, they only tell the tale from their own perspectives. “God Save The…
-
John Lydon Reveals Sid Vicious Beauty Secrets In New Autobiography “Anger Is An Energy”
Alongside Iggy Pop, John Lydon is widely regarded as the Godfather of TV Adverts Punk. Lydon’s infamy was secured this week in 1976 when The Sex Pistols swore on the Bill Grundy TV show, and called him a “dirty old sod”. Grundy’s behaviour, in encouraging a pop group to swear on tea time TV, is…
-
Early Candidate For Music Book of the Year: “Beatles With An A” by Mauri Kunnas
In the year after the release of Mark Lewisohn’s 1,800 page Proustian Beatles biography “All These Years”, (merely part-one-of-a-trilogy) most Beatles writers have, quite justifiably one suspects, thrown down their pens in despair, turned to drink, or begun to dust off their Rolling Stones records and collect stories on The Beatles’ main rivals. However, this…
-
Think It’s Easy Running Brixton Academy? Think Again…
Simon Parkes’ hilarious and revealing story of The Brixton Academy tells you all you need to know about why running a music venue is not for the faint-hearted. From an opening story involving booking a band to play the Academy using a coke dealer as a secret weapon, to being the subject of tear gas…
-
Yeah Yeah Yeah by Bob Stanley: The Chapter-by-Chapter Spotify Playlists Page
I had a terrific reaction from Twitter to my article about Bob Stanley’s history of popular music, “Yeah Yeah Yeah” back in May 2014… Like a nervous boy asking out the prettiest girl in school to the disco, I enquired as to whether anyone would like to help set up a page of playlists to accompany each…