Read any good music books lately? Or some all-time favorites?

Just finished this one. 1/3 pre-Pistols, 1/3 Pistols, 1/3 post-pistols. Won't lie, I skimmed the first and last thirds fairly quickly but I did enjoy the book. He has a pretty easy to skim writing style and there was lots of juicy (no pun intended) stories of his personal life. The 1/3 on the Pistols I thought was pretty good. 7/10!

 

Currently reading Bop Apocalypse: Jazz, race, the beats, & Drugs by Martin Torgoff
there are chapters on Bird, Miles, Coltrane, Jacki McLean, Burroughs
So far excellent

 

It's a couple of years ago now but I enjoyed very much Clinton Heylin's unpopular The Act You've Known For All These Years, which gives Pink Floyd and, especially, The Byrds the credit I've always felt they deserved.
The most surprising thing about it though was that it increased my appreciation of Paul McCartney.

 

Just finished Glyn Johns,Soundman from the library and almost done with Daniel Lanois,Soul Mining. Both OK engineer/producer tales. Lots of good stories about the artists we love and how small coincidences in musicians and music industry lives have made huge differences.

 

Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties

1. 
2. Interesting read on Dylan's electric morph.

Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062366696/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_aAN9ybBB8ZXRG

 

Only just come across this. Respect Yourself is terrific, and tells the Stax story in all it's glory (and brushes with disaster at least a couple of times too). It's by Robert Gordon if you are still looking for a copy, published by Bloomsbury over here.

 

If you are looking for a slightly weird book on collecting vinyl I also recommend this. Tim Burgess is the lead singer of the rock band, The Charlatans. It is also titled or sub-titled "Vinyl Adventures from Istanbul to San Francisco". Tim asks about 50 friends, largely from the music business, and including people like Iggy Pop, Johnny Marr, Mick Jones and Paul Weller, to recommend an album each. Each album/story gets a chapter as Tim seeks the record out, largely in the UK but in the US, Japan and Europe too. So it's a nice guide to record stores along the way. There is an eclectic range of albums chosen, from punk to dub, classical to southern rock, pop to country, jazz to folk. Most of the selections are not mainstream but that's almost besides the point. It's uplifting and passionate, and would make a great and inexpensive present (it's in paperback) for anyone on the Forum with the vinyl bug, particularly those who don't just want the supposed classics. Sure, you get Love Supreme, Graceland, Ziggy Stardust and some other well known albums, but there's a lot of less well known stuff too, and it's the stories that give it that bit extra. Quirky but fun.

 

Currently reading "Stan Levey: jazz heavyweight "
So far I am enjoying this quite q bit, Stan Levey was discovered by Dizzy Gillespie and was considered one of the original founders of Bebop Jazz Music. He tells some great stories about Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Sonny Stitt, and various other jazz musicians.
He tells how Charlie Parker introduced him to heroin, and, got him hooked , how Miles Davis would never bathe before going to Jazz clubs, how Sonny Stitt was a police informant and set him up for his first prison stint. great stories

 

Joel Selvin's "Here Comes The Night: The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business Of Rhythm & Blues" may be the best book I've ever read about the period (late-50's - mid-60's) and I'v read most of them.

 

I just finished Joel Slevin's Altamont: The Rolling Stones, the Hells Angels, and the Inside Story of Rock's Darkest Day.
Highly recommended.

 

I haven't bought it yet, but Jonathan Gould's authorized Otis Redding bio just got a big thumbs-up in the WSJ.

 

Weird Scenes Inside The Canyon by Dave McGowan. Completely destroys the myths of the hippie movement and the notion of the whole music scene in the sixties as an organic phenomenon. A must read for fans of sixties rock and the counter culture.

 

Scott Miller- Music- What Happened?

 

Thanks Kenny! I have just bought it on Kindle.

 

A fast Ride out of Here....- Pete Way

A quick trip with UFO's Pete Way. UFO by the way probably did more drugs and drank more beer that 95% of bands!

 

I'm almost done rereading George Martin's All You Need Is Ears, which I went through as a teenager but barely remembered -- I actually found the chapters about his pre-Beatles career more interesting than his take on the "story," which seemed as diluted as it always does in 'insider' books. I was surprised how open he was about his bitterness toward EMI, something that I probably wouldn't have noticed as a kid.

 

I thought Geoff Dyers book on Jazz called "But Beautiful" was great and I also liked Beneath the Underdog by Mingus. Ive just started Miles which gets plenty of mentions above. There is a great book on Krautrock from Black Dog publishing which is worth tracking down called Krautrock: Cosmic Rock and its Legacy.
I have the 8th edition of the Penquin Guide to Jazz Recordings which is a great reference guide. I also like Julian Copes Japrocksampler as a reference more than a straight through read.

Finally im exitedly waiting for 23rd August for the new KLF book.

 

I'm in the middle of this and I must say it is the definitive book thus far on Jethro Tull. It's not one of those rehashed books of past articles or a summation of documentary videos. It would be nice if it had some color photos instead of all black and white but other than that I'm enjoying it and learning more about JT.

 

My favorite:

The Ultimate Biography Of The Bee Gees: Tales Of The Brothers Gibb



Is it the best biography in the world? Probably not. But I absolutely adored it as a teenager (especially when I was first getting into the band) and still pick it up from time to time.

 

I've just started this one: Why Bob Dylan Matters.



Looks very interesting. The author taught a class on Dylan in the classics department.

A Classics Professor Explains 'Why Bob Dylan Matters'

 

After touring FAME Studios and Muscle Shoals Sound Studios last week, I checked this out of my local library.
Very interesting read thus far; and I'm just now getting to the good stuff.
The Man from Muscle Shoals: My Journey from Shame to Fame by Rick Hall

 

Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell - The Dangerous Glitter of David Bowie, Iggy Pop, and Lou Reed / Dave Thompson, 2009

Fairly good tome that puts the rise of Bowie, Iggy, Ziggy, Lou Reed post-Velvets (and much of the Warhol Factory crew) into a breezy, compulsively readable context.

All three alternately come off as awful at different times; Reed is combative and moody; Bowie is accused by Warhol-alcolytes like Wayne County of stealing his ideas under the guise of aiming to further County's career; there are some atrocious Iggy anecdotes like how he pushes a girl down some stairs at a Stooges coming home gig in Michigan, or another time when he's serenading a disinterested woman at a club during a performance and grabs her by the throat, shaking her around. There's an odd moment when the author Thompson seems to go on a tirade about "liberal fascism" (which he seems to claim was given rise by the punk rock movement itself) when describing Bowie's notorious 'nazi salute' to fans that was captured by the press in 1976.

Aside from that, there is some invaluable info on the early Velvets and Warhol years (though strangely, the book seems to ignore the Velvet's output after Cale departs, but gives ample pages to the Doug Yule-led Velvets that toured Europe but were short-lived). Very interesting info on Bowie and the Tony Defries / Mainman empire, as well as the dissolution and destruction of The Stooges, and the author seems to infer that Defries kept Iggy and his band from touring in 1972 so as not to serve as competition to his main client Bowie, who was on the rise at the time.

A very good read that I breezed through in less a week in the evenings, and Thompson has a good writing style. Really makes a strong case for the trio (both separately and collaborating) being responsible for the best and most cutting-edge rock of the 1970's.

Strangely, the author doesn't go into Nico's death at all, but the book does end basically at the end of the 1970's.

 

Swans Sacrifice and Transcendence the oral History of the NYC based extreme minimalist rock band which is really good.

Shirley Collins All In the Downs the memoir taht covers her life up to date and is a really good companion to her earlier America Across the Water.

Anadolu Psych by Daniel Spicer on the late 60s/early 70s wave of Turkish rock combining traditional Turkish themes with Western rock influences.

 

Rereading Carrie Brownstein's Hunger makes Me A Modern Girl, good stuff!

 

Just picked up Bill Graham Presents : My Life Inside Rock and Out by Bill Graham and Robert Greenfield. Really looking forward to digging into it.