Music Books
 

I don't know if we're had a thread on this, but what about music books?
I have rather a large collection of them. Anyone else?
Recommendations?

You mean sheet music? Or books about etc?

What the feckless dago ponce said.

Books about bands, genres etc.

Bob Stanley - Yeah Yeah Yeah is a terrific book about pop music which I and others have wanged on about quite a bit on here.

Simon Napier Bell's books are jolly entertaining if not necessarily well-written/100% true. I'll need to have a look at the bookshelves to see which ones of his I own.

Just bought a few of the 33 1/3 series on Television, Tom Waits and Can. Gather they're a bit variable - some good reads and some a bit dryly academic.

Just about the only book on Television I've ever found is 'Sonic Transmission', which is so-so.

Lloyd Bradley - Sounds Like London: 100 Years of Black Music in the Capital does what it says on the tin as does his Bass Culture: When Reggae Was King.

Good call. I have two, they are very amusing. Dee Dee Ramone’s book is very good, too.

Tony Fletcher's Bunnymen book, 'Never Stop', is entertaining, and Julian Cope's autobiographical stuff is hilarious.

Serge Gainsbourg: A Fistful Of Gitanes: Sylvie Simmons

Louis Barfe - Where Have All the Good Times Gone?: The Rise and Fall of the Record Industry - I would for the first time ever be interested to hear El Ag's opinion on this.

edit - His Turned Out Nice Again about British light entertainment is also terric

Jon Savage’s “Teenage” is erudite and witty. My two favourites this year were about or by drums and drummers, Mike Edison’s gonzo biog of Charlie Watts, Sympathy for the Drummer, and Paul Hanley’s book Have a Bleeding Guess, about doing his O Levels and recording Hex Enduction Hour while touring the world with the Fall in 1982.

Just checked and the ones I have are Black Vinyl, White Powder and Ta-Ra-Ra-BOOM-De-Ay. He is a rascal.

I enjoyed Mötley Crüe's The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band when it came out but suspect I would feel a bit icky reading it now.

Do you know Tony, btw? He’s been on here a few times.

I messaged someone here who I thought was him, but claimed not to be the same person!
I met him on an Ian McCulloch tour in 1989/90.

Luke Haines' 'Bad Vibes'.

Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton's Last Night a DJ Saved my Life: The History of the Disc Jockey and The Record Players: The Story of Dance Music Told by History’s Greatest DJs are terrific if you like that sort of thing, although the latter contains traces of Savile.

Sylvia Patterson's I'm Not With the Band is an absolutely smashing book about life in music journalism. Mark Ellen's Rock Stars Ruined My Life! is not. It is shit.

I think he called himself Illeagle Alien on here.