Music Banter - View Single Post

EDGE · 04-15-2006, 11:39 AM

I just finished reading "The Sound and the Fury".
I highly recommed this book.

Al Aronowitz documenting The Beatles' arrival in America; Glenn O'Brien dishing the dirt with Madonna; Nick Hornby reappraising pop deities Abba; Caroline Coon witnessing the birth of punk; Will Self sparring with Morrissey; Jon Savage entering the fractured mind of Kurt Cobain; Lenny Kaye riding Grand Funk Railroad. Plus Greil Marcus on The Band, Mary Harron on Warhol, Vivien Goldman at the Wigan Casino, John Mendelssohn in South Central LA ... and many others.

This book gathers some of the best and most entertaining rock writing of the last forty years, coming at rock and roll from several different angles and spanning four decades of good, bad and ugly. The editor, rock journalist Barney Hoskyns, explains in his introduction:
'The Sound and the Fury anthologises some of my favourite pieces, by some of my favourite music writers — heroes both sung (greil Marcus, Jon savage) and unsung (Bill Millar, Robot A. Hull). Read the words of Michael Lydon and Mary Harron, Mick Farren and John Mednelssohn, Richard Cook and Simon Reynolds. Imbibe Cliff White on Marvin ***e, Caroline Coon on Johnny Rotten, Will Self on Morrissey. To all future rock'n'roll writers, I say: soak up these timelessly invogarting pieces and consider the opportunity you have to make a difference. Let go, tell the truth, express yourselves.'

‘Barney Hoskyns' anthology of rock journalism is thoroughly entertaining. It opens with Al Aronowitz's account of The Beatles' first trip to the US, where we learn of John Lennon's method of keeping his feet on the ground: 'When I feel my head starting to swell, I just look at Ringo and I know perfectly well we're not supermen.' Written in 1964, it's a superb snapshot of the Beatles being swept towards superstardom: not just great rock journalism, but great journalism, period. There are old interviews with Neil Young and Bob Dylan ('I don't think I'm gonna be understood until maybe 100 years from now'), as well as think pieces about psychedelic rock and reviews of famous festivals. A British writer, Barry Miles, goes to New York in 1972 to see the New York Dolls and their glammed-up ambisexual fans, and describes in comic horror the de Sadean stage show of the transvestite support act ('But no, there is more... '). Writing a year later, American Greg Shaw looks back across the Atlantic at the Mod movement and, in his enthusiasm, almost echoes Wordsworth's 'but to be young was very heaven': 'what it must have been like to be a Mod in London in 1965!' More up-to-date highlights include a 1990 interview with Madonna, in which she comes up with a truly impressive insult: 'Is that your head, or did your neck just throw up?' and Jon Savage's 1993 article about Nirvana, notable not least for Kurt Cobain's plaintive: 'When you feel bad in America, it's like losing your stomach.' Some of the writing is superb, such as Mick Farren's 1976 gonzo report on country music in Nashville for the NME. Much of this material would not be published today. Although coverage of pop music is wider than ever, the quality of the attention devoted to it has undoubtedly diminished. Yet arguably the legacy of rock journalists is everywhere. As the main practitioners of the style that Tom Wolfe dubbed new journalism, the rock-journalism approach has permeated the mainstream media. Compare the reporter embedded with a military unit in Iraq with the hack on the tour bus. 'You cannot make friends with the rock stars,' a rookie music writer is warned in Cameron Crowe's film, Almost Famous. Who would have thought similar advice could apply to war correspondents?’ —Financial Times

‘There is something oddly touching about this book. So much youthful passion burns within its prose: it reeks of the heady sweat of pop concerts, of joints smoked while listening to guitar solos in delicious, tortured solitude, of beer spilled beneath frenetic feet. The passions aroused by rock music are deep, exquisite and lasting. Yet at the same time, they are ephemeral, protean, defiant of analysis ... for all its armour-plated literacy, Will Self's 1995 Observer interview with Morrissey brought back helpless thoughts of the precious private communion that I once had with The Smiths. Twenty years on, the feelings aroused by that sound are exactly the same. It is just that everything else has changed’ —Laura Thompson, Daily Telegraph

04-15-2006, 11:39 AM	#54 (permalink)
EDGE accidental genius Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Boston, MA Posts: 1,146	I just finished reading "The Sound and the Fury". I highly recommed this book. Al Aronowitz documenting The Beatles' arrival in America; Glenn O'Brien dishing the dirt with Madonna; Nick Hornby reappraising pop deities Abba; Caroline Coon witnessing the birth of punk; Will Self sparring with Morrissey; Jon Savage entering the fractured mind of Kurt Cobain; Lenny Kaye riding Grand Funk Railroad. Plus Greil Marcus on The Band, Mary Harron on Warhol, Vivien Goldman at the Wigan Casino, John Mendelssohn in South Central LA ... and many others. This book gathers some of the best and most entertaining rock writing of the last forty years, coming at rock and roll from several different angles and spanning four decades of good, bad and ugly. The editor, rock journalist Barney Hoskyns, explains in his introduction: 'The Sound and the Fury anthologises some of my favourite pieces, by some of my favourite music writers — heroes both sung (greil Marcus, Jon savage) and unsung (Bill Millar, Robot A. Hull). Read the words of Michael Lydon and Mary Harron, Mick Farren and John Mednelssohn, Richard Cook and Simon Reynolds. Imbibe Cliff White on Marvin ***e, Caroline Coon on Johnny Rotten, Will Self on Morrissey. To all future rock'n'roll writers, I say: soak up these timelessly invogarting pieces and consider the opportunity you have to make a difference. Let go, tell the truth, express yourselves.' ‘Barney Hoskyns' anthology of rock journalism is thoroughly entertaining. It opens with Al Aronowitz's account of The Beatles' first trip to the US, where we learn of John Lennon's method of keeping his feet on the ground: 'When I feel my head starting to swell, I just look at Ringo and I know perfectly well we're not supermen.' Written in 1964, it's a superb snapshot of the Beatles being swept towards superstardom: not just great rock journalism, but great journalism, period. There are old interviews with Neil Young and Bob Dylan ('I don't think I'm gonna be understood until maybe 100 years from now'), as well as think pieces about psychedelic rock and reviews of famous festivals. A British writer, Barry Miles, goes to New York in 1972 to see the New York Dolls and their glammed-up ambisexual fans, and describes in comic horror the de Sadean stage show of the transvestite support act ('But no, there is more... '). Writing a year later, American Greg Shaw looks back across the Atlantic at the Mod movement and, in his enthusiasm, almost echoes Wordsworth's 'but to be young was very heaven': 'what it must have been like to be a Mod in London in 1965!' More up-to-date highlights include a 1990 interview with Madonna, in which she comes up with a truly impressive insult: 'Is that your head, or did your neck just throw up?' and Jon Savage's 1993 article about Nirvana, notable not least for Kurt Cobain's plaintive: 'When you feel bad in America, it's like losing your stomach.' Some of the writing is superb, such as Mick Farren's 1976 gonzo report on country music in Nashville for the NME. Much of this material would not be published today. Although coverage of pop music is wider than ever, the quality of the attention devoted to it has undoubtedly diminished. Yet arguably the legacy of rock journalists is everywhere. As the main practitioners of the style that Tom Wolfe dubbed new journalism, the rock-journalism approach has permeated the mainstream media. Compare the reporter embedded with a military unit in Iraq with the hack on the tour bus. 'You cannot make friends with the rock stars,' a rookie music writer is warned in Cameron Crowe's film, Almost Famous. Who would have thought similar advice could apply to war correspondents?’ —Financial Times ‘There is something oddly touching about this book. So much youthful passion burns within its prose: it reeks of the heady sweat of pop concerts, of joints smoked while listening to guitar solos in delicious, tortured solitude, of beer spilled beneath frenetic feet. The passions aroused by rock music are deep, exquisite and lasting. Yet at the same time, they are ephemeral, protean, defiant of analysis ... for all its armour-plated literacy, Will Self's 1995 Observer interview with Morrissey brought back helpless thoughts of the precious private communion that I once had with The Smiths. Twenty years on, the feelings aroused by that sound are exactly the same. It is just that everything else has changed’ —Laura Thompson, Daily Telegraph