Books By Famous Musicians - Music Banter Music Banter

Go Back   Music Banter > Community Center > Media
Register Blogging Today's Posts
Welcome to Music Banter Forum! Make sure to register - it's free and very quick! You have to register before you can post and participate in our discussions with over 70,000 other registered members. After you create your free account, you will be able to customize many options, you will have the full access to over 1,100,000 posts.

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
Old 07-10-2020, 07:47 AM   #1 (permalink)
...here to hear...
 
Lisnaholic's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: He lives on Love Street
Posts: 4,444
Default Books By Famous Musicians

Not sure, but I suspect that this is a relatively small sub-genre of books. Of course there's a huge quantity of books on music theory, music history, biographies of musicians, etc, etc, but I hope the topic of this thread is more manageable. Off the top of my head I can only think of a handful of famous musicians who have had the time, discipline or inspiration to write a book, but I am prepared to be surprised:

Brian Wilson: Wouldn't It Be Nice
John French: Beefheart Through the Eyes of Magic
Leonard Cohen: Beautiful Losers
Bob Dylan: Tarantula (which generated this huge thread: https://www.musicbanter.com/media/60...tarantula.html)
Bob Dylan: Chronicles
John Lennon: In His Own Write and A Spaniard In The Works (frequently published in one volume)
Gerald Moore: Am I too loud?
Eric Clapton: The Autobiography
Posh Spice: Learning To Fly

So this is an invitation to expand that list, and talk about the books by famous musicians that you've read, would recommend, or have just heard of and wondered about.
__________________
"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953
Lisnaholic is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-10-2020, 08:34 AM   #2 (permalink)
Just Keep Swimming...
 
Plankton's Avatar
 
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: See signature...
Posts: 7,765
Default

Neil
__________________
See location...
Plankton is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-10-2020, 08:44 AM   #3 (permalink)
.
 
grindy's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2014
Location: .
Posts: 7,201
Default

Derek Bailey - Improvisation
A great look into the way improvisation was and is prevalent in lots of diverse musical styles.

Chris Cutler - File Under Popular
A collection of essays about mostly experimental music and and its political and societal aspects. Some good stuff there and lots of bands that one should check out.
__________________
A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.
grindy is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-10-2020, 08:54 AM   #4 (permalink)
the bantering battleaxe
 
Marie Monday's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2018
Location: Cute Post Malone's mom
Posts: 3,388
Default

I've only read two books by musicians: the memoirs of Keith Richards and Carrie Brownstein
__________________

Quote:
Originally Posted by Trollheart View Post
You sound like Buffy after they dragged her back from Heaven.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WWWP View Post
I want to open a school for MB's lost boys and teach them basic coping skills and build up their self esteem and strengthen their emotional intelligence and teach them about vegetables and institutionalized racism and sexism and then they'll all build a bronze statue of me in my honor and my bronzed titties will forever be groped by the grubby paws of you ****ing whiny pathetic white boys.
Marie Monday is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-10-2020, 09:57 AM   #5 (permalink)
one-balled nipple jockey
 
OccultHawk's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Dirty Souf Biatch
Posts: 22,006
Default

Quote:
Bob Dylan: Chronicles
Boring af
__________________

2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

Member of the Year & Journal of the Year Champion

Behold the Writing of THE LEGEND:

https://www.musicbanter.com/members-...p-lighter.html

OccultHawk is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-10-2020, 10:13 AM   #6 (permalink)
SOPHIE FOREVER
 
Frownland's Avatar
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: East of the Southern North American West
Posts: 35,541
Default

Can't really go wrong with any of John Cage's books. So far I've read For the Birds and Silence: Lectures and Writings and both were brilliant.

Harry Partch's Genesis of a Music is a pretty enlightening look at microtonality, equal temperament, and music education but it is a damn chewy read that I'd only recommend for those willing to put a lot of effort into it. It was tough for me, at least.

Deathconsciousness is a booklet that accompanies the album of the same name by Have a Nice Life. Daniel Barrett of HANL repeated this concept with the self-titled debut from his project Giles Corey. I've yet to read either.

Quote:
Originally Posted by grindy View Post
Derek Bailey - Improvisation
A great look into the way improvisation was and is prevalent in lots of diverse musical styles.
I read this recently and predictably loved it. He gets pretty snarky about non-improvisers at the end.
__________________
Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Frownland is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-10-2020, 12:20 PM   #7 (permalink)
Cuter Than Post Malone.
 
Lucem Ferre's Avatar
 
Join Date: Sep 2015
Posts: 4,978
Default

What about Violent J's Behind The Paint?

He talks about how he used to throw bricks at prostitutes and the time he sexually assaulted Sheryl Crow at the final Woodstock.
__________________
Quote:
Lucem, you're right, it's silly to talk about what I would or wouldn't do IRL. Glad you brought it up. Maybe you should write an instrumental about it. I recommend a piano paired with a clarinet. With ambient sounds of you hanging from your shower curtain you ****ing failure.

Art Is Dead. Buy My ****.
Lucem Ferre is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-11-2020, 09:27 AM   #8 (permalink)
...here to hear...
 
Lisnaholic's Avatar
 
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: He lives on Love Street
Posts: 4,444
Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by OccultHawk View Post
Boring af
I wonder if you arrived at this conclusion after going through the same reactions as me:
i) Relief that it wasn't Tarantula vol II
ii) Surprise at how accessible and unpretentious Bob's writing was
iii) Disappointment at how little it ultimately revealed about the great man
__________________________________________________ _________

Quote:
Originally Posted by Frownland View Post
Harry Partch's Genesis of a Music is a pretty enlightening look at microtonality, equal temperament, and music education but it is a damn chewy read that I'd only recommend for those willing to put a lot of effort into it. It was tough for me, at least.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lucem Ferre View Post
What about Violent J's Behind The Paint?
He talks about how he used to throw bricks at prostitutes and the time he sexually assaulted Sheryl Crow at the final Woodstock.
I guess I'll forever be a dillitante about music because Violent J's book sounds so much more interesting than Harry Partch's.
__________________________________________________ ______

I'd forgotten that Keith Richards wrote a book, Marie. Thanks for the reminder. His book falls into what is probably the biggest category of musicians' books: Memoirs and autobiogs. And if your journals get published posthumously, does that count as writing a book? If so, Kurt Cobain deserves a mention here too.

To judge from grindy and Frownland's reading, the next category could be Musical Analysis and Manifestos, with a last category of Other. I don't know how big the "Other" category might be, but it includes a fair amount of self-indulgent material that probably doesn't appeal much today. That certainly describes Cohen's Beautiful Losers, which I once attempted to read - and here are two samples from books by J Lennon and J Morrison, whose books at least share the great virtue of brevity:

...
__________________
"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953
Lisnaholic is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-11-2020, 09:43 AM   #9 (permalink)
one-balled nipple jockey
 
OccultHawk's Avatar
 
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: Dirty Souf Biatch
Posts: 22,006
Default

Quote:
Disappointment at how little it ultimately revealed about the great man
That was really the crux of it.
__________________

2016 2017 2018 2019 2020

Member of the Year & Journal of the Year Champion

Behold the Writing of THE LEGEND:

https://www.musicbanter.com/members-...p-lighter.html

OccultHawk is offline   Reply With Quote
Old 07-11-2020, 10:35 AM   #10 (permalink)
ask me about cosmology
 
Mindy's Avatar
 
Join Date: Oct 2016
Location: Milky Way Galaxy
Posts: 8,975
Default



Waited outside in line at the base mall (px) to buy this back when it came out. Read it and realized it wasn't for listeners like me. More for people who literally don't understand some lyrics and have to be "decoded" for others who don't get it. It had photos in it and made it fun to read.
Mindy is online now   Reply With Quote
Reply


Similar Threads



© 2003-2024 Advameg, Inc.