Is it a coincidence that blog rhymes with bog? I wandered into the author's website looking for a discography of the bands discussed that was mentioned in Powell's review and from there to his blog and blogs he linked to and the next thing I knew I had lost an hour. Anyway this book which I just started is excellent. Loads of behind the scenes gossip and info. It is perfect compliment up who liked or read Legs McNeil's oral history of punk Please Kill Me a good read for anyone who came of age listening to music before and during the rise of MTV. At times though when he is talking about the music I feel like the narrator in Whitman's astronomy poem who wanders from the lecture outside to look at the stars but in my case I want to dig through my tapes and crank up some PIL. Although now that I think of it I didn't mind my astronomy class at UConn. The professor was a trip, we saw some cool things in a big telescope, the class was large so the curve was ridiculous, it counted as a Math class, and I learned about Tycho Brahe. Like that he had a metal nose due to a duel injury in his youth. What he did for astronomy? Not so sure anymore. Hmmmm... Tycho Brahe's Nose for the name of an 80's post-punk band? I like it.
P.S.
Someone mentioned that U.K version of book might be worth tracking down as some things more pointedly British may have been excised in the American printing.
1 comment:
Weird. Just last night a bunch of us old people were at Gabes when an X song came on the juke box and we started talking about all of our old favorite bands from that time - Black Flag, Dead Kennedy's and The Gun Club were a few of the names.
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