What Are You Reading?

[Strider]

Saw this at the bookstore yesterday, does anyone have a brief recommendation whether it is worth picking up or not?

Sure Walter, it's worth a tussle in bed...try to find it used so you can get it cheap. And while reading it, it's worth keeping in mind there's 3 sides to a relationship: his, hers and the truth.

[Walter]

Thanks Strider, I appreciate the input. I need some light reading for the beach next week!

[spidersandsnakes]

A great read, a companion to 'The Dark Stuff', his collection of articles from 70s NME & elsewhere. Quite a bit of LZ content, including a tale I hadn't heard before about Peter Grant sitting on a sleeping Vernon Presley

Kent's taste mirrors mine uncannily, so I was delighted when I came across this passage concerning my ultimate hated group (yes, I DO hate them), which I found so amusing and spot-on that I'm gonna type it out for you all:

'My next assignment was a sudden lurch from the sublime [Nick Drake] to the ridiculous. NME had found a patron to pay for my round-trip airfare to LA and a weeks' worth of hotel bills - after which I was to be left to my own devices. There was one snag, however: the patron was Jethro Tull.

'In Christopher Headlington's lofty tome A History of Western Music, Claude Debussy is quoted as having once claimed that he favoured featuring flute in the foreground of many of his compositions because he felt the slender wind instrument possessed the mystical power 'of a melancholy Puck (the mischievous sprite in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream) questioning the hidden meaning of things'. But Jethro Tull leader Ian Anderson showcased it in his own repertoire for less poetic reasons. He tootled away on it because it added a suitably mellifluous 'age of Aquarius' tonality to his group's otherwise generic late-sixties blues-rock bleatings and because it was also a useful prop for his incessant human-scarecrow posturing whenever he found himself in front of a paying audience.

'The Tull had started out as trailblazing 'crusties' but soon jettisoned their initial 'playing the blues for greatcoat-sporting students who rarely wash themselves' gameplan to climb aboard the good ship 'prog rock' and seek their fortune through playing electrified madrigals in 7/4 time with lyrics about high-born lusty temptresses beating stable-boys' naked buttocks with a riding crop. Against all conventional logic, their new direction paid off like a one-armed bandit choking up its entire contents of coinage to some dumb-lucky gambler. By 1975 they were one of the world's biggest-selling musical attractions. In America they could sell out all the mega-barns any promoter could throw at them. In Los Angeles alone, they'd been booked for four consecutive nights at the prestigious 20,000-seater-capacity Felt Forum. That's what I'd essentially been flown in to trumpet back to the home front. They seemed to think I'd happily adapt to the role of becoming their token media shill but as usual I had other more personal agendas to pursue.

'Their US press officer - a shrill, hyperactive Bobbi Flekman lookalike with a voice like paint-stripper - met me at the airport and then drove me straight to the first of the Felt Forum shows previewed for that evening. I was already in a bad way from the jet lag - as well as probable drug withdrawal - and considered my imminent fate much like a prisoner about to face the gallows. Marshalling a half-hearted stiff upper lip, I staggered into the huge auditorium only to find myself in a scene to rank with Dante's Inferno: 20,000 double-ugly Americans going gaga over a musical spectacle so bizarre that it beggared description and which none of them could have even remotely comprehended. If they had, they wouldn't have been there in the first place. Each song the Tull performed was as long and windy as a discourse on agrarian reform in the nineteenth century, and to top it all they'd incorporate old Monty Python sketches into their routine and pretend to their Yankee rube fan base - who'd yet to see Python on the telly in their country - that they were doing something audaciously original. I couldn't believe my eyes and ears. Where was the appeal? Why all the bums on seats? I asked Anderson these very questions later and even he was at a loss to explain his group's popularity. But I already knew - it was bad taste, pure and simple. They say good taste is timeless. But bad taste has been around just as long and is invariably more lucrative'.

Kent goes on to score some smack via Iggy Pop, and since he has no money apart from traveller's cheques, he buys a hairdryer and other stuff the dealer fancied from the hotel shop on room service, and charged it all to Tull. CLASS!

Very good book....makes me want to read it again:)....thanx for the tip man :)

[spidersandsnakes]

Lots of psychedelic books:)

By blackglove at 2011-06-20

[Emmy]

^Fantastic book!!

[spidersandsnakes]

By blackglove at 2011-06-20

[Black_Dog_90]

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

I'm reading this book for the second time. Great book and one of my favourite novels as well.

[spidersandsnakes]

By blackglove at 2011-06-26

[Strider]

Just got the new book of photographs by Linda McCartney published by Taschen.

Linda McCartney "Life in Photographs"

Many excellent candid photographs of Paul and the kids(talk about your IDYLLIC childhoods)...and many pop/rock stars of the day including some great ones of Eric Clapton.

There is only one Led Zeppelin/Yardbirds-related photo in the entire book, and that is this one:

Edited July 2, 2011 by Strider

[spidersandsnakes]

My payslip for June.....................wwoooooooohhhhoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo:):)!!!!!

By blackglove at 2011-07-01

[Virginia]

A "cozy" murder mystery about sleuthing and possibly supernatural cats. It's a fun and light read for summer.

[Kiwi_Zep_Fan87]

[BIGDAN]

Graham Hancocks "Fingerprints of the Gods"

[spidersandsnakes]

IRWIN ALLEN'S BIO....a HUGE movie director and producer :)!!!

By blackglove at 2011-07-05

[Janvier]

[Jahfin]

Just finished reading this book by Raleigh News & Observer music writer David Menconi on Ryan Adams. It's a very brisk read at less than 200 pages, which is supposed to be part of the purpose of the book. It's the second in a series of American Music books from the former publishers of No Depression magazine (the first one was on Dwight Yoakam). In the early stages of Ryan Adams' career, Menconi had unprecedented access to Adams which allows for some pretty compelling reading, especially if you are interested in that era of his career, prior to the solo records when he was still with Whiskeytown. That said, much of it was familiar territory to me since I was following David's writings and Ryan's antics pretty closely in those days but there's still a few revelatory things that made it well worth reading. Unfortunately, Ryan asked several principle folks not to cooperate with Menconi's writing of the book. However, that doesn't get in the way of his telling of the story as there are plenty of people out there that were close to Ryan that were able to add their own personal insights. One thing I might add is that the focus of the book is on Ryan's years in Whiskeytown. His solo career is covered up until the present day but somewhere following the release of Gold, Menconi no longer had the access he once had to Ryan.

Edited September 13, 2012 by Jahfin

[marlam]

[Led Zep Girl]

Light & Shade

[sickagain98]

As of this second, I have officially finished Return of the King. I have no idea what I should start on next.

[DavidZoso]

I have about 2 chapters to go and I will be finished with the Ann and Nancy Wilson-Heart book.

I picked up the Peter Criss autobiography

Frank Langella

Get The Led Out

Jimmy Page:Light and Shade

Rod Stewart

Neil Peart: Taking Center Stage- A Lifetime of Live Performance book

Barney Hoskyns: the oral history of the world's greatest band

Pink Floyd FAQ

The Rolling Stones: The complete recording sessions 1962-2012.

So I have plenty to keep me busy.

[paul carruthers]

[LedZeppfan77]

How can you guys read when you are on here 24/7 Im going to be reading the racing form soon for the BC

[Led Zep Girl]

How can you guys read when you are on here 24/7 Im going to be reading the racing form soon for the BC

It's called 'multi-tasking'.

[redrum]

That looks really interesting. Have to have the library order it.

I'm still reading Edward Teller's bio and just requested Nirvana's book on how their songs were created.

[Charles J. White]

The Theory of Money and Credit 1912 - Ludwig von Mises