Author:Alastair Campbell

This excellent series of diaries is now in its eight volume. This period sees Campbell at something of a personal and professional crossroads, having departed in the main from day to day involvement in front line politics, although still acting as an ad hoc advisor to the Labour leadership. His main focus though has shifted to writing, public speaking and consultancy work, for which there seems to be no shortage of takers, as well as acting as ambassador to a number of mental health charities, an area which is very close to his heart. Inevitably perhaps, with the Cameron led coalition in power, he feels guilty at not doing more to help the Labour Party and Ed Milliband in particular, but is reluctant to be drawn back into the arena, and is also still embroiled in the Chilcot and Leveson Inquiries. The strongest and most poignant writing, however, comes when he writes of the upheavals in his personal life – the deaths of his mother and of his close friend and colleague Philip Gould, and the descent of his son into alcoholism, a problem faced by Campbell himself in earlier years. This first class (and lengthy) read, concludes » Continue Reading.

Author:Stephen Lambe / Per Nilsen

Both of these very different books are offshoots from the long running On Track series, hence the combined review.

The Focus title takes an in depth look at the decade in which the band produced its most influential work with a fine series of groundbreaking albums. My own Focus period runs from 1971’s Moving Waves set through Focus III, Hamburger Concerto and ends with 1975’s Mother Focus. Listening back to these in the course of reading this book, the band certainly produced some superb inventive music at their creative peak, with the epic Eruption rivalling Close To The Edge, Supper’s Ready et al as one of the defining side long pieces that were very much de rigeur in the prog world at the time. The author also takes a welcome look at the numerous solo efforts produced by Akkerman and Van Leer – I’m not particularly a fan of the latter’s almost light classical efforts, but some of Akkerman’s work is very good indeed and well worth investigating if you’re not familiar with it. A very well put together book, effectively a potted history of the band, which looks at each album on a song » Continue Reading.

Author:John ‘Drumbo’ French

This is the third edition of this mammoth tome, which actually has been out of print of late, and coincides with what would have been the good Captain’s eightieth year. It’s certainly comprehensive, running to over 800 pages of pretty small print and covering Drumbo’s career from joining the Magic Band at the tender age of seventeen in 1966 for the Safe As Milk album up to his eventual departure in 1980. As has been widely documented, Beefheart was a hard, bordering on abusive, taskmaster who appears to have ruled by fear at times. The book certainly pulls no punches in that respect, although of course Beefheart isn’t around to defend himself. There are extensive interesting interviews with most of the key players from the Magic Band and also from the Mothers of Invention – Frank Zappa, as you’d expect, turns up frequently throughout these pages, initially as friend and collaborator and later as musical nemesis. There’s certainly plenty of in depth detail on the records the author played on, and the book includes over ninety pages of detailed track notes on the individual songs, which leave no stone unturned in terms of composition and recording. The » Continue Reading.

Author:Richard Thompson

Subtitled ‘Fairport, Folk Rock and Finding My Voice 1967-75’, this is a book that really does what it says on the tin. By that, I mean it takes an in depth look at the author’s life over arguably his most fertile period creatively, namely the Fairport years and the records he made with his then wife Linda. The book begins with a brief look at his early years before moving on to meeting his future band mates and their adventures on the road and in the recording studio as they brought folk rock firmly into the public eye with their modernising of traditional songs and sounds. Thompson comes across as a pleasant, self-effacing sort of guy, who modestly underplays his own composing and playing talents, which were a huge part of the band’s sound. For someone who is such an accomplished wordsmith, he is sometimes a little reticent, but the best writing here is on those no longer with us, notably Sandy Denny and Dave Swarbrick, and of course drummer Martin Lamble and girlfriend Jeannie Franklyn, both tragically killed in a road accident in 1969, the occurrence and aftermath of which is movingly yet precisely described. The other » Continue Reading.

Author:Gerald Seymour

I’ve read every one of Gerald Seymour’s novels since his debut with Harry’s Game, unbelievably forty five years ago now, and I have to say he very rarely disappoints. His thrillers aren’t all action blockbusters, instead concentrating on constructing believable real world characters and plot lines, slow burners that inevitably and inexorably build to an exciting climax. This new one is no exception, introducing a George Smiley like MI5 man who has a reputation as a reliable but unspectacular desk jockey who never sees any front line action himself. He is tasked with tracking a British Jihadi returning from the conflict in Syria to commit a final headline-grabbing act of terrorism to avenge fallen comrades and pay back a society he feels has wronged him since childhood. The pursuit initially is more mental than physical as his potential movements are plotted and predicted, and it’s only really in the book’s final section that, as the tension mounts, the action springs to life after a long build up. You can probably hazard a good guess at the eventual outcome, although the ending has quite an ingenious turn of events that took me by surprise. A fine read if you » Continue Reading.

Author:Chris Sutton/Steve Pilkington

Two new additions to this series which runs alongside the On Track books, but which concentrates on an artist’s work in a specific decade, in this case the seventies. Listening to the big Alice Cooper albums of the first half of that decade takes me right back to my early teenage years – Killer, Schools Out, Billion Dollar Babies and Welcome To My Nightmare are all still great listening. The book takes a song by song look at each album, actually starting with Pretties For You (included even though it was released in 1969) and running through all the ‘band’ albums, followed by the solo efforts from later in the decade, ending with 1978’s From The Inside. Between each album, the author looks at what was happening within the band itself, featuring some new interesting insights by key figures from the time, including original band members Dennis Dunaway, Neal Smith and Michael Bruce. Sadly, but perhaps unsurprisingly, there’s no input from The Coop himself, but nevertheless this is a really informative and critical look at the band and their work over the frantic period from its formation to eventual disintegration after 1974’s Muscle of Love album and » Continue Reading.

Author:Kevan Furbank/Jez Rowden/Matt Phillips

Could there be three more different artists than the latest subjects of these books, two of which I am reasonably familiar with, the other barely at all. Gong first then….I recall buying Camembert Electrique from Virgin nearly fifty years ago, mainly because of its bargain price, around the fifty pence mark I believe. It was certainly an ear (and mind) opener, but it must have triggered something, as over the subsequent years I seem to have acquired Flying Teapot, Angels Egg and Shamal as well. Listening to them again after such a long time has been fun, and has certainly brought back some memories. I think my tastes must have moved on at that point though, as I lost track of the band for many years thereafter, only becoming reacquainted with them on 2019’s excellent The Universe Also Collapses, which I highly recommend if you’re not already familiar with it. Of course, the current line up bears no resemblance to that of the original band, only the brand name remains intact, and for me the Daevid Allen and Steve Hillage era will always be the definitive one. There’s certainly some good listening in their extensive back » Continue Reading.

Author:Alan Parks

Harry McCoy returns in the next volume in this now well established crime series, set in Scotland in the seventies. This is the fourth story, and the characters are now like familiar old friends, the hard boiled detective McCoy, his childhood friend and now nemesis, crime boss Stevie Cooper, he and McCoy are like opposite sides of the same coin, and not forgetting McCoy’s up and coming sidekick Wattie. The novel is set in the Glasgow of 1974, where a home made bomb explodes in a flat and turns out to be the precursor to a wider campaign across the city by an unknown group. Meanwhile an American sailor disappears from the US base at Holy Loch, and a friendly warning passed on to a fellow officer leads McCoy into the deep waters of the IRA. As with the previous novels, this is an excellent read for fans of fast paced, gritty crime novels, lots of drinking and violence, and with a cleverly constructed plot that really captures the urban, social and political landscape in the early seventies. Really enjoyed this, the only problem now is the twelve months wait for the next one, especially as the author » Continue Reading.

Author:Peter Robinson

This is, almost unbelievably, the twenty seventh Alan Banks book, featuring the music loving police officer and his usual team. It is a novel that can be read as a stand-alone work, but it works far better if you’ve read at least some of the previous stories so you know the characters and their back stories and relationships, not to mention the plot and how it’s reached the point from where this tale picks up. In summary, we have a gruesome double murder with apparent links to the Albanian mafia, the rape of a young woman and a kidnapping of one of Banks’ close friends. It soon becomes apparent that the three investigations are interlinked, with a couple of clever plot twists at the denouement. This is a cleverly put together crime novel, which fans of the genre and of course of this series will undoubtedly enjoy. It ends though on quite a downbeat note, which makes one wonder what plans the author has for the future of this long running series.

Length of Read:Medium

Might appeal to people who enjoyed…

Police procedurals, Peter James and the like.

One thing you’ve learned

I always thought the original novels » Continue Reading.

Author:Rose Simpson

This intriguing book is subtitled ‘A Girl’s Life in The Incredible String Band’, and is an account of the author’s time in the band from roughly 1967 to 1971. I suppose it’s easy to forget now how innovative and influential ISB were, and how successful they were both in terms of record sales and as a live draw. I’m sure many of us at the very least owned a copy of The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter, and remember hearing that extraordinary music for the first time. This isn’t a conventional autobiography as such, the chapters being arranged more around themes than in strict chronological order, giving an insight into how a no nonsense Yorkshire lass whose main interest was mountaineering transformed herself, along with band mate Licorice, into something of a hippy pin up for a new and alternative way of living. In fact, the book is as much about the hippy lifestyle of that period as it is about the band and its music. Rose makes no great claims to having been a talented musician, but perseverance and patience enabled her to move from initially being something of a fish out of water to become a fully-fledged member » Continue Reading.

Author:Richard James

When I think of UFO, songs that immediately spring to mind are the likes of Doctor Doctor, Lights Out and Rock Bottom to pick out just a few high points. From personal experience over the years I can vouch for them being a super live band, especially in the glory days of the Michael Schenker era, but although they enjoyed decent success here and in the US, for some reason they never quite seemed to be able to take that final step up into the big league. I’m not so sure their music warrants the type of song by song dissection offered here, but having said that these books are produced by fans for fans, and if UFO are your thing then this offers a rare opportunity to read about their career in this kind of detail. It certainly gives in depth coverage of the numerous ups and downs of their career, the break ups and reformations, the classic Schenker era albums, the subsequent Paul Raymond years and their long decline in later years, ultimately petering out with a series of pretty forgettable albums. For me, this is a band best appreciated by digging out albums like Obsession » Continue Reading.

Author:Campbell Devine

Subtitled ‘Hunter by Proxy’, this is the second and concluding part of this authorised biography by Mott/Hunter authority Campbell Devine. It picks up where events ended in the first book, with the break up of Mott the Hoople, and Hunter setting out on what was to become a lengthy and varied solo career, and runs right up to the present day. Along the way, it charts his working relationship and enduring friendship with Mick Ronson, who was to become a vital cog in the Hunter machine, a collaboration that would continue on and off until Ronson’s untimely passing in 1993. This is an impressively researched book with extensive quotes from Hunter himself plus numerous friends, band members and contemporaries, and covers in great depth, down to a song by song level, his many solo albums – indeed his was a solo career that went off with a bang then faded almost into obscurity before an Indian Summer type resurgence in more recent years. Indeed, his latest run of albums from the turn of the millennium onwards has undoubtedly seen his best work since his first solo record all those years ago. The two Mott reunions of the classic » Continue Reading.

Author:Syd Barrett

There have been a number of books written about Syd Barrett over the years, but perhaps surprisingly his collected lyrics were never published in authorised form during his lifetime. This book seeks to provide a definitive catalogue of his full body of work, with David Gilmour being closely involved in checking the content of each song. Produced in conjunction with the Barrett estate, this is a necessarily short volume, but is produced on top quality paper with some nice rare photographs, and includes a brief preface by former Floyd manager Peter Jenner and a lengthy introduction by the author of the ‘A Very Irregular Head’ biography, Rob Chapman, who has put the book together. All fifty two of Syd’s lyrics, for Pink Floyd and his solo albums, are simply presented in alphabetical order, although a few details on their date and the album they were from would have been a useful addition I feel. (Having said that, anyone buying this book will probably have that information stored away already.) As with all books of this type, some lyrics read well as stand alone pieces while others really miss the musical accompaniment we’ve become used to. Barrett’s lyrics are » Continue Reading.

Author:Peter Kearns/Bill Thomas/Andrew Wild/David Detmer

Another four titles in this unwaveringly excellent series, firstly looking at the albums of certainly one of the most iconic figures in seventies music and maybe even beyond that, Joni Mitchell. My Joni period is really the run of albums from 1971’s Blue through to her undoubted masterpiece, 1976’s Hejira, but with honourable mentions for the next two records, the complex Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter and the jazz flavoured Mingus. I’ve never been that keen on her eighties and nineties work to be honest, but listening again in the course of reading this book, I may have been hasty in my assessment of that era as there are certainly some fine songs scattered among those albums, albeit inconsistently. Nevertheless, for me there’s nothing to match her peerless golden era of the early to mid seventies, which contains some of the most beautiful lyrics and music you could hope to hear. If you’re not familiar with her music you really need to put that right without delay – for fans, read this, relisten to the albums and luxuriate in her timeless music.

Another equally enigmatic female artist is next. Again, what a back catalogue she has, » Continue Reading.

Author:Nick Kent

I remember as a teenager eagerly buying the NME each week, my only connection to the world of rock music, desperately hoping it would contain an article by either of my favourite writers, Charles Shaar Murray and Nick Kent. I wonder if those names mean anything at all to people under the age of fifty (or maybe even sixty)! Be that as it may, Nick Kent resurfaces into the public gaze with his debut novel, a tale of a cult sixties rock band who achieve fleeting fame and notoriety before their flame quickly fizzles out, seemingly for good. Fast forward fifty years, and interest in the band is suddenly rekindled when their music is used in a series of adverts for a mobile phone. Trouble is, the guitarist and musical brain of the band is living off the grid in Amsterdam, while the feral front man, a ruthless deluded figure, equal parts opportunistic and narcissistic, leads an itinerant life, drifting from country to country, sponging off friends and fans until he outstays his welcome. Pound signs appear in his eyes when he learns of this sudden change in fortune, and he turns up at the home of the » Continue Reading.

Author:Darryl W Bullock

Subtitled ‘The gay men who ran the swinging sixties’, this very detailed and comprehensively researched book examines the lives, and particularly the influence on the burgeoning sixties music scene, of five key figures – Larry Parnes, Brian Epstein, Joe Meek, Robert Stigwood and Lionel Bart, and, to a lesser extent, celebrity lawyer David Jacobs. In many ways, the ‘gay’ aspect is a bit of a red herring as it’s really the only thing these disparate characters had in common. The book takes a detailed look at the music scene in the UK from the early sixties to the end of that decade and the rise and fall of this influential coterie of managers, composers and promoters and their stable of acts ranging from Billy Fury to The Beatles, who dominated that era. It’s certainly interesting to discover how such a wide range of acts fell under the influence of these father figure type impresarios, who worked them incredibly hard, often for little in the way of financial reward, casually discarding them when their time was up. It’s only on reading this that the reader fully appreciates just how interconnected these figures and their acts were, and how » Continue Reading.

Author:Stephen Leather

Stephen Leather is a new author to me, but looking at the long list of novels he’s written, including a couple of long running series, he’s been around for a good while but has somehow managed to slip under my radar. This one is a stand-alone story, rather in the vein of the Hector Cross novels by Wilbur Smith. It’s a fast paced tale with plenty of action and no wasted pages, although the plot, involving a group of ISIS terrorists being kidnapped by a millionaire whose family they have murdered, requires the suspension of disbelief at times. There isn’t a single chapter where the tale treads water though, with a clever case of mistaken identity thrown in to spice things up, and a nice twist right at the end too. An entertaining and undemanding way to pass the hours during lockdown. You’ll find yourself getting through this in one sitting as the short punchy chapters usually ending on cliff-hangers keep on tempting you in to reading just one more!

Length of Read:Medium

Might appeal to people who enjoyed…

Action thrillers, Wilbur Smith, Lee Child etc.

One thing you’ve learned

I’ll be digging into the author’s extensive list » Continue Reading.

Author:Stuart MacBride

Scottish crime writer Stuart MacBride temporarily puts aside the long running and highly successful Logan McRae series and here returns to the relatively new Ash Henderson stories, set in the town of Oldcastle. This is now the fourth novel featuring the regular cast of characters, and I’m pleased to say it’s every bit as good as the previous three. These novels are rather more hard edged and gritty than the McCrae ones, with rather less of their trademark quirky black humour, but they are, in their own way, on a par with them in terms of tension and excitement. This latest effort features a dual storyline of a child murderer being hunted by the police and the search for a newly identified serial killer who is on the run. If you’ve read the earlier novels, you’ll be familiar with the colourful figures that populate these stories, many of whom make a very welcome reappearance here as the search for the perpetrators intensifies. As the race to stop both killers striking again reaches its climax, both plot lines are cleverly resolved in a very satisfying and exciting climax. This is an excellent thriller that is right up there with » Continue Reading.

Author:Andrew Darlington

Subtitled ‘Days In The Life of The Beatles Spin Doctor’, this is the first biography of arguably one of the most enigmatic and important figures working behind the scenes of the music business in the sixties and seventies. Despite the claim above, Taylor’s career was much more than simply ‘spin doctor’ (even though that term hadn’t yet come into being) for the band, as he remained a friend and confidante of the individual members right up to his premature death in 1997. His methods as a press officer, initially for the band as Brian Epstein’s PA and then ultimately for Apple Corps, were well ahead of their time, and he also took his skills over the Atlantic in the mid sixties working for the likes of The Byrds and The Beach Boys as well as co-creating the Monterey Pop Festival. A colourful character who was at the heart of what was going on in the music scene of that crucial era, this comprehensive detailed book provides an interesting and very readable look back at his life and times.

Length of Read:Medium

Might appeal to people who enjoyed…

The Beatles, the sixties music scene.

One thing you’ve learned

There’s » Continue Reading.