Books about music.

[Sushov23]

Actually, you fucking brainless troll, I meant it was a little too academic. A few of the writers get a little caught up in their own "heads." It was a complaint about the book. Try again you fucking illiterate retard.

what the fuck man? I have a trademark on brainless troll. Ask Greghead. no I'm fucking around.

[TomAz]

I recently finished Who I Am, the Pete Townshend autobiography, and it wasn't as much of a clusterfuck as I feared it might be. The book is best describing pre-Who years, and at its worst in the pages and pages where he prattles on about life post-Who. On the latter, Christgau's review in the NYT hit it on the head:

...And in the not quite four years covered by the pertinent 23-page chapter, that job was only the beginning. In addition to overseeing many reprints and originals and having his life “enriched by time spent getting to know some of the more pre-eminent authors on Faber’s list,” he wrote a story collection for Faber. But in those same four years he also did extensive charity work, with prolonged attention to rehab programs and a shelter for battered wives; mastered a daunting new digital composing console; completed songs for an autobiographical film and a televised dance suite you never heard of and then began developing a children’s musical based on a story by his Faber pal Ted Hughes; organized a new band you never heard of; switched labels; produced an album for his brother; watched his father die; and did a lot of therapy. He also somehow maintained a marriage that had begun in 1968.

You have to be impressed, right? I am. But reflect briefly and you’ll see that cramming all this into 23 pages is unlikely to produce much of the detail and incident that make narrative taste good, and might stanch flow and coherence too. Entitled “Still Loony,” the chapter is an extreme instance that typifies a major problem, one that worsens as the book proceeds: because he wants to get everything in, including hundreds of dropped names, Townshend can’t take the time to make much come alive.

Worth reading, I suppose, if you are a fan. Nothing special otherwise.

[zircona1]

Haven't read this, but Heavier Than Heaven by Charles Cross is fantastic.

Also, Tearing Down the Wall of Sound, which is a biography of Phil Spector.

[fastmusicfan]

I enjoyed Our Noise, the story of Merge Records quite a bit. It's written by Mac and Laura and another guy? Also, Everybody Loves our Town by Mark Yarm was pretty good. Heavier than Heaven, as mentioned, was an enjoyable read. I'm a sucker for pretty much all the Klosterman stuff. Semi-related: The Chunklet "Books" (The Indie Cred Test, The Rock Bible, The Overrated Book, etc.) tend to be pretty damn hilarious and most of the rock nerds would really dig them, even if sometimes they hit a little too close to home.