Monday, March 20, 2006

Cronies disease

Just a quick post to do that thing that literary journalists do around Christmas, in their Books of the Year spiels, and get soundly beaten up by Private Eye for their trouble; it's Plug Yr Mates' Creative Endeavour Time.

1. NME/Mojo/Rock's Backpages legend Barney Hoskyns will be reading from, and signing copies of his latest book Hotel California (4th Estate), about the LA music industry between 1967 and 1976, at Filthy McNasty's, 68 Amwell Street, London EC1 on Wednesday, 22 March. He will be joined by Steve Turner, who will be doing the same thing with his "no, nothing to do with the movie, honest" book The Man Called Cash - The Johnny Cash Story; and Daryl Easlea, author of Everybody Dance: Chic And The Politics Of Disco will, one presumes, do something similar that will get shamelessly ripped off by Queen. There will also be a musical set by folk-disco artiste Nancy Wallace. Entrance is free. Readings begin at 8.30pm.

2. A Mis-Guide To Anywhere is "a utopian project for the recasting of a bitter world by disrupted walking," created by Wrights & Sites in collaboration with Tony Weaver. No, me neither, but it sounds intriguing, and it launches at the ICA on 8 April.

3. No publication date as yet, but the fourth edition of Nicholas Pegg's monumental The Complete David Bowie, will be published by Reynolds & Hearn in the near future. This is the book that Bowie himself reads to find out what he was doing between about 1973 and last week. Only now it's bigger and definitiver. Like, almost as big as Trevor Bolder's sideburns. Almost.

5 comments:

Spinsterella said...

"folk-disco"?

"disrupted walking"?

How does anybody keep up? I'm glad I live in the (relative) sticks.

Tim F said...

I know, dear. And you hear the music they listen to? I prefer a good tune you can whistle, and a pint of mild.

West said...

Don't know about the Pegg book Tim, but the one they should reissue is Bowie: An Illustrated Record by Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray. The definitive guide to the man's discs up to and including Scary Monsters and featuring perhaps the best contextualising essay on the Dame ever penned (I presume by CSM) it bellows out for reprinting with all the keening tremelo allure of a Station to Station-era croon. I think it was a casualty of the demise of Eel Pie Publishing and haven't seen it anywhere for decades. I used to have a copy that a mate of mine "borrowed" and he's had it so long it must his in common law by now. But that's cartoonists for you - live in a badly drawn fantasy world, don't they?

If you can pull a few strings and swing a UK reprint, I'd do pretty much anything for you old son (as long as it's not TOO Hubert Selby Jr., of course.....)

Love on ya,

Bob


p.s. you and Spinny seem to be getting on L.A.H.O.F.......Top kidders!!

Tim F said...

Carr and Tony Tyler also did a very good Beatles book in the same series, also long out of print. God alone knows what the copyright situation is on these though. I'll ask around.

Spinny and I are just like Bowie and Lou Reed, but I'm not telling you which is which.

Anonymous said...

the Mis-Guide thing looks great. they are an Exeter based bunch, did the Exeter Mis-Guide book a few years ago which was ace; full of ideas for walking around the city doing fun art activities, situationism stylee. i chatted to one of the gang in the street one day after he spotted me taking photos of 'found' text. very pleasant and informed.