And in that same sort of area, I'm trying to work out a pitch for a new book. The thing is, I've got two competing ideas: find a new twist on the saga of the Beatles, and add to the long and illustrious list of tomes on that subject; or do something a little further from the epicentre of ordinary but, by definition, potentially less commercially viable. Like, for example, a pop cultural reappraisal of Dire Straits. What do you reckon?
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Money for something
LibraryThing continues to throw up new delights; most recently, a new member operating under the name of golgroove, who apparently owns a single book, or at least just the one that s/he will admit to. Can you guess what it might be?
And in that same sort of area, I'm trying to work out a pitch for a new book. The thing is, I've got two competing ideas: find a new twist on the saga of the Beatles, and add to the long and illustrious list of tomes on that subject; or do something a little further from the epicentre of ordinary but, by definition, potentially less commercially viable. Like, for example, a pop cultural reappraisal of Dire Straits. What do you reckon?
And in that same sort of area, I'm trying to work out a pitch for a new book. The thing is, I've got two competing ideas: find a new twist on the saga of the Beatles, and add to the long and illustrious list of tomes on that subject; or do something a little further from the epicentre of ordinary but, by definition, potentially less commercially viable. Like, for example, a pop cultural reappraisal of Dire Straits. What do you reckon?
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22 comments:
I'd go for the new Twist (and possibly even the odd Shout) on the Beatles meself Timster.
Myles Palmer (author of the definitive Wenger text, "The Professor" and eminence rouge et blanc behind the Arsenal News Review) has beaten you to the Dire Straits tome, I'm afraid.
A shame, because if there's one epic 19 minute song about the development of tele-communications in the United States of America that could do wityh deconstructing, it's got to be 'Telegraph Road'...
How about an imagining of John and Paul's solo careers and how they might have influenced each other post-Beatles. You know, No Wonder you're a Single Pigeon - yer feckin' Crippled Inside...and so on...
I'm sure you'll think of something...
Bob
p.s. You could always try to disentangle one of Pasul Morley's longer sentences and try to find some meaning in it. I'm sure there are a couple of books in there...
The fab Four have been done to death.
however...
Dire Straits went from Pub Rockers to virtual inventors of Stadium Rock and shiny CD's in an incredibly short space of time, and Mark Knopfler has to be in the top 10 best guitarists ever. They went into very unfashionable mode but are due to come out the other side like Rolf Harris - a reassessment now could just catch the mood!
PS I've belatedly discovered the brilliant Word Magazine, and their podcast. There was a wonderful story about Primal Scream and Luton Airport at the end of last week's edition.
Fak the Beatles, fak Mark Knopfler and fak Dire Straits, I vote for a gaelic language retrospective of Status Quo.
Bugger the Beatles, go for Dire Straits
Yeah, Dire Straits. I was a teenage Straiter after I heard them on the Charlie Gillett show. I would have seen them at the Marquee only I was too nervous of Soho to go by myself. I plucked up the courage to go and see Any Trouble there not long after, though. Story of my life. Just imagine, I could be married to Diana Spencer now. We could have three grown up children and be living in luxurious splendour.
direstraitsdirestraitsdirestraits!
They were my favourite band when I was 11 until I heard Some Candy Talking and things went ... and I ended up like this.
I like Word Mag too Murph. I think I'm their only female subscriber though.
Seems to be a groundswell of Knopflerism here. I never liked them much, but I find their precipitous fall from ubiquity in the mid-80s (the urban myth is that at one point more people in Britain owned a copy of Brothers in Arms on CD than owned a CD player) to the outer reaches of unfashionability is a story in itself.
But there's still meat on them Beatle bones, I reckon...
I've got to put in a vote for Dire Straits as well; my early musical formation having gone along startlingly similar lines to Spinny's. God bless the brothers Reid for saving us both from having to marry Diana.
PS Ooh, look at that new Blogger feature - now you can get follow-up comments emailed to you! More massive time-wasting bollocks ahoy!
If you take on Chris Rea too, you could call it 'Dire Rea: Squits for Free'.
I'm so terribly sorry about that.
I personally think a serious analysis of The Rutles is long overdue. Some of their songs put plagiarism in a whole new light and Ron's meeting with Chastity certainly changed my life.
What about Duran Duran?
Exactly, Billy. What about them?
Oh great, Geoff's going to *reappraise* his old Dire Straits albums, just as I was planning to give them all to the local Scope shop, thinking he wouldn't notice.
What about a re-evaluation of Val Doonican's career? That crazy motherf*cker's shit is for real.
Noooooooooooo! You might turn into a man made out of lego in the most irritating video ever. A place where you can get your 'chicks for free'. Hmmm. Interesting. Semiotics of lego and chicks...oh go on then.
Dire Rea...hmmm...
The oldies are the still the best, eh Chris...?
Tim,
I vote for the Beatles. What their music means to the children of their original fans, who are getting older and crankier... what people find in the music and why (there is bound to be a crackpot goldmine there)... They're still as influential as ever -- even if it's Radiohead trying to avoid an "Eleanor Rigby" sound... so it'd be interesting to hear something about that, new millennium, and all of the new reasons for paranoia that have hit us since Lennon left... Etcetera.
That's my vote, though I give Mark Knopfler 10 points for his solo stuff and think that Dire Straits would be, well, easier to interview (do you have Ringo on speed dial?).
beatles. someone needs to skewer the myth of their god-like powers once and for all. heal the sick indeed.
something along the lines of how the way they were MARKETED changed music.
Looks like Straits 5, Fabs 3. Hooda thunkit?
Before the book, maybe you can write a CiF piece about this for the new Guardian America--like that makes any sense in this day and age.
What kind of angle were you thinking of taking on Dire Straits?
I'm always up for a bit of cross-media synergy, Mrs Peel.
Patroclus: just something about how a band that was once so huge can have been erased so efficiently from the canon. They're not even derided (like, say, Genesis or Bon Jovi). They're just not there.
Oh yes, you said that earlier, and I missed it, doh. Surely Genesis and Bon Jovi are derided because they tried (and keep trying) to outstay their welcome, by going on comeback tours and stuff. At least Dire Straits did the decent thing and (I assume) retired gracefully once everyone in the country had bought a copy of Brothers in Arms.
Oh no, I am now also feeling a terrible compunction, like Geoff, to 'reappraise' the Dire Straits oeuvre. A lovestruck Romeo, tum ti tum...
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