Eurock: European Rock & the Second Culture [Paperback] Review

At a time when music criticism has degenerated into little more than fawning declarations of "best ever", "profound", "unique" and any other in-the-service-of-sales bromide you can stomach, it becomes even more important to take serious note of what comes from people who truly love music.

As he tells us early on, Archie Patterson was raised on records. Music is such a big part of his life that he turns out to be the right man at the right time. Because, while the U.S. might have been drowning in disco during the 1970s, Europe was the home of some of the most compelling, innovative and advanced bands to ever perform or record. Compelling and important enough to lead to the publication of Eurock, which stands far apart in the world of fanzines as an authentic journal of the people, the bands and the ideas that continue to inform and shape the many forms of alternative music today.

The 700+ pages of "Eurock, European Rock & the Second Culture" is nothing short of the definitive word on alternative, experimental and progressive European music written from the perspective of listeners and enthusiasts committed to furthering the cause of an alternative music and the culture it represents. The book's scope is encyclopedic, providing criticism, reviews and interviews with artists and groups, articles on independent labels, technology and instrumentation. The book even offers a rare article by Lester Bangs on Amon Duul.

Organized chronologically, from 1973 - 2002, this book provides information about virtually every important and not-so-important independent and alternative artist you could hope to read about from Europe, the U.S., Japan and points beyond. But much more than music comes through. As the title implies, the writings in this book are part of a time of profound cultural change which was in many ways inseparable from the music in question. Patterson asks us to look not only at the music, but at the social and cultural context of what helped make such music possible, and do so through the voices of the musicians and their audience. It is this aspect of "Eurock, European Rock & the Second Culture" that makes it such an important and authoritative collection of thoughts and observations of music and how music operates in the world. And what you'll find is simply that what mattered in the early 1970s continues to matter today, and will always matter to those that understand music to be more than entertainment or distraction.

So while the current crop of self-styled critics can spare us only a minute or two to tell us and sell us that something is "great" while they already have their eyes and ears on whatever the industry tells them is "next",pull out your copy of Eurock and spend your time with the people and ideas that have remained true to music, for the love of music, for more than three decades.

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Product Description:
Over the span of 30 + years Eurock was the first ever magazine to focus on the burgeoning European Rock scene. It became a renowned subterranean trade publication devoted to Euro-Rock, hence the name "EUROCK". It moved well away from mainstream music and devoted itself exclusively to the realm of "serious listening". Covering experimental, progressive rock, space rock and electronic music, bands like - Can, Amon Duul 2, Tangerine Dream, Neu, Kraftwerk, Faust, Magma, Supersister, Wigwam and Savage Rose. Many of the groups covered would go on to later influence countless hundreds of other bands down the years.
EUROCK - EUROPEAN ROCK & THE SECOND CULTURE compiles all the magazines majoarticlesis into an amazing reference guide that belongs in the collection of all serious experimental rock music buffs.
A Special Bonus introduction is the previously unpublished article on Krautrock from 1971 by the late Editor of Creem Magazine and gonzo rock journalist extraordinaire Lester Bangs - "Amon Duul: A Science Fiction Rock Spectacle".
250 Pictures ~ 2,700 Artists Indexed

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After the Ball: Pop Music from Rag to Rock (Limelight) [Paperback] Review

That's how Ian Whitcomb unabashedly comments on his own writing in the afterword to the 2nd edition.The fact that it went into a second edition (1994, the 1st was in 1972) is in itself a plug for the books' worth.

"After the Ball" is the title of one of those evergreen songs many of us somehow know about, even in the age of hip-hop,though few of us have ever heard the song.Whitcomb takes this 1892 ballad and how it set the stage for what we understand as "popular music" and "hit song"as the starting point to trace the social and musical machinery that has been grinding out pop hits ever since.Though music has always been part ouf our culture, there were not always "smash hits" and "pop songs" as we understand them today: music created and sold especially to be million sellers with broad appeal.How did music get to this place? Where does that music come from?

There is a fascinating line to trace from the sentimental ballads of the parlor, through rag-time and race music right up to rock and roll."After the Ball" is not a scholarly study of that line. It's a well informed, loving backward glance.

The move from sheet music to recording. From the parlor to the street.The influence of the two great wars. Rag-time. Jazz (such scary music).Tin-Pan Alley (ever wonder just what that was? Find out here.). Hillbilly.All the threads tie together.Whitcomb uses some individuals to bring home the story and bring the book down to earth:WH.Handy's experience with racism; Jolson and the popularizing and melding of Vaudeville and minstrelsy; Kern and the rise of the jewels of broadway;the fall of the Alle; Allen Freed and rock `n roll; Elvis to the Beatles. To his credit, although he treats each thread in turn, Whitcomb never looses sight of the fact that none of those threads developed independently. By the time we get to rock, we find that the ghosts of the past are still with us.

If you've read a little of the history, you don't need to be told again about the effects of the strike against radio and how it affected the big bands and some of the broad facts.Whitcomb touches on those high points but paints a broader, more colorful picture and comes up with some interesting facts and explanations along the way.The impact of the war between BMI and ASCAPP and how it contributed to the rise of post-war, independent artists and labels.How the Alley model of writing songs and then plugging them gave way to producers creating and selling packaged music.

The rattling good read comes with Ian Whitcomb's style.He has a pretty cleaver way with a phrase. He can be downright arch (which must annoy some readers).Occasionally the story seems jumbled but that is because he is not isolating the story to one thread.It's not just "first it was rag-time and then came jazz".All these ingredients were bubbling in the same pot.Keep your eye on the larger phenomenon and the threads become clear.

There are occasionally lulls in the narrative and occasional reminiscences (rare actually, until the end where he appends a hilarious recounting of his rise to one-hit-wonderhood in the early 60's) It's alot of history to pack into a couple hundred pages, so yes some stuff is glossed. There are a couple chapters devoted to happenings in England, territory he knows well, that could be a distraction, but they fill a gap too often ignored when looking at American pop.

Though it is not a recent book, it does not come off as dated.Whitcomb has obvously done some home work and though the book does not have a scholarly tone, I could wish at times he would include some scholarly apparatus.I trust the author, but I'd like to check some of those facts and to know the sources.A bibliography would have been valuable.I suppose Evan Eisenberg's "The Recording Angel" fills the pop/scholarly bill. AndKen Emerson's marvelous "Always Magic in the Air" fill in some of the details of 50's-60's pop music history.

So if you are even remotely curious about the pre-history of rock or especially interested in the history of popular music; if you like a little humor with your scholarship, or a little scholarship with your humor, then "After the Ball" will be a rattling good read.

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Product Description:
An irreverent and engaging chronicle of popular music dating from the 1880s, when Tin Pan Alley was founded, to the present by a British-born songwriter and onetime pop star. "Brash, learned, funny, and perspicacious." - The New Yorker

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Tell the Truth Until They Bleed: Coming Clean in the Dirty World of Blues and Rock 'n' Roll [Paperback] Review

I learned of this book when listening to an interview with the author on the late night AM radio "Joey Reynolds Show" from WOR 710. As someone who came of age in the 60's and enjoyed a modicum of success in the music business, I found most of the book fascinating. The last few chapters cover more obscure artists which held little interest for me. Even though there is no reference to the cover, I assume it's a photo of Frankie Lymon. The title and cover picture gives no indication of the book's contents and I would have passed it by if I saw it in a bookstore. Overall, it's an interesting read and I recommend it to readers who are interested in learning about how the music business operated some 40 years ago. I'm glad I bought the book!

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Product Description:
A wild insider's ride with one of music's most notorious journalists.Here are 15 music profiles, guaranteed to keep you on the edge of your seat.Leiber & Stoller, the white fathers of R&B and rock and roll, who possess what is perhaps the last great untold story of the music biz. They created the American songbook of the '50s and '60s, led by Elvis, the Coasters, and the Drifters.Doc Pomus, the only white blues singer in America making records in the 1940s. Half of the hit songwriting team of Pomus-Shuman during the Brill Building era, Doc had the biggest heart in the music business.A sad, comic-tragic romance with the Ronettes' Ronnie Spector, dubbed an "oldie" once she left her teens.

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Celtic Crossroads [Paperback] Review

This book is a meaty little tome, 392 pages of entertaining text with a small, b/w picture section in the middle. I got my copy two days ago andhave found it hard to put down since.Despite his PhD in poetry and myth,Hinton doesn't go for academic jargon at all. The writing is brisk anddown-to-earth. Hinton is confident not only in his literary knowledge butalso in his encyclopedic knowledge of popular music, which enables him toput Van in interesting contexts at times.
Still, I've noticed a fewfactual errors and odd omissions (he doesn't know that the Bottom Line '78MC is Peter Wolf), and the writing sometimes seems rushed, especially thelast few chapters. Also, there are lapses in tone (Hinton will often jumpout of his authorial character to address the reader with a chummyquestion) and paragraphs that jump from one topic to anotherdisconcertingly.
Hinton seems to have about five main goals.
To arguethat Van Morrison is indeed a very fine poet, albeit one who's poetryrelies on its musical context. Hinton takes issue with the Johnny Rogan andJohn Collis books on this subject.To assert that VM's artistry is at itsbest during live performances. To demonstrate this, Hinton goes into greatdetail comparing the oft-booted Fillmore West 1970 show to MOONDANCE,arguing that the live versions of the MOONDANCE songs are more vital andinteresting than the studio versions. (I can't agree in this particularinstance - and *I* personally tend to feel that while the argument might betrue with Van's '90s work, the studio was where Van tended to be mostcomfortable and vital in the '70s and early '80s.)To make a strong casefor albums that critics often denigrate, such as TUPELO HONEY and COMMONONE, although he isn't afraid to come down hard on some titles (HIS BANDAND THE STREET CHOIR, A PERIOD OF TRANSITION). And he comes right out andsays that one of his primary motivations was to champion VEEDON FLEECE, analbum that he feels deserves a stronger status than that of "cultfavorite."To write a book that functions as a clearing-house of VMinformation. In this, he succeeds fairly well. There is very little Vanknowledge, lore, and minutiae that is absent. Hinton has done an amazingamount of secondary research and incorporated it generously into the book.He has even immersed himself in back issues of THE VAN MORRISON NEWSLETTERand WAVELENGTH as well as many underground tapes and boots (from thearchives of Geoff Wall), although I wish he'd taken more time to let allthe info. digest before spewing it out in the book, sometimes rathercluelessly. Overall, Hinton's use of secondary research is one of thebook's strengths. Unfortunately, there seems to be little *primary*research; most of his interview material seems gathered from the work ofhis predecessors: Ritchie Yorke, Johnny Rogan, Steve Turner, and even JohnCollis.To avoid the "wounded-journalist" bitterness thatovertook the Rogan and Collis books. Hinton doesn't stint on reporting manyinstances of VM's rude, SOB behavior, and he doesn't try to defend it, buthe also avoids moralizing about it or allowing it to (dis)color his view ofthe music.I'm sure Hinton has several other agendas in writing this book,but these are the five that stand out for me. I do recommend the book.Although the other books do more face-to- face research, and although theTurner book is the most cogent and revelatory regarding Van's spiritualconcerns, this big clearing-house project may be the most purelyentertaining volume yet written on the subject.

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Product Description:
Containing a host of new stories and personal accounts and interviews with those who know him, this new edition fully updates Van's tours, albums, top 40 single and musical collaborations.

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Stevie Wonder - A Musical Guide to the Classic Albums (Book) [Paperback] Review

Stevie Wonder deserves to be treated as he is here, an important classic composer.His music from the 1970s will be listened to longer than most of the music that has been produced during our life times.Ignore the author's downplaying of Secret Life of Plants and even Songs in the Key of Life.I don't know what he was thinking there, especially because his insight on Where I'm Coming From through Innervisions is usually right on.I disagree with him, however, when he seems to imply that Stevie would not have made great albums without the production of Margouleff and Cecil.With those songs and his talent, he would have made great albums no matter what.The synthesizers just wouldn't have sounded as great.

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Product Description:
Stevie Wonder, winner of 19 Grammy Awards and a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, is a much-beloved American icon and an indisputable genius not only of soul and rhythm and blues, but also popular music in general. Author Steve Lodder tells Wonder's story from a fresh musical perspective, concentrating on his most productive period, 1971-1981. After an in-depth look at Wonder's background and his early history with Motown, Lodder explores in detail the musical characteristics and influences found on the classic albums from the '70s: Music of My Mind, Talking Book, Innervisions, Fulfillingness' First Finale, and Songs in the Key of Life. Taking full advantage of the new opportunities afforded by synthesizer technology and multitracking, and inspired by the lyrical depth of Marvin Gaye and Sly Stone, Wonder created a series of albums as popular as they are acclaimed. The book features 80 color and B&W photos - many never before published.

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The Label: The Story of Columbia Records [Hardcover] Review

THE LABEL has to be one of the finest ever books about music, the music industry, and pop culture.And it has to be the coolest looking!It traces the history of Columbia Records from the invention of the phonograph to the present, and all the greats are there:Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, Barbra Streisand, Duke Ellington, Leonard Bernstein, Billie Holliday, Michael Jackson, Janis Joplin, Benny Goodman, Sinatra, Horowitz, Kostelanetz, and on and on!And of course Walter Yetnikoff and the ever-present Clive Davis.What a feast -- you won't want to put it down!The writing is very graceful and astute, filled with fascinating details about deals and star-making and egos, trends and manias and feuds and so on.And the book, with its multiple photo sections and 50 pages of footnotes, is impeccably researched.

Music fiends are going to adore this book - what a great gift idea!I'm giving it to several of my music-fanatic friends, 'cause I know they'll REALLY like it.Very hip.GREAT COVER.A book to disappear into for days...

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Blues, Jazz and Rock Riffs for Keyboards (Instructional) [Paperback] Review

This is a good book for anyone who hasn't played much rock or blues.The book is full of riffs - however, I found that there were sometimes riffs that were almost identical.You might play 2 pages of riffs, but it really is 2-3 riffs with some variations.

I'm not saying that this is particularly bad - especially if you would benefit from working on and perfecting some good finger patterns.These are mainly usable riffs and if you got used to playing them, I think you'd find that you use them a lot.

One of my favorite parts of this book happens to be when Mr. Eveleth writes short compositions that use these riffs one right after the other.This really gives a feel as to how you might go about using these riffs in a practical setting.

Also, almost everything is in the key of C.There are some benefits to this - but if you're going to get your money from this book, better be ready to either write out transpostions, or better yet, learn to transpose in your head.If you get all these riffs down in C, F, G and perhaps Bb and Eb, you will be able to play them without problem in most of the songs you'll come across.

I didn't personally spend much time with this book.I read through it once at the keyboard - played around with the compositions a bit, played the riffs that I liked in a few keys and otherwise, I only get it out once in a while to find a new finger pattern or idea.

This is a pretty good book if you take into consideration a few of the limiations I've mentioned!I would recommend it!

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Product Description:
This book presents a practical approach to improvising through a system of patterns in a traditional blues style. Because so much of today's popular music has its roots in blues, the material included here is a vital component of jazz, rock, RandB, gospel, soul, and even pop. The author has compiled actual licks, riffs, turnaround phrases, embellishments, and basic patterns that define good piano blues and can be used as a basis for players to explore and create their own style.

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