I don't remember this book that well... but it had good pieces on Marvin Gaye and Joni Mitchell.

book send as of 2/11/06

Got it today, thanks Amykinofallkins. Well get to it soon.

Well, I finally had some time to read this book and was very impressed.
This is quite the bible of cool Rock n’ Roll chronicles, of the past 40 years.
It doesn’t really matter which kind of music you like, if you’re a music lover (and no loving Linkin Park, Gwen Stefani or the Black Eyed Peas, doesn’t qualify you as one) you’ll love to read this book.
It’s divided into six parts: Stardust (in which you can read a great article about the Beatles first visit to the USA, another on how David Bowie built himself as a star, yet another of how The Boss was so broke he couldn’t pay his rent, even though he had two albums out, and a disturbing article about Nirvana and Cobain’s implosion); Close Encounters deals with interviews, a lot of them (Joni Mitchel, Marvin Gaye, Neil Young, Morrissey, Madonna, Ice Cube and Dylan); On The Scene has chronicles of…The Scene, of course, from the British punk explosion, to the Nashville corporate country, not forgetting flower loving San Francisco and the glittering Gotham of the NY Dolls; Congregations tells us how was the Monterey Pop Festival, how Mick Jagger’s stubbornness led to the chaos at Altamont and what Lollapalooza in 1991 meant; Then comes Live And Direct with reports from the road on The Grand Funk Railroad, The Band, Eric Clapton and Otis Redding; finally we have After The Fact, in which some writers give us a view of various musical trends, their meaning and influence, from Warhol to John Lennon not forgetting the Mod’s and Psychedelia (this is also where Nick Hornby tries to convince us that Abba really meant something musically, and fails miserably).
Some of the pieces are better than others and some more profound than the rest. The great thing about this book is that you find yourself enjoying pieces about bands that you never liked and some that you in fact hated, at least this happened to me (with The Beatles and Nirvana’s pieces…sorry, the Madonna piece is not that good).
This is going quite long so I’ll just choose a few of the pieces that I felt were over the top:
- The Beatles: Music’s Gold Bugs (1964)
- It’s Hard To Be A Saint In The City: Bruce Springsteen On The Blower (1974)
- Bob Dylan: Jesus, who’s got time to keep up with the times? (1984)
- The Golden Road: A Report on San Francisco (1967)
- Rebels Without a Pause: The Punk Rock Explosion (1976)
- Live From Nashville: A Limey at Large in Music City USA (1976)
- Altamont: An Eyewitness Account (1999)
- Give Peace A Chance! Grand Funk Railroad take Shea Stadium (1971)
- Sound and Visions: Psychedelia (1981)

RELEASE NOTES:

Now that you found it and read why not join Bookcrossing?