Posts Tagged Autobiography
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October 8, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
What’s The Worst Music Bio You’ve Read?
I’ve never been as disappointed by a music bio/auto-bio as I was when reading the Bernard Purdie one; it’s hard to know what the book was even trying to be – it’s written in third person but claims to be an autobiography, there’s no attempt to even ‘get’ Purdie’s voice, there’s no real attempt to hide […]Archive
October 4, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
Cassandra Peterson: Yours Cruelly, Elvira
Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark Cassandra Peterson Hachette Books Growing up, Elvira: Mistress of The Dark was everywhere. We played the video game, we watched the movie. She popped up in pro-wrestling (Wrestlemania II) and was a fan of, and tagged alongside, horror movies and heavy metal. What wasn’t to […]Archive
June 8, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
Poem: The Hope To Not Repeat
the autobiography you never knew you’d write is the one you add to each and every night – confession here, reminder there – stories arrive when you sit to ponder, are they ‘good’ you almost never wonder, instead the job is to get them down – add to the files, surround yourself with reminders of […]Archive
May 22, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
Billie Eilish: Billie Eilish by Billie Eilish
Billie Eilish Billie Eilish Grand Central Publishing A couple of years ago my then-9-year old niece wanted to listen to her music in the car. Only fair. We’d had mine. And the 11-year-old nephew’s – and the 7-year-old son’s, it was her turn. And she wanted to listen to Billie Eilish. And this was of […]Archive
January 29, 2021 by Simon Sweetman
Books That Blew My Mind # 4: “Faithfull” by Marianne Faithfull
Faithfull by Marianne Faithfull (w/ David Dalton) Was reminiscing about this just recently; recommending it to my sister-in-law, saying that it was one of the great rock’n’roll reads actually. It found me at a formative time, I was at the peak of my Stones fandom and I was newly interested in all the characters – […]Archive
December 18, 2020 by Simon Sweetman
Books That Blew My Mind # 1: “Is That It?” by Bob Geldof
Is That It?, by Bob Geldof I’m often asked what my favourite music bio is – or favourite “music book” – and the answer I usually want to give is this, Bob Geldof’s autobiography. Except it isn’t really about music – and it wasn’t really the book that lit the fuse for me. It was […]Archive
September 4, 2020 by Simon Sweetman
Chris Frantz: Remain In Love
Remain In Love: Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Tina Chris Frantz St. Martin’s Press Talking Heads made nearly perfect music across 10 nearly perfect albums (eight studio, two live). There are post-punkers and people there at the time that swear only by the first four albums, thinking the second half of the band’s career some […]Archive
May 19, 2020 by Simon Sweetman
Tori Amos: Resistance – A Songwriter’s Story of Hope, Change, and Courage
Resistance: A Songwriter’s Story of Hope, Change, and Courage Tori Amos Atria Books As soon as I caught the news that it was happening I was excited about this book – I see myself as something of a lapsed-fan when it comes to Tori Amos; I have nothing but fond memories of the first few […]Archive
April 22, 2020 by Simon Sweetman
Neil Young & Phil Baker: To Feel The Music
To Feel The Music: A Songwriter’s Mission To Save High-Quality Audio Neil Young & Phil Baker BenBella Books Neil Young has written three books (so far) and I’m sure there’s the threat of more. He was never going to write a conventional memoir – even though that’s what Waging Heavy Peace technically was, then there […]Archive
March 18, 2020 by Simon Sweetman
James Taylor: Break Shot – My First 21 Years
James Taylor Break Shot: My First 21 Years Audible Originals It seems Audible (Amazon) is battling against Spotify and every other podcast platform – so they’re introducing original content that isn’t just 39 hours of a book being read by a BBC-grade thespian. There are now scripted fiction podcast and documentary podcast series’ exclusive to […]Archive
November 20, 2019 by Simon Sweetman