How Does It Feel is a different kind of autobiography. Instead of a linear narrative, Jim Lea - the final member of the fabled four-piece to tell their story - opens his heart in vignettes about not just his time in Slade, but his Staffordshire childhood, songwriting, family life, musicianship, his retreat into the world of the therapy and beyond, ......
At the turn of the millennium, Britain was suffering from a post-britpop hangover. The whirlwind successes of Oasis and Blur had fizzled out and the British music industry, stagnant and directionless, was churning out bland singer-songwriters, identikit girl-groups and boybands - music culture was a vacuum, waiting to be filled. However, across ......
Over the course of a remarkable sixty-year career, Taj Mahal has forged his own path, embracing a bold musical hybridity that fuses West African and Caribbean sounds with Delta blues, jazz, gospel and rock 'n' roll. In retracing his ancestral roots, Taj has remapped the foundational influences of popular music and reimagined the possibilities of a ......
Scotland's mid-eighties indie explosion didn't just revive the spirit of Fast Product and Postcard Records - it ignited a movement. Bands headed to London carrying new sounds, styles and attitude. Indie stopped being a DIY solution and became a culture in its own right. The shockwaves travelled far beyond Scotland, with The Vaselines finding ......
'A perfect representation'--Record Collector Wild, defiant and startlingly inventive, The Slits were ahead of their time. Despite their innovative fusion of genres--from dub reggae to punk, African rhythms, funk and free jazz--they were dismissed as being "unable to play". Lyrically witty and incisively perceptive, their hugely influential album ......
How I Failed to Make it as a Britpop Indie-Rockstar
It's 1992 and Horace dreams of becoming a rockstar with his band the Pointy Birds. The only problem is that his day-job (mis)filing vinyl in a Soho record store is stealing all his time and energy, plus rival bands like Suede, Blur, Pulp and Radiohead are moving on to bigger and better things. But then someone called Ricky offers his services as a ......
It's the summer of 1996, and Andy is stuck in a dead-end admin job at a Soho picture library. His dreams of becoming an indie rockstar are over, but luckily, he's found the Next Big Thing through promoting gigs in Camden: a Norwegian three-piece who sound like ABBA meets Nirvana. Plan B is simple, live the dream vicariously by managing them. And ......
R.E.M., the most acclaimed American group of their generation, disbanded in September 2011 with their idealism and dignity intact. In this edition of his best-selling R.E.M. biography, Tony Fletcher brings their story to a conclusion and explains what led this unique group to draw a curtain on their career. Drawing on interviews with band ......
Discover the wacky and wonderful world of Sparks. When eccentric LA brothers Russell and Ron Mael moved to Britain in 1973, they exploded onto the pop scene as Sparks--an act that stood out even amid the flamboyance of the glam rock movement that embraced them. Talent Is an Asset captures the quicksilver essence of these two gifted musicians, ......
