‘Kanye West – God & Monster’ is an apt title for this biography. Here is a man who speaks in colours, rather than black and white, so it’s brave of Mark Beaumont to try and chronicle his complicated life. It begins…
They started out as a rock ‘n’ roll covers band and ended up defining their own genre. Pete Cary catches up with The Jam’s former drummer Rick Buckler to talk about his newly-released autobiography, That’s Entertainment: My Life in the…
Haiku Salut, who describe themselves as ‘Baroque-Pop-Folktronic-Neo-Classical-Something-Or-Other’ might have had all the right intentions when they decided to publish their series of backstage Haikus in book form. Japanese Poems Steal Brains is charming and well-made as a physical object, but…
Zoe Howe couldn’t have chosen a more fitting title for her account of one of pop music’s most iconic and successful figures of the last century. Stevie Nicks: Visions, Dreams and Rumours demonstrates how the subject’s ‘visions and dreams’ would…
Simon Wolstencroft, aka Funky Si, was the drummer in The Fall for 11 years and part of what many fans consider the band’s definitive line-up. Before that, he was in an early version of the Smiths, but turned down the drum…
Simon Spence has written books about Andrew Loog Oldham, the Stone Roses, Depeche Mode and the Donnelly Brothers . His new book, Happy Mondays: Excess All Areas presents the band’s story in full for the first time. We caught up with him…
The erudite ‘Rebel Yeller’ begins his tome with a reference to his motorbike crash in 1990 at the age of 34, following the success of his aptly named Charmed Life album. Speeding and racing (in more ways than one) on…
When boys are asked “What would you like to be when you grow up?” many would most likely say something like ‘footballer’, ‘astronaut’ or ‘rock star’. Strangely enough, one of the world’s most naturally talented guitarists, Joe Perry, didn’t dream of…
As I begin this review, it’s Monday morning and John Lydon is in Brighton, half a mile down the road from my house, to meet the public for a book signing at Waterstones. I’m still trying to decide whether to…