Working On A Dream: The Progressive Political Vision of Bruce Springsteen

When your work’s perceived ‘message’ has been endlessly scrutinised by newspaper commentators, and you have lent your support to two successive Democratic Presidential candidates (John Kerry and Barack Obama), it’s only a matter of time before you are the subject of a rigorous academic-style overview. For Bruce Springsteen, that moment has now arrived with the publication of Working On A Dream, an admirably thorough dissection of Springsteen’s political and social stances, and their influence on his 40-year body of work. From the much misunderstood sentiments of ‘Born in the USA’ to the defiance-after-tragedy of ‘The Rising’ to the ideas of renewal that infuse his most recent studio album that gives this book its title, it’s clear that Springsteen is profoundly engaged with the issues that define his homeland, but above and beyond all that there is a preoccupation with the idea of community and its capacity for encouraging compassion and social cohesion. The tone can be a little dry and is unlikely to capture the more casual reader, but for the connoisseur there are insights aplenty and further confirmation that Springsteen is that rare breed in rock – a thoughtful, intelligent writer forever determined to look up from the parameters of his own life and take the broader view..
David Davies

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Forever Changes: Arthur Lee and the Book of Love
John Einarson (Jawbone)

I’ll likely get a fair stack of hate mail for saying this but Arthur Lee really was a bit of a tosser. A bully from an early age who remained one right up until his demise - at the admittedly early age of just 61 - he made idiotic decisions (turning down both Woodstock and Monterey and refusing to tour in support of his early, successful albums), and his obsession with money became a bone of contention with just about everyone he ever worked with, indeed he alienated pretty much every musician he ever met. He also made an awful lot of pretty duff albums. So why is he held in such high regard? In two words Forever Changes, one of the most ground-breaking and influential albums ever recorded, and naturally enough, as it was so well loved and he was such an ornery bugger, for the vast majority of his career Lee would have nothing to do with it. That said Lee’s life story makes for fascinating reading (Einarson does a tremendous job narrating the tale, interspersing his own work with plenty of Lee’s own purple prose), and it’s likely that once picked up you won’t be putting this down very quickly. Just don’t expect to like the man.
The Oracle

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Listening to Van Morrison
Greil Marcus (Faber and Faber)

In Mystery Train, Lipstick Traces and Invisible Republic, Greil Marcus – think the US equivalent of Paul Morley, but with an even wider circle of reference – wrote three of the seminal, undying works of popular music writing. The more recent book-length dissection of a single song – Bob Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone – was also compelling, but something has gone decidedly awry with this surprisingly lightweight effort about Van Morrison. Although clearly in no way intended to be a definitive tome on the famously cheerful Belfast-born singer/songwriter, the book’s scattershot approach to discussing key songs and performances often fails to convey much more than the fact that, like most major artists, Morrison has both good and bad days. Granted, the sections on ‘Madame George’, The Last Waltz version of ‘Caravan’ and the title track of 1997’s underrated The Healing Game are revealing, but to encapsulate Van’s work from 1980 to 1996 in 11 (rather dismissive) pages is almost laughably reductive. At less than 200 pages for your £12.99 of hard-earned, it also doesn’t rate too highly on the old value-o-meter. So definitely not one out of Marcus’s top drawer, and those new to his work would be advised to purchase the delightful, illuminating Mystery Train instead.
David Davies

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Apathy for the Devil: A 1970s Memoir
Nick Kent (Faber & Faber)

Another month, another account of talent undermined by hard drugs. Alongside Charles Shaar Murray and the late Ian McDonald, Nick Kent was a star player during the NME’s mid ‘70s heyday, bringing his reflexive prose style to seminal pieces on Syd Barrett, Brian Wilson and The Rolling Stones. More than any of his fellow writers, however, Kent also hung out with his subjects and shared their spoils – to increasingly disastrous effect. Some of the anecdotes accrued during this period are priceless – Kent’s attempt to explain Steptoe & Son to Iggy Pop; Keith Richards’s perplexed fury at the rise of the ‘Boppin’ Elf’, aka Marc Bolan – but the overall trajectory is a descent into darkness. By the end of the ‘70s, Kent was writing much less and scoring much more, existing in that weird twilight world where normal life is jacked in favour of chasing the next hit of junk. Fortunately, there is a happy coda – Kent cleaned up in 1988 and is now a contented family man living in Paris. Whilst a familiar tale in many aspects, Apathy for the Devil’s vivid character portraits and delicious turns of phrase mean that it deserves a place on your bookshelf alongside Kent’s superlative selected journalism, The Dark Stuff.
David Davies

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Signed, Sealed, and Delivered:

Endless twists, turns, ups and downs – not to mention truckloads of fantastic music – mean that the Stevie Wonder story has everything that might appeal to a prospective biographer. Despite this, the gifted vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, producer and activist has hitherto been rather underserved in this department – a point acknowledged by Mark Ribowksy in the introduction to his extremely detailed and highly readable account. From the beginning, it is clear that Wonder simply refused to let his blindness and impoverished background stand in the way of realising his musical dreams. The ability to get a tune out of pretty much any instrument you care to mention quickly brought him to the attention of Motown, where he became the label’s resident child prodigy. 1966’s ‘Uptight (Everything Is Alright)’ was his songwriting breakthrough, but a mere taster for the phenomenal run of self-composed and mostly self-played albums spanning 1972’s Music of My Mind and 1976’s Songs In the Key of Life – a period whose heady creative rush and palpable sense of excitement is well-evoked by Ribowsky. Some readers might question the compression of Wonder’s post-‘70s life into only 50 pages, but most are likely to applaud the overdue examination of an extraordinary musical career.
David Davies

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Japan And Self Existence
Mick Karn (MK Music)

Before we begin we should clear something up. Mick Karn is not the world’s greatest bass player, probably not technically even in the top ten (by his own admission he seldom bothers to pick up the instrument when he isn’t working on a music project), what he is however is one of the most recognisable players in the history of rock, no mean feat given the instruments primary use - i.e. to be buried away in the mix somewhere right up the back - and that, along with an unerring ear for monumentally quirky bass lines, is why he is such an important and influential bass player. So why the hell is he struggling to make ends meet when most of his ex-Japan compadres are doing pretty-well-thank-you? It’s certainly not due to poor solo material (pretty much everything he has released is well worth a listen, and some is simply superb). Nope it’s down to a mix of management shenanigans, band power-struggles and his own innate inability to press the right flesh. All of which is outlined herein with a frankness that is occasionally squirm-inducing, and in a style which is hugely readable, entertaining and should be required research for anyone just setting out on a music career.
The Oracle

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Zaireeka
Mark Richardson
(Continuum)

It’s no secret that we are jolly fond of the 33 1/3 series of books here at TM-Towers and the 68th release, dedicated to the Flaming Lips four CD folly Zaireeka, shows no let up in quality, in fact Mark Richardson’s little gem is one of the finest releases to date. For those that are unaware of the album(s) Zaireeka was released in 1997 as four separate CDs intended for playback at the same time, which of course meant that four CD players, eight speakers and four hands were required to make it function properly. This was of course an idiotic undertaking, and, as Richardson so ably outlines, also nothing short of inspired. In these days when everything has to fit on nano-sized technology to release a piece of music that needs a small audience to work it is, frankly, brilliant. Richardson joins in with the general theme by breaking the story into four chapters (all with eight sections to mirror the albums tracks), and it does exactly what you would hope these books do, leaves you desperate to hear the album(s), now if I just had three friends…
The Oracle

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London Babylon: The Beatles And The Stones In The Swinging Sixties
Steve Overbury (Stephen Overbury)

What links David Hockney, Jane Asher, Syd Barrett, Alan Ginsberg, The Krays, Ronnie Wood, Princess Margaret, Salvador Dali, Dennis Hopper, Germaine Greer and a bunch of nutters who thought drilling holes in their heads was a good idea? Given that you have probably already clocked the titled you’ve possibly already guessed that the link is London in the sixties, more specifically the London that revolved around, and grew from, the success of the Beatles and The Stones, and the cast of characters that gravitated towards them. London Babylon is basically a who’s who of London in the swinging sixties (and it’s some who’s who), laced with fascinatingly detailed research, more than enough sex and drugs to keep even the most jaded reader tuned in, and whilst there are no major new revelations, making the streets of London itself the star lends a new slant to popular stories, weaving them together and helping place them on the rapidly evolving timeline in such a way that you are left with a far better grasp of just how things must have seemed at the time. This is an entertaining and informative romp which will even appeal to readers who feel they already know all there is to know about the period.
The Oracle

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Little Richard: The Birth of Rock 'n' Roll
David Kirby (Continuum)

Not a biography of Richard Wayne Penniman (for that you would need The Life and Times of Little Richard: The Authorised Biography by Charles White), more a biography of the track that launched his career. Indeed Kirby only actually talks to Richard at any length once on the phone – whilst visiting one of Richard’s relatives - and rather than gleaning any useful information from the notoriously awkward singer/preacher (delete as applicable depending on how Richard feels when he wakes up in the morning), he only manages to have his wallet emptied into the waiting purse of the closely hovering relative. The lack of Richard’s input is however no impediment to the narrative as Kirby makes his argument – and a cogently argued, perfectly reasonable, argument it is too – for ‘Tutti Frutti’ being the wellspring of rock ‘n’ roll, and if on occasion things get slightly academic in tone that would almost certainly be due to Kirby’s day job as Professor of English at Florida State University. Of course the same argument could reasonably be made for, amongst others, Fats Domino’s ‘The Fat Man’, Chuck Berry’s ‘Maybellene’ or Big Mama Thornton’s version of Leiber and Stollers ‘Hound Dog’ but that doesn’t make this any less of an entertaining read.
The Oracle

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The Haçienda: How Not to Run a Club
Peter Hook (Simon & Schuster)

A warts and all account is what was promised, and former New Order bassist Peter Hook has delivered - to the extent that by the time you have finished reading this compelling sortie into the heart of British clubland, you may wonder whether the subtitle should have been ‘For the Love of God, Never Try to Run a Club, It’s a Bleedin’ Nightmare’. Driven by the vision of New Order manager Rob Gretton and largely financed by the band, The Haçienda aimed to provide Manchester with a dynamic alternative to the drab uniformity of many clubs of the day. In this regard, and in its subsequent influence on a generation of nightclub developers, it was undoubtedly successful; alas, the same could not be said of the owners’ financial, emotional and physical well-being. The club began haemorrhaging money early on but, ironically, it was at The Haç’s greatest peak of popularity in the early ‘90s that the heavens really opened: caught betwixt warring gangs, it fell victim to an alarming sequence of violent incidents. Hook tells the tale with wit, style and an admirable lack of bitterness, whetting the appetite nicely for his projected follow-ups on Joy Division and New Order.
David Davies

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