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Working On A Dream: The Progressive Political Vision of Bruce Springsteen
David Masciotra (Continuum)

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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On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno
David Sheppard (Orion)

Firstly, an admission: having spent no little time several years ago in unsuccessful pursuit of his own Eno biography, your reviewer approached David Sheppard’s doorstop-like tome – liberally sprinkled with first-hand input from the likes of Byrne, Ferry and Eno himself – with just the slightest trace of envy. Any lingering prejudice was soon cast aside, however, upon realising that Sheppard has corralled the many strands of Eno’s hectic creative life into a coherent and highly readable account. Inevitably, it is the Roxy Music and early solo years that prove most engaging, their attendant stories of hard-won and often tremendous music contrasted nicely by more earthy anecdotes concerning Brian’s appetite for, well, shagging. Eno’s later production work with Talking Heads, Bowie and U2 is also recalled with candour and detail, while throughout the book possesses that quality which distinguishes all the best music biogs – it sends you scurrying back to the actual records, in this case to marvel afresh at the many delights of Here Come the Warm Jets, Fear of Music etc. While the coverage of more recent years, in which Eno has spent increasing amounts of time working in visual art, is less engaging, On Some Faraway Beach will take some beating as a chronicle of one of popular music’s few truly original practitioners.
David Davies

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Joe Strummer Redemption Song: The Definitive Biography
Chris Salewicz (HarperCollins)

“He was a tough little bugger with a quiet strength,” observes school-friend Andy Ward early into this vast chronicle of the former Clash-man’s life, work and eventful times. The description would have served as a handy foreword, so often does the theme of creative and/or personal rebirth after traumatic phases occur in journalist and author Chris Salewicz’s characteristically skilful account. Arguably the most important such period involves the rapid descent of Strummer’s brother, David, who became a follower of the National Front amidst worsening bouts of depression that culminated in his suicide. Salewicz is particularly good at establishing the background of this episode and its huge impact on Strummer (not least The Clash’s subsequent involvement in anti-fascism initiatives like Rock Against Racism) at a time when he was beginning to discover the transformative potential of rock‘n’roll via the likes of Dr Feelgood and Bruce Springsteen. Perhaps inevitably given the exhaustive nature of the coverage following Strummer’s premature death in 2002, the story from first major outfit the 101’ers to The Clash and beyond generates fewer revelations, but is never less than well-told. Drawing on numerous interviews, the 672-page Redemption Song stands a very good chance of living up to its ‘definitive’ sub-title.
David Davies

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****************************************************************** Slash
Slash with Anthony Bozza
(HarperCollins)

‘A cautionary tale’ is a hackneyed critical cliché of the first order but, frankly, it’s the most suitable description you could hope to find for this compelling memoir by the former Guns n’ Roses lead guitarist and latterday member of Velvet Revolver. Written with Anthony Bozza (author of the fantastic Eminem biog Whatever You Say I Am), the book takes us from Slash’s ever-changing but essentially happy childhood as Saul Hudson, through a more dissolute teenagerdom ultimately given focus by a growing obsession with the guitar, to his lengthy apprenticeship in various LA bands and, ultimately, worldwide success as a member of Guns n’ Roses and Velvet Revolver. Inevitably, it is the protracted formation and messy dissolution of the most celebrated Gn’R line-up that will be of greatest interest to fans, and it’s unlikely that they will walk away disappointed as Slash is more than forthcoming with the gritty details – not least those regarding his own struggles with substance abuse (“I had no remorse whatsoever about my overdose,” he notes memorably after a Gn’R-era crack-fest, “but I was pissed off at myself for having died”). Now cleaned-up and clearly still in love with music-making, Slash has channelled his hugely varied life experiences into a first-rate read that you will struggle to put down.
David Davies

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****************************************************************** Rid Of Me: A Story
Kate Schatz
(Continuum)

We’ve said it before and we’ll damn well say it again, Continuum’s 33 1/3 series of books – wherein a writer is given the freedom to wax lyrical about their favourite album – are not only delightful little collectors items but have also spawned some truly wonderful essays, ranging from techie minded nuts and bolts recording break-downs to marvellous flights of fancy like this little beauty by Kate Schatz. The third writer to take the fiction route for their chosen album (Music From Big Pink by John Niven and Meat is Murder by Joe Pernice being the other two) telling the highly charged erotic tale (what else could it be based on Harvey’s equally highly charged and erotic album?) of Kathleen and Mary and their desperate efforts to escape their respective pasts via a kidnapping, a house in the middle of a dark, deeply disturbing, forest and some sapphic shenanigans. Each chapter, both named after and relating to, the album’s tracks, moves the story along apace and successfully evokes the albums unsettling lyrics and themes. Writing about music has been in the doldrums for too long, let's have a lot more like this please.
Ruby Palmer

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Andy Summers
One Train Later
(Portrait)

It is (very) rare that you pick up a rock memoir and know within three or four pages that it is going to be regarded as a classic. However, that is exactly the realisation that occurs during the opening pages of One Train Later, Summers’ remarkable account of his ‘60s sideman apprenticeship, low-profile early ‘70s (during which he spent several years studying classical guitar in Los Angeles) and final commercial breakthrough at the tail-end of that decade as a member of The Police. Written before the trio’s recent (and rather unexpected) reunion, the book is driven by Summers’ agile prose and astute eye for detail – a combination that proves especially effective when scrutinising his eventful period as a guitarist for, among many others, Zoot Money’s Big Roll Band, Neil Sedaka, Kevin Ayers and Eric Burdon. Later on, his marriage-ending decision to embark upon a photography road-trip straight after a long Police tour is evoked with genuine poignancy, as is the protracted and messy demise of that band. Summers’ career since then has been highly eclectic, spanning numerous genres and collaborations, and it is to be hoped that he picks up the story from 1983 onwards in a second volume.
David Davies

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Rip It Up and Start Again
Simon Reynolds
(Faber)

In the shape of his evocative sortie through rave and dance culture, Energy Flash, Simon Reynolds has already made a contribution to the sparsely-populated bookshelf of great music books. Now he’s gone and done it again, as Rip It Up and Start Again achieves the considerable task of pulling together innumerable strands of creative pop music after the solar flare of punk had burned itself out. Concentrating on the British and American manifestations of post-punk, Reynolds analyses the peak work of bands – Talking Heads, PiL, Devo, Throbbing Gristle et al – who often had little common ground creatively, but who were inspired by punk’s failure to give artistic boundaries a good kicking. The constant stream of record titles and potted biographies that this kind of book demands can easily be rendered dull, but Reynolds’s scrupulous research is matched by a delicious turn of phrase; Cabaret Voltaire’s ‘Fuse Mountain’, for example, conjures up for the author the image of “a crosslegged circle of hippies playing flutes and recorders on a slag heap outside a steel mill”. Rip It Up... is so compelling that the only downside is likely to be a hefty tab at Amazon as you plug gaps in your collection
David Davies

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