Music and literature reviewer Kiran Dass picks her best books about music from 2018.
To Throw Away Unopened by Viv Albertine
Photo: Faber
Viv Albertine was best known for her 1970s work with all-female post-punk trailblazers The Slits, but her first memoir Clothes, Music, Boys established her as an astonishingly good writer who writes with insight and a brutal honesty. To Throw Away Unopened is kind of a sequel but can be read as a stand-alone book.
Albertine, now in her 60s, looks back at the rage of being a woman smashing through the patriarchy. Coming through divorce, thirteen operations, a miscarriage, 11 IVF attempts, cancer and extremely difficult family dynamics (the book opens with the most sensational, vicious fight with her estranged sister over their mother's deathbed), she holds nothing back in her storytelling as she looks back on her post-war UK working class childhood, vicious sibling rivalry, and how all of her experiences have shaped her into an independent woman with an enduring punk spirit.
Albertine's background as a songwriter and later, film/television director has clearly informed her sense of storytelling - this memoir is exquisitely and uniquely structured. When Albertine was sorting through her late mother's possessions, she found a bag with a note on it that said "to throw away unopened'. Being the good punk she is, Albertine ignored the direction and opened the bag to find her mother's diaries. So framed on either side of Albertine's story are the perspectives from her late mother and father, gathered from their respective diaries resulting in sometimes contradictory views of the same events. Because of this, the book is a prismatic, multi-voiced story which is utterly compelling. Albertine writes frankly about family rifts, anger, independence and loss. Her story of smashing down doors in order to gain access to a more interesting life is inspirational.
Mars By 1980: The Story of Electronic Music by David Stubbs
Photo: Faber & Faber
Music writer David Stubbs once found a 1970s newspaper clipping from The Sun which reckoned that we would get to Mars by the year 1980. Following his excellent book Future Days: Krautrock and the Building of Modern Germany (2014) this is a fascinating and wide-angled look at the history of electronic music. Stubbs propels us into sonic space in this thrilling deep dive into technology and invention, while exploring how developments in technology have shaped music over the years and how electronic music - something initially avant-garde - entered the mainstream.
The book is divided into four thematic parts: A prehistory which looks at early composers and artists like Stockhausen and the tape-loop experimentalists like Terry Reilly and John Cage. Part two looks at iconic black musicians like Sun Ra, Stevie Wonder and important woman pioneers like Delia Derbyshire (without whom we would not have the iconic Dr Who theme music) and Daphne Oram. Part three explores duos from Suicide to Pet Shop Boys and the final part looks from Brian Eno to Skrillex. While it's a vast sweep, it's not basic but also not dry and boring either - every single page has an amazing fact or musician to look up! Mars By 1980 ends with a nifty timeline of technology advancements from 1876-1999, as well as an extensive playlist of recommended listening.
The Hard Stuff: Dope, Crime, the MC5 & My Life of Impossibilities by Wayne Kramer
Photo: Faber
The MC5 was a hard-left extremist rock group formed in 1964 Detroit and their first album was the seminal live album Kick Out the Jams (1969) - an important precursor to punk rock and proto metal. With a shared love of Sun Ra, Archie Shepp, John Coltrane, Duane Eddy and Chuck Berry, they combined all of these influences to create an exciting new kind of free improv blues space fried stoned freak music.
In time to celebrate 50 years since the album was released, guitarist Wayne Kramer charts the highs and lows of his time in the group. From a political, social and cultural history perspective, their story is incredible. Kramer paints a vivid portrait of a very troubled and turbulent Detroit in the late 1960s and 70s. Once a prosperous home to the 'American Dream', Kramer describes the civil unrest and immense police brutality and marginalising of the working class he saw in his hometown. MC5 were sympathizers of the Black Panther movement and were passionate about civil rights. Kramer's story is wild and remarkable. He writes about his life in music, drugs, crime and details some of the problems the group encountered: Police surveillance, FBI monitoring and wiretapping, heroin and prison. He's survived it all to tell this compelling, and at times hilarious tale.
Beastie Boys Book by Michael Diamond & Adam Horovitz
Kiran Dass Photo: Kiran Dass
What a book! This is completely unlike any other rock bio. It's more like a compendium / magazine style celebration of iconic rap outfit Beastie Boys. The group began as a hardcore group in 1981 New York - a vibrant time for street culture where anything was possible.
Essential not only for fans of the Beastie Boys but for any music and culture fanatic in your life, this snack plate-styled book features essays, lists, a crack-up little food section, a comic, lyrics and anecdotes from surviving members Mike D and AD-ROCK who are such great storytellers.
There are great essays about the importance and art of the mixtape, as well as a sweet sense of the band being a tight-knit family as well as fun guys. With contributions from fans Amy Poehler, Colson Whitehead, Spike Jonze, Wes Anderson and Luc Sante, you'll get so much enjoyment out of this beautifully produced book.
All Gates Open: The Story of Can by Rob Young
Photo: Faber
In 2010, music writer Rob Young wrote a superb book Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain's Visionary Music which explored the history of British folk music in the 1960s and 1970s. Now he turns his hand to 'Krautrock'. Clocking in at a whopping 552 pages, it took me five months to read this substantial biography of the legendary German group Can. Immensely influential, Can is John Lydon of the Sex Pistols favourite group and were also adored by everyone from the late Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks, Mark E. Smith of the Fall and Jesus and Mary Chain.
This definitive book about Can is essentially two books in one. The first part is Young's full and richly detailed biography of the group which delves into how two classically trained students of Stockhausen - Irmin Schmidt and Holger Czukay - formed the group which emerged at the vanguard of the "Krautrock" scene in late 1960s Cologne. The second part, which I liked better is a kind of miscellany assembled by Irmin Schmidt who is the only surviving member of the group's original line-up and includes transcripts of conversations in pubs, interviews and many wonderful anecdotes.
