The RNZ Music team present their favourite music books for your isolation reading pleasure!
1. Dead People I Have Known - Shayne Carter
Cover of Shayne Carter's book, Dead People I Have Known Photo: Supplied
Kiwi rock icon Shayne Carter started his musical career in Dunedin in the late 1970s. He’s fronted a string of influential bands including Bored Games, DoubleHappys, Straitjacket Fits, and most recently Dimmer. This is his tell-all memoir. From his dysfunctional childhood, to his eventual indie stardom and everything in-between. He talk about dark stuff like the deaths referred to in the title (17 in total), as well as his off-and-on issues with substance abuse, but he's got a wonderfully conversational writing style, and he’s funny too. - Alice Murray
2. I'm Not With the Band: A Writer's Life Lost in Music - Sylvia Patterson
Cover art for Sylvia Patterson's book I'm Not With the Band: A Writer's Life Lost in Music Photo: Supplied
This book really elevates the rock memoir and is right up there as the best example of the genre. It brings together insight, personal experience and music criticism.
Aged 20, Sylvia Patterson joined Smash Hits as a staff writer during its heyday in the mid to late 1980s when it still sold a million copies a fortnight (!).
Patterson is an excellent writer and storyteller. Her writing is super witty, sharp, irreverent, and this is a great insider's account from a music journalist. It's super juicy, there's heaps of gossip, this is a real hoot. - Kiran Dass
3. The Beautiful Ones - Prince
Cover art from Prince's book, The Beautiful Ones Photo: Supplied
A stunning collection of photos and Prince mementoes all tied together with the Purple One's own words on his life, his vision and his music. Deftly edited by Dan Piepenbring whose introduction sheds light on Prince's final weeks, and the process of completing the autobiography after the musician's death. Piepenbring's conversation with Afternoon's Jesse Mulligan is well worth a listen. - Yadana Saw
4. Goneville - Nick Bollinger
Nick Bollinger Photo: RNZ
If you love hearing Nick Bollinger's dulcet tones on RNZ’s The Sampler, you’ll thoroughly enjoy his coming-of-age memoir, which unfolds in New Zealand’s counter culture music scene of the 1970s.
His unconventional youth would give modern helicopter parents a heart attack, and through it, Bollinger cuts an unruffled and observant young man drawn to the cultural misfits and renegades whose legacies live on to today. - Yadana Saw
5. To Throw Away Unopened - Viv Albertine
Cover art for Viv Albertine's book To Throw Away Unopened Photo: Supplied
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. - Kiran Dass
6. The Autobiography of Gucci Mane - Gucci Mane
Rapper Gucci Mane with his autobiography Photo: 2017 Getty Images
A fascinating look into the world of Atlanta-based rapper and trap music pioneer Gucci Mane. Gucci’s voice is authentic, as the former gangster now rapper-entrepreneur recounts his impoverished upbringing in rural Alabama; his drug dealing, gun-toting youth in Atlanta; and his eventual success as one of trap music's biggest stars. There are multiple prison sentences, rehab stints and of course redemption through music. - Yadana Saw
7. A Sharp Left Turn - Mike Chunn
Cover art from Mike Chunn's book A Sharp Left Turn Photo: Supplied
A fascinating memoir from former Split Enz bassist Mike Chunn. Beginning with his childhood in Auckland in the ‘60s and ’70, the book details the early years of Split Enz, then Chunn’s departure due to crippling anxiety and panic attacks.
Although Chunn left Split Enz, his career in music continued. He went on to head Mushroom Records (where he signed DD Smash and Dance Exponents), Sony, then APRA, where he was instrumental in setting up New Zealand Music Month.
He’s a great writer too. Highly recommend.
8. Art Sex Music - Cosey Fanni Tutti
Cover art for Cosey Fanni Tutti's book Art Sex Music Photo: Supplied
This was my book of the year for 2017. There'd been a wave of stunning autobiographies from strong, independent, singular woman musicians and this was the best yet.
Musician, artist, and former striptease artiste and pornographic model Cosey Fanni Tutti found notoriety in the UK with her confrontational and subversive performance troupe COUM Transmissions and group Throbbing Gristle.
This is an invigorating, revealing and clear-sighted insight into the fascinating career of an influential, groundbreaking and inspiring artist who has always remained at the cutting edge of popular culture. - Kiran Dass
9. My Struggle - Karl Ove Knausgaard
Cover art from Karl Ove Knausgaard's book My Struggle Photo: Supplied
I'm cheating a little because this isn't, strictly speaking, a book about music. However, Karl Ove got his start as a music critic writing for his local papers. He also played in bands through the 1980s and 1990s and gives a great account of the music scene in Bergen where he spent his student years. As an added bonus, there are six books in the series so this will keep you occupied for quite a while! - Francis Cook
