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Books
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21-12-2011 1:05am#1Do we have a thread on books?
Anyway, we do now... :pac: Please lash up any other recommended books.
Been a while since I'd read anything related to electronic music etc but stumbled across this one recently and it's a very good read - great history of techno and how it progressed from Detroit into the UK, Europe etc and the various key people involved... expect all the usual Atkins, May, Saunderson, Hawtin etc but still a lot of history too and some more detail on the background of detroit techno and how it came up against early rave/acid house - very Detroit focused though so don't expect much from this side of the world.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Techno-Rebels-Renegades-Electronic-Painted/dp/0814334385/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324425375&sr=1-1
From the author...
Techno Rebels' aims
What I set out to do with Techno Rebels was establish adiscussion of the American roots of techno music. Most articles and books thus far have been from the European perspective, and tend to offer up the American components in condensed form (to be fair, at points in Techno Rebels I'm guilty of the same thing in reverse).
I had the U.S. audience in mind when I wrote the book, and tried to keep the narrative at an introductory level. Reading about the evolution of any kind of music can obviously be overwhelming for a beginning listener--but at the same time, I also tried to delve into subjects that even diehards would know little about. The best example of this is Chapter Two, in which the "pre-history" of techno is examined in Detroit (that's before Derrick May, Kevin Saunderson and Juan Atkins got into the game).
As much as the explosive growth of techno, acid house, ecstasy and raves in Europe has been dissected, I wanted Techno Rebels to connect U.S. audiences to the humble and strange beginnings of techno in Detroit: the high school parties, the heavy emphasis on post-disco and new wave and exactly why this midwestern city is crucial to understanding the music. Techno Rebels also explores some of the awkward scenarios and false starts techno has met with when trying to find a U.S. audience in the late '80s and early '90s.
I think that gradual development is just as fascinating as the European catalysts0
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http://www.amazon.co.uk/Electro-Shock-Groundbreakers-Synth-Music/dp/0879305827/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1324489022&sr=1-1
Product Description
This compelling book explores the innovative performers of the past three decades who have used synthesizers to create new music that inspired and influenced the masses. The book treats fans to conversations with some of the biggest electronic hitmakers since the '70s: Chemical Brothers, Trent Reznor, Aphex Twin, and others. Each profile spotlights the artist's most prized electronic gear with a photo, historical details, and specifications.0 -
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Cheers, I haven't read either of the above so I'll add to my list.
Another I've had in my amazon basket for a while but not yet purchased is this one... anyone read it/opinions?
Product Description
This is the most comprehensive and contemporary book ever written on the cultural influences of the drug that changed the world.The first book of its kind, "E, the Incredibly Strange History of Ecstasy" examines every aspect of MDMA, from its creation in a German lab just before the First World War, its use as a psychiatrist's tool in the 70s, though its rise in the gay and yuppie clubs in the 80s to its ultimate explosion on the dance scene.The book contains a unique visual catalogue of the most popular, unusual and visually stunning pills, along with illustrations (and analysis) of the dance fashions from dungarees and horns to smiley badges and day-glo. Selections of rave flyer art are also featured, and the effects of ecstasy on film, TV, books, comics and other media fully examined.With chapters covering every aspect of the subject - from the physical, emotional and psychological effects of ecstasy and the rise of key rave locations such as Goa and Ibiza to the futile attempts made by governments internationally to halt rave culture and stop MDMA use - this is the most comprehensive and contemporary book ever written on this popular yet elusive drug.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0762431849/ref=ox_sc_act_title_10?ie=UTF8&m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE0 -
The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century is a voyage into the labyrinth of modern music, which remains an obscure world for most people. While paintings of Picasso and Jackson Pollock sell for a hundred million dollars or more, and lines from T. S. Eliot are quoted on the yearbook pages of alienated teenagers across the land, twentieth-century classical music still sends ripples of unease through audiences. At the same time, its influence can be felt everywhere. Atonal chords crop up in jazz. Avant-garde sounds populate the soundtracks of Hollywood thrillers. Minimalism has had a huge effect on rock, pop, and dance music from the Velvet Underground onward.
The Rest Is Noise shows why twentieth-century composers felt compelled to create a famously bewildering variety of sounds, from the purest beauty to the purest noise. It tells of a remarkable array of maverick personalities who resisted the cult of the classical past, struggled against the indifference of a wide public, and defied the will of dictators. Whether they have charmed audiences with sweet sounds or battered them with dissonance, composers have always been exuberantly of the present, defying the stereotype of classical music as a dying art. The narrative goes from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties, from Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies. We follow the rise of mass culture and mass politics, of dramatic new technologies, of hot and cold wars, of experiments, revolutions, riots, and friendships forged and broken. The end result is not so much a history of twentieth-century music as a history of the twentieth century through its music.
Amazing book - might be well beyond the scope of this subforum, but anyone who's seriously into music should read this. The website for the book is excellent as well - short excerpts of many if not most of the pieces discussed in the book in case you don't know music well enough to distinguish your 12-tone-serialism from your minimalism.
Can not recommend this highly enough, but I'd say you'll get the most out of it, Scubadevils.
http://www.amazon.com/Rest-Noise-Listening-Twentieth-Century/dp/03742493930 -
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The first major account of the history of reggae, black music journalist Lloyd Bradley describes its origins and development in Jamaica, from ska to rock-steady to dub and then to reggae itself, a local music which conquered the world. There are many extraordinary stories about characters like Prince Buster, King Tubby and Bob Marley. But this is more than a book of music history: it relates the story of reggae to the whole history of Jamaica, from Colonial Island to troubled independence, and Jamaicans, from Kingston to London.
http://www.amazon.com/Bass-Culture-Lloyd-Bradley/dp/0140237631
^
Phenomenal, social history, musical history, all in one highly entertaining well written book. Talks in detail about the sound system rivalries, politics, the rudeboys, the dancehalls and the huge effect Jamaican music had on the rest of the world, from Hip Hop through Kool Herc and on electronic music production from King Tubby.
People always bang on about Detroit and Berlin and London, when it came to developing the art of a single guy using jury-rigged electronics in a studio as an instrument, engineering as much bass as possible into a tune and cutting it onto a record and then blasting it through massive soundsystems to move crowds the Kingston heads were doing that before any of the above.
Essential read.0 -
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OK,so not a book relating to music but a superb read none the less,I bought this book about 7 years ago after hearing an interveiw the author did with Gerry Ryan (R.I.P) one morning (I never caught the name of the book nor the writer but went down to Easons the next day and just knew this was it) ....... anyways,for a break from reading music related literature I recommend this one,I found it hard to stop reading once i started.
p.s.
liking a couple of those listed already,wish I'd seen this thread before xmas lol a few hints there woulda avoided the socks & jocks pressie's!!
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shantaram-Gregory-David-Roberts/dp/0349117543/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325653192&sr=8-1#_
"It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to me in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured."
So begins this epic, mesmerizing first novel set in the underworld of contemporary Bombay. Shantaram is narrated by Lin, an escaped convict with a false passport who flees maximum security prison in Australia for the teeming streets of a city where he can disappear.
Accompanied by his guide and faithful friend, Prabaker, the two enter Bombay's hidden society of beggars and gangsters, prostitutes and holy men, soldiers and actors, and Indians and exiles from other countries, who seek in this remarkable place what they cannot find elsewhere.
As a hunted man without a home, family, or identity, Lin searches for love and meaning while running a clinic in one of the city's poorest slums, and serving his apprenticeship in the dark arts of the Bombay mafia. The search leads him to war, prison torture, murder, and a series of enigmatic and bloody betrayals. The keys to unlock the mysteries and intrigues that bind Lin are held by two people. The first is Khader Khan: mafia godfather, criminal-philosopher-saint, and mentor to Lin in the underworld of the Golden City. The second is Karla: elusive, dangerous, and beautiful, whose passions are driven by secrets that torment her and yet give her a terrible power.
Burning slums and five-star hotels, romantic love and prison agonies, criminal wars and Bollywood films, spiritual gurus and mujaheddin guerrillas---this huge novel has the world of human experience in its reach, and a passionate love for India at its heart. Based on the life of the author, it is by any measure the debut of an extraordinary voice in literature.0 -
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The real 'renegade of electronic funk' was Afrika Bambaataa not those pretenders from Detroit.Scubadevils wrote: »Haha, deadly... it had to happen sometime.
I'd have said it was George Clinton and of course Roger Troutman of Zapp (the dude with the synthesizer and syphon pipe)....:pac: or were they just 'funk'?
Back to the books .....
Again,not an 'electronic' themed read but all things relative .... if your a lover of Reggae,Ska,Jungle,Drum n Bass you'll get me!
I read this about 4-5 years ago,nothing you wont already know if your into the music but a good read imo.0 -
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Scubadevils wrote: »Pretty keen on reading up on reggae alright so that will be another for the list.
It's the same one I posted under a different name; that's the name they used for the American edition.
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