WORDS BY NICK GORDON BROWN
We figured that you may well have worked your way through many of our original recommendations so we’re back with a wider collection of reads, all with a foot firmly planted in our beloved clubland, but also leading us down myriad other diverting rabbit holes. In the first selection we aimed to provide a comprehensive round up of the very best writing about house and disco, this time we spread our net a little wider - from Grace Jones to Kraftwerk via Prince and Beastie Boys.
Liberation Through Hearing (Richard Russell)
Buy on: Amazon
Year: 2020
What it’s about: Russell’s undeniably extraordinary career, from eager rave A&R man / artist to music industry major player to recording with Bobby Womack and Damon Albarn.
Why to read it: This isn’t your run of the mill music biz memoir – but Russell isn’t your run of the mill music biz exec. Sure, stories of the household names he has signed, recorded and socialised with abound, but Russell is a deep thinker who wants to delve deeper – revealing some personal demons along the way. The writing style is not always the most engaging (memorably summed up by The Guardian’s Kitty Empire as “somewhere between understatement and a matter-of-factness better suited to explaining why one took the A10 north-east rather than the M11”), but the story remains riveting.
See also: The Last Holiday (Gil Scott-Heron). A name whispered reverentially by his legions of fans and universally loved by critics. Arguably, however, artist, poet and activist GSH is not as widely celebrated as his body of work merits. Curious? Check out this posthumously published memoir. Richard Russell produced his last album, 2010’s acclaimed I’m New Here.
I’ll Never Write My Memoirs (Grace Jones)
Buy on: Amazon
Year: 2015
What it’s about: A life well-lived.
Why to read it: “My shaved head made me look more abstract, less tied to a specific race or sex or tribe, but was also a way of moving across those things, belonging while at the same time not belonging. I was black, but not black; woman, but not woman; American but Jamaican; African but science fiction. It set me outside and beyond, in some sort of slipstream, and instinctively, I liked that it was a way of expressing I was flexible… it was about change, and changing my mind, and through it I could express how I was always becoming someone else.” More excerpts feature in our Glitterbox tribute to Grace here.
See also: Face It (Debbie Harry). Another fiercely independent woman fighting her way to the top via the cultural hubbub of 1970s New York, Harry may be pop punk icon, but lest we forget, with ‘Rapture’ and ‘Heart of Glass’, she fronted two timeless dancefloor classics.
The Beautiful Ones (Prince)
Buy on: Amazon
Year: 2019
What it’s about: Music’s ultimate man of mystery finally puts pen to paper to reveal all – tragically cut short by his untimely death in 2016.
Why to read it: His name is Prince, and he is funky, his name is Prince, the one and only. This book only helps elevate the myth. The first section, written by Prince himself, is fascinating as we see the boy who would become the artist later known as Prince slowly revealed. You feel bereft when the insight stops abruptly. However, collaborator Dan Piepenbring has a good stab at completing the project via his access to the purple one’s scrapbooks, photos and original handwritten treatment for Purple Rain.
See also: Miles - The Autobiography by Miles Davis. Like Prince, a towering figure over several decades who by turns fascinates and frustrates his devoted fanbase. One difference – Miles finished his autobiography, one of the consequences being that you may come away from it not actually liking him very much.
Beastie Boys Book
Buy on: Amazon
Year: 2019
What it’s about: A Beasties memoir doubling up as an impassioned love letter to founding member and band driving force Adam ‘MCA’ Yauch, sadly lost to cancer in 2012.
Why to read it: The enduring appeal of the Beastie Boys owes much to their innate ability to do things just a bit differently. The same applies with Book, which mixes coffee table weight, size and visuals with an autobiography told in part by surviving members Adam ‘Ad Rock’ Horovitz and Michael ‘Mike D’ Diamond and in part by the many friends and collaborators who have shared their journey. Honest, funny, entertaining, original, occasionally brilliant, never dull – much like the group’s recorded output.
See also: Beastie Boys Story – the ‘live documentary’ version of Book, directed by Spike Jonze, and one of the key exclusives with which Apple TV hope to entice subscribers on board.
Electronic (from Kraftwerk to the Chemical Brothers)
Buy on: Amazon
Year: 2020
What it’s about: Companion book to the exhibition currently running at London’s Design Museum, following a stint in Paris.
Why to read it: If you can’t make the exhibition, this is a pretty good next best thing. A visual feast, this is effectively the exhibition in book form, featuring the same exhibits and text commentaries, with additional Q+As with, amongst others, Jeff Mills and Kiddy Smile.
See also: Many, many books about or inspired by Kraftwerk (the most myth-challenging being I Was A Robot by original drummer and somewhat bitter ex-member Wolfgang Flur).
The Diary of a DJ (Marshall Jefferson) & Mister Good Times (Norman Jay)
Buy on: Amazon / Amazon
Year: Both 2019
What they’re about: Hugely readable autobiographies from two founding fathers of our scene.
Why to read them: Chicago was house music’s birthplace, Jefferson one of its most celebrated pioneers, and he remains both active and relevant to this day. London soon became a house music epicentre, but for many Londoners steeped in soul, funk, disco and reggae, the transition to the new kid on the dance music block wasn’t easy – Jay was their guide, his ability to join the musical dots marking him out as a supreme selector who also remains central to the scene. An education in house music and much more.
See also: Hey Hi Hello: Five Decades of Pop Culture from Britain’s First Female DJ (Annie Nightingale). A true game changer and musical pied piper.
Bring That Beat Back: How Sampling Built Hip-Hop (Nate Patrin)
Buy on: Amazon
Year: 2020
What it’s about: How the art of sampling should be celebrated for its collage of old and new. "Pete Rock's beats blurred the borders between a weathered past and an in-the-moment present, archaeology and architecture all at once."
Why to read it: While rooted in hip hop, Patrin gives all lovers of sampling a thesis to throw (metaphorically, of course) at the haters. It’s not all old school either, with different eras represented by Grandmaster Flash, Prince Paul, Dr Dre and Madlib. At times it is less sampling celebration, more hip hop history, but the sheer volume of knowledge contained within is admirable.
See also: The Rap Year Book. The stories behind “the most important rap song from every year since 1979” from ‘Rapper’s Delight’ onwards.
Sweet Dreams (Dylan Jones)
Buy here: Amazon
Year: 2020
What it’s about: The enduring influence of the early 1980s New Romantic scene, initially centred around London’s (in)famous Blitz Club.
Why to read it: Though ostensibly about the New Romantics, Jones lifts many a stone under which that scene’s impact lurks, with its love of early dancefloor-orientated electronic music, style, hedonism and self-expression all helping pave the way for how clubland would develop through the 1980s/90s and onto the current day. A little meandering, but plenty to keep you turning the page.
See also: The Life & Times of Malcolm McLaren (Paul Gorman). Best known for the Sex Pistols, but his later ability to spot /capitalise on dancefloor-related trends early (see ‘Buffalo Gals’ and ‘Deep in Vogue’) and his long-lasting personal and professional relationship with queen of style and self-expression Vivienne Westwood earn him a spot. Plus, this divisive figure had quite a life story.
Five specially selected coffee table gems
In our previous selection, we celebrated how the weighty coffee table book genre finds a natural partner in clubland / dance music. Here are five more exquisite examples.
Keith Haring & Studio 54 Amazon / Amazon
Both these sumptuous titles come from major New York-based publishing house Rizzoli. They celebrate NYC in the shape of 1980s street art legend and club scene devotee Keith Haring; and groundbreaking 1970s disco cathedral Studio 54, with co-owner Ian Schrager editing.
Ibiza Bohemia Amazon
Celebrating the white isle as a place where you can “walk the fine line between civilization and wilderness.” Co-ordinated by island dwellers, stylist Renu Kashyap and travel writer Maya Boyd, it aims to unlock the island’s longstanding appeal to creatives and seekers from all corners of the globe.
The Official Story of Glastonbury Festival Amazon
The 50th anniversary festival didn’t happen. The companion book did! Compiled by organisers Emily & Michael Eavis, so naturally a pictorial treasure trove. Artists as diverse as Adele, Jay-Z and the Chemical Brothers have their say.
100 Club Stories Amazon
At a time when legendary nightlife institutions worldwide are under threat, let us point you in the direction of London’s beloved 100 Club (at 100 Oxford Street), a cultural beacon in the city’s ever more sanitised West End. Compiled with support from one of sub-culture’s most abiding clothing brands, Fred Perry, it documents the venue’s unerring ability to spot and host new trends before they explode, from jazz to punk, northern soul to house. Wonderful pictures and anecdotes, collated like a fanzine with a budget.
...and finally, try one of these staff picks coming highly recommended from some of the team:
- James Kirkham, CBO - Lunch With The Wild Frontiers by Phil Savidge
- Cat Cook, Product Manager – It’s A London Thing: How Rare Groove, Acid House and Jungle Remapped the City – Music and Society by Caspar Melville
- Tom Coxhead, Head of Digital Marketing - Third Coast: OutKast, Timbaland & How Hip Hop Became a Southern Thing by Roni Sarig
- Scarlett Pares Landells, PR & Promotions Manager - Life And Death On The New York Dancefloor by Tim Lawrence
- Angus Brash, Graphic Designer – The Hacienda – How Not To Run A Club by Peter Hook
- Joe Bennett, Head of Product & Curation – Mars by 1980: The Story of Electronic Music by David Stubbs
