Author: Greig

Professional Librarian from Fife who likes books and music.

pious?

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Our Band Could Be Your Life

Michael Azerrad

Our Band Could Be Your Life by Michael AzerradThe story of the American indie underground in the eighties as told through short biographies of some of the leading lights of the scene.
I really enjoyed at least half of these short bios, as some of the bands had fascinating interpersonal struggles, financial problems and made great music.
However, the author made some odd decisions. Your band is only indie if your records are recorded for an indie label who used only indie distribution? A pointless distinction if you ask me. If, as I suspect, he only did this to avoid covering REM for the millionth time, then why not just say that?
Why, also, decide to not cover the major label careers of the bands that he does write about beyond a brief sneery paragraph or two about how none of their records were as good once they took money from the big boys?
Why spend countless pages wittering on about the idealism of certain bands? Sure they had admirable politics, that’s great, I want to read about the music too at some point though.
Maybe I’m too comfortably cynical about the music business as a whole but the whole concept of indie purity just seems silly to me nowadays. So I’m docking points for his pious devotion to his precious hardcore band’s purity.
Otherwise highly recommended for those with an interest in 80’s underground indie music.

Rating: A-

other half?

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Earth, Air, Fire and Custard

tom holt

earth, air, fire and custard The last book of the Paul Carpenter trilogy further illustrates the law of diminishing returns, so much so that the last third of the book struck me as utterly incoherent.
I can only say that it was a reasonably enjoyable ride for all it’s incoherence, but that I’m very glad that he’s stopped writing about Carpenter now and I don’t have to buy any more books in the series. (Being a completist is a bitch).
If you like Tom Holt, have read the first two, and don’t mind the random pointless, incoherent plot twists too much then you’ll probably feel like you haven’t wasted your time reading this.

Rating: B-

21?

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Top 20 Albums of 2006

King Creosote – KC Rules OK
Midlake – The Trials of Van Occupanther
Thom Yorke – The Eraser
Saint Jude’s Infirmary – Happy Healthy Lucky Month
Youth Group – Skeleton Jar
Cat Power – The Greatest
Joanna Newsom – Ys
The Decemberists – The Crane Wife
M Ward – Post-War
My Latest Novel – Wolves
Scott Walker – The Drift
Stuart A Staples – Leaving Songs
Secret Machines – Ten Silver Drops
Espers – II
Califone – Roots & Crowns
TV On The Radio – Return To Cookie Mountain
Joan As Policewoman – Real Life
Citay – Citay
Yo La Tengo – I Am Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass
Neko Case – Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
Grant-Lee Phillips – NineteenEighties

32?

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Books Read in 2006

  1. Steel Beach by John Varley rated B-
  2. The Truth by Terry Pratchett rated B+
  3. Black and Blue by Ian Rankin rated A+
  4. The Star Fraction by Ken MacLeod A-
  5. The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson rated A
  6. Spin by Robert Charles Wilson rated A+
  7. Singularity Sky by Charles Stross rated B
  8. Double Vision by Tricia Sullivan rated A-
  9. Revelation Space by Alastair Reynolds rated A
  10. Maul by Tricia Sullivan rated A-
  11. Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross rated A
  12. Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days by Alastair Reynolds rated C
  13. Futebol by Alex Bellos rated A
  14. Under Old Earth and Other Explorations by Cordwainer Smith rated C+
  15. Microserfs by Douglas Coupland rated A
  16. The Big Over Easy by Jasper Fforde rated C
  17. JPod by Douglas Coupland rated C+
  18. All Fun And Games Until Somebody Loses An Eye by Christopher Brookmyre rated A
  19. Margrave Of The Marshes by John Peel & Sheila Ravenscroft rated B
  20. Watchmen by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons rated A
  21. The Wrestling by Simon Garfield rated B+
  22. Miss Wyoming by Douglas Coupland rated B+
  23. The Salmon Of Doubt by Douglas Adams rated C
  24. Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett rated A-
  25. Time Enough For Love by Robert A Heinlein rated B+
  26. Newton’s Wake by Ken MacLeod rated A-
  27. M*A*S*H by Richard Hooker rated B+
  28. The Final Reflection by John M. Ford rated B
  29. Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman –
  30. Espedair Street by Iain Banks B-
  31. The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford rated A
  32. Hogfather by Terry Pratchett rated B

blood and snow?

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Hogfather

Terry Pratchett

HogfatherI’m a fan of Pratchett’s writing. The man is frighteningly good.
However not every one of his books is a masterpiece. Witness Hogfather.
This book is part of the Death/Susan sequence, which is not my favourite one (only Mort is superb). I’ve never really loved a Susan book, even though on the face of it she should be a really appealing character.
The plot involves a plan by the Auditors of Reality to have the Hogfather (Discworld analogue of Santa Claus) inhumed by a crazed member of the Assassin’s Guild.
I can say that I found it mildly diverting, no more. Which marks it out as rather poor in terms of Pratchett’s output.

Rating: B

Hogfather (Sky One)

This was a 4 hour adaptation of the book starring a host of luminaries from the British acting community. While the art direction lovingly recreated the Discworld, the piece as a whole managed to suffer from poor pacing, confusing editing and a total lack of humour.
Unfortunately the thing was done with rather too much reverence for the source material and not enough of an eye on what would make entertaining television.

crocus?

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The Dragon Waiting

John M Ford

The Dragon Waiting By John M FordFord’s masterful alternative history retells the story of Richard III’s ascension in a world where the Byzantine Romans never fell, where Vampires, Wizards and Witches are real.
As hokey as that sounds the book feels grounded in truth, with impressively crafted characters and a beautifully layered and nuanced plot.
Reading it makes you miss Mr. Ford even more.
One of an unfortunately small number of writers who could really write that worked almost exclusively within the realms of fantasy and science fiction his death earlier this year is something that I could have done without.
Anyway I recommend this book without hesitation to anyone with an interest in Fantasy.

Rating: A

paisley?

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Espedair Street

Iain Banks

Espedair StreetI’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read this book. I think I first read it about 1988, 1989 back when I was borrowing five books a week from Sinclairtown library.
I loved it then and I retain enormous affection for it now. However the book has dated rather badly and definitely is a work of it’s time.
The book follows a week in the life of a man called Daniel Weir, once the songwriter and bass player of wildly successful band, now semi-retired and living a pointless if comfortable life.
The book follows his drunken adventures with his working class friends and his reluctant meetings with music business colleagues as he looks back over his life to try and make sense of where and who he is. It’s Banks at his most straightforward and nicely different for that.
Recommended for anyone who ever wanted to be in a band who can deal with the fact that the book’s now a period piece.

Rating: B

ok?

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Now that I’ve gotten over the initial shock and anger I’m a bit more clear headed.

So, I’ll start to restore some of the content that went missing as a result of this unfortunate incident.

Restored content is likely to be less than 100% coverage as I’ve had to rely on the Google cache to recover things.

Expect things to reappear over the next little while.

I’m definitely doing db backups from now on, though

Oh well, you live and learn.

wtf?

Posted on by Greig

Some spectacular idiot has managed to delete the database tables belonging to several users of my web host.

The result is: I’ve lost over four year’s worth of blog entries.

Now I know all the platitudes about backups, but it doesn’t make me any less angry about this incredibly selfish act and the loss of countless hours worth of work from over the years.

Oh, well starting from scratch it is then.

winger?

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Fargo Rock City

Chuck Klosterman

I’ve read this book before (entry missing due to db hacker)
Klosterman’s aim with this book was, to quote, ‘to show why all that poofy, sexist, shallow glam rock was important’. You know what? He totally failed
Klosterman is a talented writer with a witty personable voice that makes it feel like he’s talking to you one on one.
The major flaw with the book is that while he obviously loves his metal, he’s also deeply insecure about how unhip it is to like it.
Maybe it’s his position as a music critic (a profesion full of hipper-than-thou people) that’s made him so defensive, I don’t know. He spends too much time trying to defend the genre with regard to sexism etc., using incoherent, poorly thought out arguments when he should just acknowledge that it existed. Of course it existed. However, a lot of the point of metal for it’s creators and fans over the years has been that it pisses people off. That’s all he really needed to say.
The book works when it acts as a biography and talks about how the music soundtracked his life and he should have spent more time on that.
One point that continues to hack me off is his bizarre snobbery about 80’s underground music that appears in the epilogue. He gets all het up at the notion that you had to be a bit more adventurous to discover the stuff than metal. It’s just fucking true. These bands sold next to nothing, had minimal radio play and ended up meaning a bit too much to the people who loved them. Get over the fact that you liked popular music. Embrace the idea.
I’ve watched two documentaries about the history of metal and the metallica doc recently and this book doesn’t do it’s subject any justice compared even to those deeply flawed projects.
The book is frequently funny, it’s just that it’s frequently wrong-headed too. Go in expecting that and you will get the best out of it.

Rating: C