The Story's Never Told

On music books, and how many is too many?

I’ve been reading a lot of music books of late, I think I mentioned a few weeks ago that I got through Wesley Doyle’s oral history Conform to Deform: The Some Bizzare Story on holiday, and I’ve recently finished Richard Russell’s Liberation Through Hearing and Our Band Could Be Your Life by Michael Azerrad. I was talking idly to a friend the other day who mentioned they’d been served an ad for a new book on the Hacienda with a foreword by Peter Hook and it had us discussing how many books does a given subject need?

I mean no slight on Peter Hook - New Order are one of my favourite bands and it’s a shame to see how they’ve fallen apart with little chance of reconciliation. I don’t know the ins and outs of that and who’s fault it is and I suspect if you asked the four members of the band you’d get four separate answers. But Peter Hook - he’s said enough on the Hacienda and Factory by now surely? He wrote his own book on it a few years ago (which I haven’t read) plus has surely contributed to hundreds more plus any TV show that cares to ask him. 

For me, the two definitive documents on that subject are the film 24 Hour Party People and Audrey Golden’s I Thought I Heard You Speak which I briefly mentioned in my end of year round up in December, which tells the Factory/Hacienda story through the eyes of the women who worked there. The last thing the world needs is another book on Factory, the stories have all been told - Martin Hannett threatening Tony Wilson with a gun, Factory losing money on every copy of Blue Monday they sold, the Happy Mondays spending all the labels money on drugs in Barbados, they’ve been done, they’re folklore now, everyone with even a passing interest in the subject knows them. I Thought I Heard You Speak however adds new voices to the tale, voices that were central to the success of the label but until now have been overlooked. We can criticise the men involved with Factory for not letting these women be heard until now, but I think that’s a little unfair - the music industry is notoriously a boys club, even to this day, but Factory employed a number of women in senior positions which really made it ahead of it’s time when it comes to representation.

Anyway - the stories told in I Thought I Heard You Speak are fresh, and just as funny and well-told as anything we knew about the label already. It’s great that we’re finally getting to hear them, and they’ll be 100x more interesting than another anecdote from Peter Hook about falling out with Bernard Sumner.

The book I’m currently reading is David Cavanagh’s My Magpie Eyes Are Hungry For The Prize. This is a definitive history of Creation Records, and again I’m not sure much more needs to be written on that subject now but My Magpie Eyes… was written back in 2001, shortly after the implosion of the label so I guess you can’t accuse it of being unneccesary. I’m not that far into it (it’s over 700 pages total), I’ve just reached the part where the Jesus & Mary Chain are blazing a trail of destruction through their chaotic gigs but it it’s providing some great context into the early days of the label (where it pulls no punches describing just how bad some of the earlier releases wereand Alan McGee’s attempts to pass himself off as a modern Malcolm McLaren

I’m personally very suspicious of anyone who has Malcolm McLaren as their role model - Geoff Travis

For me Creation is one of those foundational UK labels - it probably belongs on a Mount Rushmore of Indie Labels (I’ve agonised over this decision numerous times: Warp, XL, Creation, BEB, Factory. But what of Mo’Wax!? Downwards!? Some Bizzare!? Hyperdub!? Trojan!? Rough Trade?! and countless others) and has been responsible for some of the best - and biggest - indie albums ever. Screamadelica, Give Out But Don’t Give Up (the recent Memphis tapes reissue makes that the album it should have been originally IMO), Vanishing Point, That run of the first three Oasis albums (I won’t have a bad word said against Be Here Now), Isn’t Anything, Loveless, Souvlaki, Nowhere, Fuzzy Logic, Forever Breathes The Lonely Word, Train Above The City… the list goes on.

If McGee wanted to be compared to McLaren this book does a good job of doing so - although McGee started off with more pure intentions his ambition to make a million quid from music soon started to show through, and his legacy will probably be much the same, I’ve not got to that point in the book yet but I imagine most people will remember the photo of him hobnobbing with Noel Gallagher and Tony Blair at 10 Downing Street more than any of his era-defining signings other than Oasis. What does the man in the street remember Malcolm McLaren for? The Sex Pistols and swindling A&M out of a hundred grand, but little else.

There’s still music books yet to be written - there always will be. Only now are people starting to tell the story of DnB/Jungle/Hardcore (Joe Muggs Bass, Mids, Tops is one of many), Bleep Techno (Matt Anniss Join The Future one of the best books I’ve read on any musical subject. Period. It’s rare that a book about UK dance music that isn’t focussed on what was happening in London) and others. There’s already books on the 90’s rave scene, although not many on the Gatecrasher/Cream-led superclub scene after this (I wrote my uni dissertation on the subject, but had to research most of it from contemporary sources rather than rely on a few books). The book on Dubstep is yet to be written (although a fair bit was written by Simon Reynolds and others at the time), same with the fertile period that followed that gets lumped together as ‘post-dubstep’. I’m looking forward to reading them all.

Just Like Honey

This weeks tunes, then, and once you’ve worked your way through the best of the Creation bits there’s some great stuff to get your ears around this week.

Curses - Another Heaven [Italians Do It Better]

My friend Steven from Deeper into Movies put me onto this. Co-produced by Johnny Jewel, it’s transcendal EBM with that typical Italians Do It Better sheen to it. Goes on a nice little journey over it’s seven minutes runtime, I’m looking forward to more of this.

Carrier - In Spectra [Carrier]

I wrote about this a few weeks ago but now it’s out digitally. Guy Brewer’s Carrier project has put out some of the most essential tunes of recent times. It ticks all the relevant boxes and wears it’s influences proudly, there’s nothing to hide here. If you’re into T++ and that bare-bones, dub influenced stuff then it’s well worth your time.

CHBB - Ima Iki Mashoo / CHBB [Soulsherrif]

I’m sure you’ve all seen by now - after years in the tape-only wilderness those vital CHBB tracks have finally been tidied up and reissued on vinyl. I honestly don’t know a single person that isn’t excited about this (that’s a lie, but you know what I mean). Pre-order only for now, so no digital yet (hopefully there will be) - all you’ve got to go on is this track from one of Trevor Jackson’s landmark Metal Dance compilations.

Kevin - Laundry [Motion Ward]

Hysterical Love Project - Lashes [Motion Ward]

Two new albums from Motion Ward here, broadly covering that type of dreamlike lo-fi pop that we all love. Put this on, dim the lights, spark up a fancy scented candle and just drift, man…

L.B Dub Corp - Saturn To Home [Dekmantel]

Been waiting for this one a while - we’ve all heard the single with Robert Owens, the Burial Remix but now the full album drops featuring Miss Kittin and Paul St. Hilaire. It’s not gonna let you down this, Luke Slater going into deep space and bringing you along for the ride.

That’s all from me this week - hope you enjoyed it, and feel free to share your favourite music books or Creation tunes with me. Don’t tell me you think Be Here Now is shit - I won’t hear it. Go on, listen to it again. Thanks for reading, subscribing and sharing, until next week!