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Music Books

Deke Leonard - The Twang Dynasty
Cash: The Autobiography
Phil Lesh - Searching for the Sound: My Life with the Grateful Dead
Mark Lewisohn - The Beatles - All These Years: Volume One: Tune In
Paul Rees - Robert Plant: A Life
John Perry - Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland (33 ⅓)
John McDermott and Eddie Kramer - Hendrix : Setting the Record Straight
60 Years of Fender: Six Decades of the Greatest Electric Guitars
Six Decades of the Fender Telecaster: The Story of the World's First Solidbody Electric Guitar
The Stratocaster Guitar Book: A Complete History of Fender Stratocaster Guitars
Gibson Guitars: 100 Years of an American Icon
The Les Paul Guitar Book: A Complete History of Gibson Les Paul Guitars
 
I am in the middle of David Byrne's How Music Works. Absolutely eye(ear)-opening on the creative process, music composition, production etc. Totally destroyed my previously misinformed views about the creation of modern music...
 
Obvious, but Lester Bangs' 'Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung' and Art Pepper's 'Straight Life' are two books about music that are actually about a whole lot more.
 
Hope no one minds but I've linked-up most of the above posts so pfm can get it's cut for advertising stuff most folk will be buying from Amazon - it all helps pay for the ongoing daftness next door in the audio room! It also adds reviews and overviews too, so is a benefit all round. I'll get to the rest a little later.

I'm actually surprised at just how many of the above I've got / read, though some to add to the shopping basket for sure! One I'll add is The 17 by Bill Drummond. He really does have a unique and highly entertaining perspective on life, art and music.
 
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"Horizons Touched'' - the music of ECM;

"Mind over Matter'' - the images of Pink Floyd (Storm Thorgerson);

"Taken by Storm'' - the album art of Storm Thorgerson;

"Enter Night'' - Biography of Metallica;

"Black Knight'' - Biography of Ritchie Blackmore;

"Who I Am'' - autobiography of Pete Townshend.
 
The Glenn Gould reader is a classic. I must get that.
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A big +1 for Julian Cope "Head On" and "Repossessed".
Ian MacDonald "Revolution In The Head" is the Beatles bible though I disagree with his cultural analysis.

Those definitely, plus:

Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: Lester Bangs

The Aesthetics Of Rock: Richard Meltzer

Shout! The True Story of The Beatles: Philip Norman
 
Lipstick Traces, Greil Marcus's classic book on punk, Dadaism, the situationists , medieval heretics and the Knights of the Round Table (amongst others).
 
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My copy of 'Reasons to Be Cheerful' showed up today. 'Tis a lovely thing. I knew the Hawkwind stuff, but I wasn't aware of just how many album sleeves he did in the later 70s. Very distinctive.
 
I read a lot about music. This thread is helpful.

For several months, almost half a year I have stopped listening to music. At times I just pull the plug, the longest time has been when I went for three months without listening to anything other than the underscore or what's on a TV show. I wanted to hear some music along with a score, dialed some up and then switched off and just read the score.

The music was distracting me.

I had a realisation the other day down at the house (which is empty and silent). Music for me has becomes a theoretical issue -- I lost the ability to play bass and stick and flute so I think about music, as I get older, I find it's getting more interesting to read and read about than listen to. Which kinda bothers me -- but not that much.

I think I am really getting interested in the other end of music, the extreme silences, the imposition of perception and ghost sounds behind the tinnitus and whistle.

I need to re read Cage.
 
I've just finished Kristin Hersh's Paradoxical Undressing, which was a really good read.
She's got a very readable style, and is very open about her struggles with mental health issues, and how they impact, positively and negatively, on her writing and performing. It certainly helped that I was a big Throwing Muses fan, as there are clues in it as to how certain songs came about.
 
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