33 1/3 Series of books

got a couple 33 1/3s for xmas, just finished the Radio City one, which is really good and gives a much more direct and detailed look at Big Star than most stuff written about the band, but it's also easily the most sloppily edited book in the series I've ever seen, just a really disconcerting number of sentences that are missing a word or a clause and barely make sense.

scott, your book is great! you did an outstanding job. especially your descriptions of the actual music. i'll be honest, these are usually the parts of music books - the detailed descriptions of songs - that make me zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz unless a writer is really good at it. and you are really good at it. congrats on the whole thing! write more books for me to read.

and i feel like a big jerk for not reading more of these. no excuse. haven't read geeta's or drew's yet!? that's just so wrong. i am going online to get them.

am reading the Born In The U.S.A. book at the moment and really diggin it

thanks man, I appreciate it. Definitely working on another book though I'm at the earliest possible stage in the process - the basic idea and list of what the content will be. All that's left is me writing 50-75k words.

out of curiosity, what is the avg wordcount of the 33 1/3 books?

Something like 35-40k I think? Mine was right in that window. I'll never forget printing the whole manuscript when I was done and saying to myself "I spent a year and half on this and this is all I wrote??"

i just picked up yr book this weekend scott! about 50 pgs in and you've already shed so much light on the band.

thanks!

I met David Grubbs at EMP this weekend, as well as Clark Johnson's wife Diane, who was on a panel with Carl Wilson among others. Total trip - glad to note that David liked it, though he said it was (obviously) a strange experience to read about his teenage years.

it was nice to meet david. for some reason i refrained from mentioning my mad teen squirrel bait love.

I missed my opportunity to talk to him as if I were singing a Gastr del Sol song the whole time.

man im dying for one on hounds of love

Mark Richardon's book on the album Zaireeke by The Flaming Lips gives you a really detailed explanation of the album, the history of the band, and reader's thoughts and opinions of the album and how he personally ties in to the music. I recommend.

my mate was telling me last night about an anecdote in the bowie book where "David Bowie is sat in a studio with tape spool all around him listening to the same beat for 3 minutes then going '..aaand STOP', with a fully-formed song in his head by the end." what song was this?

also are any of these available for the kindle?

my mate was telling me last night about an anecdote in the bowie book where "David Bowie is sat in a studio with tape spool all around him listening to the same beat for 3 minutes then going '..aaand STOP', with a fully-formed song in his head by the end." what song was this?
--NI

It was either Warzsawa or Art Decade, I believe.

And yes, they're on Kindle.

I went to the library to get that 33.3 on Low, but wound up walking out with Bowie In Berlin, a really sweet string of moments that begins with Bowie freaking out on Cameron Crowe in L.A. while eating peppers, milk and cocaine (literally checking the closed blinds for any signs of Jimmy Page, who Bowie thought had cursed him) to a more assured Bowie years later, wrapping up Lodger and moving with "Ashes to Ashes".

In between, Iggy Pop serves as a wingman, Bowie rides around in a hovercraft, Marc Bolan and Bing Crosby are both struck dead mere weeks after performing with Bowie and Bowie sees two familiar figures out kissing by the Berlin Wall.

Still haven't read the Low book, but I would definitely recommend this other one as well.

Ha, actually just got back from the library today with a couple 33 1/3 books as well.

Got Vol. 1 & 2 of the Greatest Hits, which I actually thought would be a collection of the stories behind individual songs than just excerpts from already published books. Kinda dumb of me considering 33 1/3 is very focused on ~the album~. It's still fun to read, if not like just an extended brochure they expect you to pay for ($23 a copy!), and esp. considering it basically serves as sort of another "essential albums guide", with mini-stories on each.

which album did you write about pgwp?

Spiderland.

Thanks for the kind words re Zaireeka, kanggene.

Would love to read a 33&1/3 book on "The Glow, Pt. 2" by the Microphones. Enjoyed most of the one's I've read already.

my mate was telling me last night about an anecdote in the bowie book where "David Bowie is sat in a studio with tape spool all around him listening to the same beat for 3 minutes then going '..aaand STOP', with a fully-formed song in his head by the end." what song was this?

It's Mass Production, from The Idiot.

I flipped through Bowie in Berlin at the store last year. It looked well worth my time.

picked up the newly released Tusk yesterday and just finished reading Geeta's eno book for the second time. That was a great read!

I didn't know there was a tusk book coming out! Just ordered it

Tusk!!?

Add To Cart

Ugh, on second thought...

Here, Rob Trucks talks to Lindsey Buckingham, as well as members of Animal Collective, Camper Van Beethoven, the New Pornographers, Wolf Parade, the Fleetwood Mac tribute band Tusk

wtf Wolf Parade really?

wasnt really into the tusk book :(

yeah, not sure i am either, midway through. was a impulse buy

That sucks. What's wrong with it?

they should do a Songs For Drella one.

xpost the author talks abt himself + his life in the third person throughout, which i found annoying. he explains abt this in the intro (which you can read here - http://cipg.codemantra.us/UI_TRANSACTIONS/Marketing/UI_Marketing.aspx?ID=WP9780826429025&ISBN=9780826429025&sts=b) and once i read that i sort of realised that this book probably wouldnt be for me

also theres quite a few interviews w/ different musicians but quite a few of them didnt even seem to love tusk that much?

yeah, the interview w/Jonathon Segel didn't really mention tusk much, was more about cvb. and otherwise the book just hasn't been insightful *at all* like the good ones in this series that i've read

Just got Daphne Carr's book on Pretty Hate Machine in the mail and read it all straight through. Very enjoyable and terribly wrenching given that it's just as much a portrait of the economic stasis/dead zone of Cleveland, Youngstown and Mercer; a good half of the book (more?) consists of the words of various longtime fans who live in those cities or towns or nearby.

This series is beginning to jump the shark. Perhaps it was inevitable.

What makes you say that? From what I've read, some of the more recent books have been really great! Are you speaking more to the quality of the writing? Or the choice of albums?

Some Girls!
http://www.continuumbooks.com/books/detail.aspx?ReturnURL=%2fmain.aspx&BookId=136558&SubjectId=1381&Subject2Id=1381

yeah and marquee moon! guess the authors think of them as "companion volumes" or some such. which is interesting.

Aretha Franklin's Amazing Grace by Aaron Cohen

Wu Tang Clan's Enter the Wu Tang - this project has been cancelled

:(

Great review, fastnbulbous. Brilliant book, easily one of the best of the series.

In response to a question left in the Comments section by John, here's where the series currently stands regarding upcoming titles:

Aretha Franklin's Amazing Grace - just published
Portishead's Dummy - just published
Talking Heads' Fear of Music by Jonathan Lethem - this will publish in March/April 2012
Liz Phair's Exile in Guyville by Gina Arnold - we don't yet quite have the final manuscript, but fully expect to publish this in May/June 2012

Weezer's Pinkerton - this project has been cancelled
Wu Tang Clan's Enter the Wu Tang - this project has been cancelled
Tori Amos' Boys for Pele - this project has been cancelled
Funkadelic's Maggot Brain - this project is still alive, and partially written, but I wouldn't hold your breath...
Outkast's Aquemini - this project has been cancelled
The Clash's London Calling - this book is deeply, profoundly cursed. If you pre-ordered it in 2004 when it was first announced, I can only apologise...
Lucinda Williams' Self-Titled LP - 90% written, but cannot be confident of a publication date
Kate Bush's The Dreaming - unlikely this will ever happen, but not yet officially cancelled

And that's it, for the moment! Apologies for the messiness and frustration caused by late and cancelled titles, but that's part of the fabric of the series. It's more difficult than it seems, to write 30,000 original and insightful words about a favourite record...

Who is RJ Wheaton?

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3269/3080395630_273326a28b.jpg

can't say i've loved every book i've read in this series, but i'm glad it exists and keeps chuggin' along. why hasn't there been a feelies crazy rhythms one? because i'm the only one who would buy it it?

Talking Heads' Fear of Music by Jonathan Lethem - this will publish in March/April 2012

This is just about the news of the century, for me.

Cohen's a really good writer; I need to get this.
Who was doing Aquemini?

i was at my friend's house this weekend and she had a copy of the "wowee zowee" 33 1/3 book out but i was struggling to read the spine from across the room and i thought someone had written one of these on white zombie.