33 1/3 Series of books

Marquee Moon and YLAOM aren't great books but i enjoyed them well enough as a fan of the albums

Me too on the Dino Jr, not great lit but really satisfying if you love the album. I couldn't get into the Eno one...

The Paul's Boutique one I've just read is in the enjoyably solid category. The prose is rock-crit boilerplate but it's a great story, thoroughly researched, which shines a light on A&R man Tim Carr and co-producer Matt Dike, who, to my shame, I didn't realise was such a big part of the sound of the album. The second half is, again, methodical rather than inspired but does a good job of explaining the samples and lyrical references: basically extended sleevenotes.

Lethem's Fear of Music is one of the best I've read. It wrongfooted me into thinking it would be a quasi-memoir but it's really a story of obsession spanning 30 years. So many ideas, so wittily put across. It made me hear the record with fresh ears, which is what all the best 33 1/3 books do.

Looks like the chosen few will be announced shortly. Just received my rejection email :-(

Me too. Neither 2112 proposal made it to the finals.

That's a real bummer.

Never read the Replacements one. Some of the others are OK, nothing spectacular.

That is, do yourself a favor and never read.

Or whatever. Read it godgammit.

Sry

lol @ "do yourself a favor and never read."

That's from Philip Larkin, innit?

I also received an email yesterday rejecting my proposal. I simply can't understand it. I had such high hopes for my book about the Sulayiti Kalungi Ensemble of Kampala's classic album "Uganda - Music of the Baganda People" that I'd gone ahead and started researching and writing it. I'd already made two trips out to Kampala and was planning a third.

The thing is, the Ganda people - of whose daily life, rituals and spirit this album is the most transcendent encapsulation, as I explain in Chapter 36 - aren't doing too well at the moment, economically or spiritually. There was the big topsoil erosion last year, of course, then the desecration of their traditional burial grounds, a shocking atrocity I cover in depth in Chapter 70. Things are on a knife-edge. It could go either way for the Ganda.

Over the last few months, news that this book was likely to appear spread like wildfire through these disheartened people, and on my last trip I saw a new sparkle in the eyes of their children. "David Barker will give his assent to a book about the Ganda through Bloomsbury Publishing," said one little girl, her feet bare because her parents can't afford shoes. "At long last all is turning out for our people!"

I'm not a superstitious man, but I swear that birds in those desecrated burial grounds were heard singing again after decades of silence. There was even a rumour that Kintu and Nambi - the Adam and Eve of the Ganda - were said to be planning a great rally in Kampala to congratulate the fifty-two re-united tribes and preside over an entire week of feasting, music, dancing, jubilation and thanksgiving sacrifice to the ancestral spirits.

And then this. Civil war is a virtual inevitability in Buganda now, and the tribal heartlands will soon be an open wound searing with ebola, anthrax and vermin as orphaned children stagger between burning huts, screeching the names of parents whose machete-hacked flesh is already being stripped from their skeletons by wild dogs. Barker you bastard.

scoring from the judges on this one?

I'm guessing they'll announce the final 18 on Monday morning. Curious.

I am not in the writing business. What are the advantages of being a part of this series over self-publishing?

distribution. a brand that people recognize. and the fact that nobody reads self-published books unless they are about teen werewolves.

OTM Scott.

Getting three rejections from Continuum has definitely made me re-evaluate how important it is to have a contract in advance though. I personally believe that if I just write a good book, it will get published. Time to quit putting the cart before the horse.

Latest batch to get commissioned:

Andrew WK: I Get Wet, by Phillip Crandall
Aphex Twin: Selected Ambient Works Vol II, by Marc Weidenbaum
Beach Boys: Smile, by Luis Sanchez
Bjork: Biophilia, by Nicola Dibben
Bobbie Gentry: Ode to Billie Joe, by Tara Murtha
Danger Mouse: The Grey Album, by Charles Fairchild
Dead Kennedys: Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, by Mike Foley
Devo: Freedom of Choice, by Evie Nagy
Gang of Four: Entertainment! by Kevin Dettmar
Hole: Live Through This, by Anwyn Crawford
J Dilla: Donuts, by Jordan Ferguson
Kanye West: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, by Kirk Walker Graves
Michael Jackson: Dangerous, by Susan Fast
Oasis: Definitely Maybe, by Alex Niven
Richard Hell and the Voidoids: Blank Generation, by Pete Astor
Serge Gainsbourg: Histoire de Melody Nelson, by Darran Anderson
Sigur Ros: ( ), by Ethan Hayden
They Might Be Giants: Flood, by Alex Reed and Philip Sandifer

http://www.33third.blogspot.com/2012/08/18-new-titles.html

nice interesting variety, gotta say

Richard Hell and the Voidoids: Blank Generation, by Pete Astor

The Weather Prophets/Wisdom of Harry dude?

(Not saying that in a surprised way, I could totally see that being an album he locked into as punk started happening.)

Any ilxors in there?

just Nicola "deeznuts" Dibben

Intrigued by at least 5 of those.

who's the guy doing the dilla?

five women total.

(represented in 3 books. 3 out of 18.)

evie nagy i know her!

evie rulz

got totally fucking excited at dude love writing a dead kennedys book. and... oh, MIKE foley.

donuts should be great. and live through this. kanye will suck because you can't be all 'lol cocaine' yet. grey album has potential.

lol the bjork choice.

I recently read the one on the use your illusion albums and it was quite terrible. Looking forward to the AWK one though.

Most interesting one here is TMBG, at least in theory.

yeah i have high hopes for that one

Professor Dettmar splits his research and teaching between British & Irish modernism, esp. James Joyce, and contemporary popular music

Oh, that's who is writing the Gang of Four one.

Could be good

I love Selected Ambient Works Vol II but cannot imagine how a book on that will work. Because RDJ is obviously not going to be involved.

That's the one that intrigues me the most. Must have been a hell of a pitch.

You can read the pitch for Selected Ambient Works II on Marc Weidenbaum's ambient music blog:
http://disquiet.com/2012/08/31/saw2for33third/

Always thought of WK as a novelty act and hen he goes and gets a 33 1/3 volume and a Best New Reissue from P4k on the same day.

Most interesting one here is TMBG, at least in theory.

Especially by Sandifer, I'm rly excited for that one and wld like to buy and read it today

that's the 'brony bump,' you're going to be seeing a lot of that in the next few years (xpost)

Bjork: Biophilia, by Nicola Dibben

This is gonna be a "fascinating critique of a great artist's shortcomings" type of defense, right?

probably more of a "lots of non-musical/technical stuff surrounding the project to delve into" type of book

would definitely feel better about them doing books about such recently released albums if there had already been 33 1/3s about earlier Bjork and Kanye records

Genuinely excited about Bobbie Gentry book

Not sure how that Bjork album got in the list? Assuming the writer already was involved in writing about said contemporary album and was able to successfully roll it into a book.

Don't know who Mike Foley is but that DKs album (and the band's whole history) definitely deserves analysis.

Not sure how that Bjork album got in the list? Assuming the writer already was involved in writing about said contemporary album and was able to successfully roll it into a book.

― your native bacon (mh), Friday, August 31, 2012 10:41 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

well people submit pretty extensive proposals, and they apparently liked that proposal

i mean, given the fact that there have been some fairly lousy books about great canonical albums in the series in the past, i think offbeat picks like that are actually kind of a good sign that they're looking out for really convincing proposals that would make engaging books rather than greenlighting things because they're about canonical albums everyone loves and wants to read about