The Goo 1
Books PAUL MCDERMOTT Sixteen Again: How Pete Shel
ley & Buzzcocks Changed Manchester Music (and me) by Paul Hanley (Route Publishing) Paul Hanley played in The Fall between 1980 and 1984 and has already gifted us two of the great books about Manchester music. Have A Bleedin Guess: The Story of Hex Enduction Hour is his first-hand account of the recording of one of The Fall’s essential albums. Leave The Capital: A History of Manchester Music In 13 Recordings tells the story of the Strawberry and Pluto recording studios. With Sixteen Again he’s gone three for three. Freaks Out! Weirdos, Misfits and Deviants – The Rise and Fall of Righteous Rock ’n’ Roll by Luke Haines (Nine Eight Books) Hanley’s account of how Shelley and co. managed to get The Sex Pistols to play at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall is far more interesting then stories of the gig itself. Buzzcocks’ John Maher inspired Hanley to play drums. The morning after Buzzcocks appeared on Top of the Pops performing third single ‘I Don’t Mind’ Hanley realises that Maher had attended his school: “We scoured the whole-school photos in the Our Lady corridor till we found him. There, wearing the same uniform and staring back at me was a proper pop star. It was all possible.” Sixteen Again is a glorious weave of biography, oral history, critique and memoir and like Hanley’s other two books, it’s an essential read. Luke Haines’s two previous memoirs are accounts of the 90s UK music scene. Bad Vibes: Britpop and My Part in Its Downfall covers the story of The Auteurs whilst Post Everything: Outsider Rock and Roll covers the Black Box Recorder and solo years. Now come Freaks Out! - part memoir part manifesto – hilariously offering an alternative history of rock ‘n’ roll. Dark Luminosity: Memoirs of a Geezer (expanded edition) by Jah Wobble (Faber & Faber) PAGE 40 Whereas Hanley can find some merit in the post-1989 Buzzcocks’ recordings for Haines it’s unambiguous: “If any group have pissed on their legacy by reforming then it is this lot.” “Is it ever okay for the band to get back together? Absolutely not. The true Freak never considers it. There is no unfinished business,” writes Haines while watching The Velvet Underground’s Glastonbury 1993 set. His assessment: “The Velvet Underground start playing. And they are shit.” Freaks Out! has a chapter on the late Cathal Coughlan, Haines’s friend and North Sea Scrolls bandmate. “Cathal Coughlan was too much of a force of nature to be dust,” contends Haines. It’s a beautiful tribute in a great book. Band reformations are also reflected upon in Dark Luminosity: Memoirs of a Geezer. In the early 2000s Jah Wobble gets a call from John Lydon about getting PiL back together. “I got no sense of excitement or enthusiasm from him,” writes Wobble. “I had no sense that he was open to anything radical or imaginative. It all felt pretty dull and perfunctory.” Wobble’s signature bass sound is at the heart of PiL’s first two albums (1978’s First Issue and 1979’s Metal Box). He recounts his tumultuous time in the band with searing honesty. By the mid-80s he had joined AA and embraced sobriety, he had also collaborated on a number of incredible records with two of his musical heroes: Can members Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit, as well as releasing a number of genre-defying albums with Jah Wobble’s Invaders of the Heart (1992’s ‘Visions of You’ featuring Sinéad O’Connor went Top 40 in the UK). Dark Luminosity was originally published in 2009 and this “expanded edition” brings Wobble’s story up-to-date. More than just a music memoir - Brexit, Wobble’s Irish heritage, race-relations in the UK and more are all discussed - this is an incredibly candid book.