Our music book library grew this year with histories, photo books, and guides. From the detailed archeology of James Nice‘s revised Shadowplayers to the indie advice of Nash the Slash, there was a treasure-trove of information about the evolution of the music industry after punk. Dorothy Max Prior‘s second installment of her memoirs helped to bring the story up to date from the perspective of a scenester. All are recommended reading for the holidays and beyond.
Dorothy Max Prior – Sex Is No Emergency
“You’re my favourite drummer,” says Genesis P-Orridge. With that, Dorothy Prior – known universally as Max, for reasons she still isn’t clear on – joins Psychic TV.
As the drummer for Rema Rema and a personality close to the evolving punk scene, Max had a front-row seat at the birth of post-punk and industrial music. Sex Is No Emergency takes in a wide vista – shifting seamlessly between cultural anthropology and personal memoir – as Prior traces the evolution of globally important subcultures.
The book is named for a line by Monte Cazazza, the American artist and industrial ally of Genesis P-Orridge. It is the follow-up to 69 Exhibition Road, in which Prior took us through her experiences as a young woman in 1970s South Kensington and Harrow; tracking paths between The Monochrome Set and Ant-music via Club Louise in Soho, Cabaret Futura, and the ICA.
In this turn, Max’s life moves on from peeling in pubs to having children; from living in cheap digs to buying a house; from staying up in London to enjoying Brighton; and from watching Throbbing Gristle to touring with PTV.
Cazazza’s presence looms large, as Max pays respects to her former band-mate and long-distance admirer. It’s a story about adulting while being loyal to one’s friends, set against the backdrop of a country leaving the wretchedness of the 70s behind.
James Nice – Shadowplayers: The Rise and Fall of Factory Records
Expanded and updated with a new chapter, Shadowplayers operates as both institutional history and a methodical autopsy of Factory and the orbiting post-punk constellations that shaped the Manchester-based label.
James Nice has assembled an impressive body of archival detail, yet the book’s interest lies less in revelation than in its steady mapping of a scene defined by aesthetic austerity and entrepreneurial drift. Nice’s style is patient, almost forensic; tracing how idealism, mismanagement and shifting tastes produced a catalogue of singular music and persistent uncertainty.
Nash the Slash – Cut Throat: How to Succeed in the Music Business – and Survive!
Nash the Slash created music in a particular vein. He also left behind the manuscript for a book, setting out the lessons he learned in four decades as an independent artist. With the help of the SKILL imprint, it has been published as a soft-cover book to transmit the bandaged man’s knowledge to later generations.
Some of the material was becoming dated, even as Jeff Plewman (the man inside the gauze) set down his thoughts at the end of the 1990s. The internet had only just been commercialised, and it would have been difficult to see where the technology would lead. The core of the book, however, is essential reading for artists interested to establish themselves and build their audience.
Nash was a one-man band, record label, and PR agency, and his attempts to move from the margins to the mainstream brought him face-to-face (or bandages-to-face) with an industry designed to cheat the artist. Had he stayed with us, he might have added a chapter called, “Strategies Against Spotify.”
The book features interview material with Steve Hillage, Gary Numan, Bill Nelson, and photographer Paul Till. Hillage and Nelson had turns at producing Nash for his UK label, Dindisc, while Numan famously discovered Nash’s demented violin screaming from a Toronto club. Till has his own book (see below) out to coincide with the release of the documentary film, Nash the Slash Rises Again!
A rewarding book that offers new insights into one of music’s most original and enigmatic artists.
Paul Till – Nash the Slash
One of Paul Till‘s first successes as a photographer was to sell an image to Bob Dylan that became the cover of Blood on the Tracks. The Canadian snapper has gone on to document many legends of music, including Bruce Springsteen, Sting, Leonard Cohen – and Nash the Slash.
Till’s photos of Nash loom large, as the Nash the Slash Rises Again! film hits the festival circuit. To give fans a chance to reflect on Nash’s striking imagery, Till has published a book with his iconic and captivating shots.