message board

[jefflewis]

I just read the 33 1/3 book on "The Piper at the Gates of Dawn" and I liked it a lot... I usually haven't read any of the books in that series because they are all so short they seem too expensive to bother to buy! But there are many that I'm curious about. I think there's about 100 of them now, each on a different album, by different authors. At the studio where I was recording this past weekend the engineer Mark had a shelf of about a dozen of them, and "Piper" was the one i was most interested in reading. I've also read the one on the Minutemen's "Double Nickels on the Dime", which was given to me by a promoter whose house I stayed at last year (he had a bunch on his shelf too, everybody who has these books seems to have a shelf's worth of them!).

[jefflewis]

Here's a list of the existing 33 1/3 books, from their website... but this list is not actually complete, because I notice that it is missing the Black Sabbath "Master of Reality" book that John Darnielle wrote, and maybe it is missing others too -

1 Dusty in Memphis Dusty Springfield 1969 Warren Zanes

2 Forever Changes Love 1967 Andrew Hultkrans

3 Harvest Neil Young 1972 Sam Inglis

4 The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society The Kinks 1968 Andy Miller

5 Meat Is Murder The Smiths 1985 Joe Pernice

6 The Piper at the Gates of Dawn Pink Floyd 1967 John Cavanagh

7 ABBA Gold: Greatest Hits ABBA 1992 Elisabeth Vincentelli

8 Electric Ladyland The Jimi Hendrix Experience 1968 John Perry

9 Unknown Pleasures Joy Division 1979 Chris Ott

10 Sign “☮” the Times Prince 1987 Michaelangelo Matos

11 The Velvet Underground & Nico The Velvet Underground 1967 Joe Harvard

12 Let It Be The Beatles 1970 Steve Matteo

13 Live at the Apollo James Brown 1963 Douglas Wolk

14 Aqualung Jethro Tull 1971 Allan Moore

15 OK Computer Radiohead 1997 Dai Griffiths

16 Let It Be The Replacements 1984 Colin Meloy

17 Led Zeppelin IV Led Zeppelin 1971 Erik Davis

18 Exile on Main St. The Rolling Stones 1972 Bill Janovitz

19 Pet Sounds The Beach Boys 1966 Jim Fusilli

20 Ramones Ramones 1976 Nicholas Rombes

21 Armed Forces Elvis Costello 1979 Franklin Bruno

22 Murmur R.E.M. 1983 J. Niimi

23 Grace Jeff Buckley 1994 Daphne Brooks

24 Endtroducing….. DJ Shadow 1996 Eliot Wilder

25 Kick Out the Jams MC5 1969 Don McLeese

26 Low David Bowie 1977 Hugo Wilcken

27 Born in the U.S.A. Bruce Springsteen 1984 Geoffrey Himes

28 Music from Big Pink The Band 1968 John Niven

29 In the Aeroplane over the Sea Neutral Milk Hotel 1998 Kim Cooper

30 Paul’s Boutique Beastie Boys 1989 Dan Le Roy

31 Doolittle Pixies 1989 Ben Sisario

32 There’s a Riot Goin’ On Sly and the Family Stone 1971 Miles Marshall Lewis

33 The Stone Roses The Stone Roses 1989 Alex Green

34 In Utero Nirvana 1993 Gillian G. Gaar

35 Highway 61 Revisited Bob Dylan 1965 Mark Polizzotti

36 Loveless My Bloody Valentine 1991 Mike McGonigal

37 The Who Sell Out The Who 1967 John Dougan

38 Bee Thousand Guided by Voices 1994 Marc Woodworth

39 Daydream Nation Sonic Youth 1988 Matthew Stearns

40 Court and Spark Joni Mitchell 1974 Sean Nelson

41 Use Your Illusion I and II Guns N’ Roses 1991 Eric Weisbard

42 Songs in the Key of Life Stevie Wonder 1976 Zeth Lundy

43 The Notorious Byrd Brothers The Byrds 1968 Ric Menck

44 Trout Mask Replica Captain Beefheart 1969 Kevin Courrier

45 Double Nickels on the Dime Minutemen 1984 Michael T. Fournier

46 Aja Steely Dan 1977 Don Breithaupt

47 People’s Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm A Tribe Called Quest 1990 Shawn Taylor

48 Rid of Me PJ Harvey 1993 Kate Schatz

49 Achtung Baby U2 1991 Stephen Catanzarite

50 If You’re Feeling Sinister Belle & Sebastian 1996 Scott Plagenhoef

51 Pink Moon Nick Drake 1972 Amanda Petrusich

52 Let’s Talk About Love Celine Dion 1997 Carl Wilson

53 Swordfishtrombones Tom Waits 1983 David Smay

54 20 Jazz Funk Greats Throbbing Gristle 1979 Drew Daniel

55 Horses Patti Smith 1975 Philip Shaw

56 Master of Reality Black Sabbath 1971 John Darnielle

57 Reign in Blood Slayer 1986 D.X. Ferris

58 Shoot Out the Lights Richard and Linda Thompson 1982 Hayden Childs

59 Gentlemen The Afghan Whigs 1993 Bob Gendron

60 Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash The Pogues 1985 Jeffery T. Roesgen

61 The Gilded Palace of Sin The Flying Burrito Brothers 1969 Bob Proehl

62 Pink Flag Wire 1977 Wilson Neate

63 XO Elliott Smith 1998 Mathew Lemay

64 Illmatic Nas 1994 Matthew Gasteier

65 Radio City Big Star 1974 Bruce Eaton

66 One Step Beyond… Madness 1979 Terry Edwards

67 Another Green World Brian Eno 1975 Geeta Dayal

68 Zaireeka The Flaming Lips 1997 Mark Richardson

69 69 Love Songs The Magnetic Fields 1999 LD Beghtol

70 Facing Future Israel Kamakawiwo’ole 1993 Dan Kois

71 It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back Public Enemy 1988 Christopher R. Weingarten

72 Wowee Zowee Pavement 1995 Bryan Charles

73 Highway to Hell AC/DC 1979 Joe Bonomo

74 Song Cycle Van Dyke Parks 1968 Richard Henderson

75 Spiderland Slint 1991 Scott Tennent

76 Kid A Radiohead 2000 Marvin Lin

77 Tusk Fleetwood Mac 1979 Rob Trucks

78 Pretty Hate Machine Nine Inch Nails 1989 Daphne Carr

79 Chocolate and Cheese Ween 1994 Hank Shteamer

80 American Recordings Johnny Cash 1994 Tony Tost

81 Some Girls The Rolling Stones 1978 Cyrus Patell

82 You’re Living All Over Me Dinosaur Jr. 1987 Nick Attfield

83 Marquee Moon Television 1977 Bryan Waterman

84 Amazing Grace Aretha Franklin 1972 Aaron Cohen

85 Dummy Portishead 1994 RJ Wheaton

86 Fear of Music Talking Heads 1979 Jonathan Lethem

87 Histoire de Melody Nelson Serge Gainsbourg 1971 Darran Anderson

88 Flood They Might Be Giants 1990 S. Alexander Reed and Philip Sandifer


AND holy cow here's a list from Wikipedia of all the UPCOMING books in the series, that have not yet been published... I guess they will really pass 100 books and keep going!

Exile in Guyville, by Gina Arnold, on the album by Liz Phair (1993)
Boys for Pele, by Elizabeth Merrick, on the album by Tori Amos (1996)
The Dreaming, by Ann Powers, on the album by Kate Bush (1982)
Maggot Brain, by Matt Rogers, on the album by Funkadelic (1971)
London Calling, by Tommy Tompkins, on the album by The Clash (1979)
Lucinda Williams, by Anders Smith Lindall, on the album by Lucinda Williams (1988)
Selected Ambient Works Volume II, by Marc Weidenbaum, on the album by Aphex Twin (1994)
Smile, by Luis Sanchez, on the album by The Beach Boys (2011)
Biophilia, by Nicola Dibben, on the album by Björk (2011)
Ode to Billie Joe, by Tara Murtha, on the album by Bobbie Gentry (1967)
The Grey Album, by Charles Fairchild, on the album by Danger Mouse (2004)
Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables, by Mike Foley, on the album by Dead Kennedys (1980)
Freedom of Choice, by Evie Nagy, on the album by Devo (1980)
Entertainment!, by Kevin Dettmar, on the album by Gang of Four (1979)
Live Through This, by Anwyn Crawford, on the album by Hole (1994)
Donuts, by Jordan Ferguson, on the album by J Dilla (2006)
My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, by Kirk Walker Graves, on the album by Kanye West (2010)
Dangerous, by Susan Fast, on the album by Michael Jackson (1991)
Definitely Maybe, by Alex Niven, on the album by Oasis (1994)
Blank Generation, by Pete Astor, on the album by Richard Hell and the Voidoids (1977)
( ), by Ethan Hayden, on the album by Sigur Rós (2002)


(of the already published ones, I wonder which one is the biggest seller??? And which one is the worst seller???)

[Dav]

I would be interesting in the forever changes one, it's one of my favorite LP, i read a bit about it, most amazing thing it's that it coasted 2500 dollars to record, that's insane comparing to how great the lp sounds and how much artists spends now for making crap auto tune lps.
The piper might be interesting too, i think i would know most of it though cos i read a lot of Barrett books but still...
_________________
http://uberaffe.bandcamp.com

[Dav]

There's a lot of great lps in that lists.
_________________
http://uberaffe.bandcamp.com

[misshelenc]

I would read most of them, I often think reading can teach you a lot even for the music you don't really care for. I've never seen these in the UK though, I spend a lot of time in libraries and book shops but miss a lot regardless, I will have to have a look out for them. I wish like you I knew someone to rob them from to give them a try x
(I am currently reading The Moaning of Life by Karl Pilkington, by the way)
_________________
You don’t put your life into your books. You find it there.

[jefflewis]

Dav, I think you would totally like the Piper At the Gates one, of course I was thinking of you when I was reading it, I'm sure you already know some of it but still the writing is good and it's some nice descriptions of the songs and information from the engineer and things like that. Well, maybe you've already read the books that this author is using for reference!

I'd definitely really like to read the Forever Changes one, that would be high on my list of ones I'd read first... I didn't know the album was so cheap to make, could that really be true?? It has all of that orchestra stuff on it! I recently read a really great interview with a couple of Love members from the Forever Changes period, in Big Takeover magazine, they said a lot of funny and interesting things about the recording and about that time. (But I don't think they mentioned anything about it being a cheap album to record!)

I've never heard of "The Moaning of Life" but it's a good title!
Right now I'm reading "Lipstick Traces," by Greil Marcus, about the Sex Pistols...

[Dav]

I sure will try to find the piper one, always new things to learn, from different people.
I also have to find the "recording madcap" book, i've read some of it on a website but the whole thing has to be interesting, about the whole Barrett Floyd era there is a book called random precision that list all sort of little facts and stories about recordings, never read though.

About Forever Changes i got that info on wikipeida

"After much rehearsal, the group returned to the studio in August and continued through September, quickly laying down the remaining nine tracks, at a total estimated cost of $2,257."
_________________
http://uberaffe.bandcamp.com

[jefflewis]

The author of the Piper At the Gates book definitely uses a lot of information from the Random Precision book, that book seems like it would be very interesting - it has all of the recording information, all the dates they were in the studio and what they did, etc. Sadly, as reported in the Piper At the Gates 33 1/3 book, EMI erased almost all the original tapes of the sessions, this is what studios always did to save money on tape, even the biggest studios like EMI. The author said that only one tape still exists in the vaults, I think he said it has something like 5 takes of Matilda Mother, never released (as far as I'm aware). I found it very interesting which songs they recorded in one take, which songs they spent a lot of time on, and also the gap of time between the sessions... like, for Interstellar Overdrive I think they recorded the main take and then spent a few months playing more live gigs then they recorded a new version of Interstellar Overdrive on TOP of the previous recording, and mixed the two together in the mix - this is a really interesting idea because the song would have evolved over the months of playing it live inbetween the recordings. Also in the book he talks about how some of the songs on the album sound very different in the mono versions (I've only heard the stereo version of the album, so I'm very curious!)!

It was quite ironic to read a book about Pink Floyd taking months with the top engineers in the business to create a masterpiece album, I was reading it in the recording studio where my band was recording and mixing an entire album in one day, the total opposite approach, it made me wonder what Piper would have sounded like if they recorded it in one day! And it made me wonder if I should take more time to make my new album!

[misshelenc]

Lipstick Traces is brilliant.
The Moaning of Life is the book of a UK television series, this funny Northern guy looking at the way different cultures understand the main bits of life- happiness, kids, marriage, vocation and money, and death. He is very funny but I don't think he realises it, and he is Ricky Gervais' mate. I recommend it. And An Idiot Abroad, his other series, with books.
xxx
_________________
You don’t put your life into your books. You find it there.

[jefflewis]

Sounds good! Hmm, I should start a separate thread on Lipstick Traces, I can't even remember if I already did...

[misshelenc]

I did write it somewhere else but it wasn't its own thread, you wrote it in something else. it's great isn't it, I think I read it for the first time when I was about 17, before I was so jaded by life and politics and even music.
I have nearly finished my book now and then I have to raid my shelves for something new, in a weird mood and not sure what I feel like reading next time. I want these books now.
xx
_________________
You don’t put your life into your books. You find it there.