Entertainment For Lively Minds
Novelist Musicians
Posted by Steve Turner on 27 January 2011 - 10:08pm.
I noticed that Steve Earle has a new album coming out in April followed by his first novel in May. His book of short stories from a few years back was pretty decent. Willy Vlautin from Richmond Fontaine has become better at novel writing than leading a band although both are good. Are there any other musicians who have turned their hand to novels and made a success of it?
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Kinky
as in Friedman.
Nick Cave
is a good example. It's all pretty dark stuff mind. Who'd have thought it?
Forgot about Nick
That Bunny Munro novel was pretty bleak. With views like his it makes Andy Gray seem like Mary Poppins (I mean Bunny Munro not Nick Cave).
Bruce Dickinson!
The Adventures Of Lord Iffy Boatrace. As good as it sounds.
You'd never guess he'd been reading Wodehouse, would you?
Although, curiously enough, I saw him presenting a TV programme about Spontaneous Human Combustion last week and he has the makings of a good 'popular science' presenter.
He's a fine presenter on 6music,
a pilot, a fencer, and a fine frontman. Yer man Dickinson definately has hinterland, even if his novel is undeniably crap. I'm quite surprised that TV hasn't snaffled him yet really.
OK, so he's not Brian Cox but he does a pretty good job...
He's a complete natural.
More Bruce please!
The whole programme is available on Youtube
et al
Josh Ritter
Josh, who has a wonderful way with words in his songs, has his first novel, Brights Passage, coming out in the summer this year. I've got high hopes for it.
Richard Fariña
Sixties folkie Richard Fariña, who recorded with his wife Mimi (sister of Joan Baez), wrote a 1966 cult novel called "Been Down So Long it Looks Like Up to Me" just before his untimely death in a motorbike crash.
I've considered reading it, but have never quite got round to it. Has any member of the Massive read it, perchance?
I read it years ago...
... and I remember having extremely low expectations but being really pleasantly surprised. I was expecting sub Jack Kerouac shite, what I got was a fine campus novel in which a college is a microcosm of the US as a whole and the main character was neither as cool or as smart as he thought he was. A tad over written maybe, but genuinely good.
Have you read David Hadju's book Positively 4th Street about Dylan, Joan Baez and Richard and Mimi Farina? Well worth a go, one of my favorite books concerning Dylan.
And lest we forget
Has anyone made it to the end of this?
Didn't Pete Townshend get published
back in the 1980's ? I know he was involved with Faber but don't recall if he ever wrote anything. Also, the bassist with Elvis Costello - Bruce Thomas - wrote a novel (essentially a memoir) on life on the road. Musician who would make a good novelist - Shane MacGowan.
He was employed as a Commissioning Editor I think
as opposed to a writer.
He has published a book of short stories but I can't remember the name, I suspect that might have been published by his own Eel Pie imprint/label.
'Horse's Neck'
published by Faber in the mid 80s. Totally unreadable from where I was sitting.
Er, yes...
...some years earlier I was hired to try and knock some sense into the text, by the then boss of Eel Pie, John Brown, and Townshend himself. Without a great deal of success, I have to admit...but I did get to go to a party where the Great Man hauled me round and introduced me to everyone as 'my editor', which was kind of cool.
Rosanne Cash, by the way, turned out a pretty nifty volume of short stories called Bodies of Water.
Of course, there's Elvis Costello's favourite novel,
"The Big Wheel" by Bruce Thomas:
I didn't really rate it.
Not sure it's a novel in the strictest sense of the word
more an 'impressionistic travelogue'.
It certainly professes to be a factual description of life on the road with that group of people at that time.
One of the best books about the road, second only to Ian Hunter's magesterial tome :-)
Written by...
... the "funniest fucker in the world" or the best bass player of all time - didn't get on it with at all - in fact, if anyone wants it, e-mail me.
possibly not the next Amis or Byatt:
Sleeper's rambunctious vocalist:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Different-Girls-girls-true-life-adventures/dp/00...
and our new culture Queen:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Candypop-1-Candy-Broken-Biscuits/dp/0007346263/r...
Gil Scott - Heron
The first two listed here were reissued by Canongate a recently. Reviews were pretty favorable..
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&search-ali...
I've Got 800 Copies of The Same Book Under My Bed...
,,,but not allowed to mention it as its advertising. The author died before he could take it on tour to sell on merchandise stall at gigs - did get M*J* and Un**T to review it and the Independent but it passed The Word by.
I'm confused here...
Which author has died?
Do tell
At least give us a clue. I'm intrigued.
It Was Kevin Coyne...
...he'd had a couple of books of short stories published by Serpent's Tail in the 90's and some in Germany after he'd moved there. Then on his website he asked if anyone knew a British publisher. After nothing happened I suggested I was willing to sell my vinyl collection to publish it. We shuck hands on a profit share split and then the stories trickled in over the next year. By the time it went to the printers he died of the lung disease that had meant his last tour of England had him in a wheel chair and with oxygen tubes - still a powerful voice.
Nice piece in the current Word about his album with Jon Langford.
Joe Pernice
His first full novel has been published in the US and looking forward to reading it when it becomes available over here;
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Feels-So-Good-When-Stop/dp/1594488746/ref=sr_1_2...
He has written a charming semi autobiographical novella "Meat is Murder" about a Smiths fan growing up in early 80's Boston and some decent short stories so there is evident talent.
Ye Gods.
The bloke from Richmond Fontaine has been allowed to write a book? What's it called, "I Hate Myself And I Want To Die"? Christ Allmighty, I thought I'd fallen through a Munch shaped hole in the space-time continuum when someone persuaded me to buy a copy of The Fitzgerald and I got it home and played it. It's been hidden in a drawer in an old dresser in the garage ever since. I'm frightened to put it out in the bin in case someone else finds it and listens to it.
Three Novels to date
Read them all and he's a decent writer.
Novels cover similar subject matter to his music; death, alcoholism and depression are common themes. Enjoyed them but then again I am a miserable bugger.
Ray Davies...
...had a book of short stories, each one named after a song of his. Can't remember the name of the book. "Waterloo Sunset," maybe? That sounds right.
Leonard Cohen
Beautiful Losers
The Favourite Game
Not easy going...
One gold star over here please
I made it all the way to the end of Beautiful Losers. It's utter bollocks. Only a stick of rock with "The 60s" all the way through it could be more of its time.
Charlie
Higson?
Simone Felice
of Felice Brothers and the Duke And The King
His novel is called Black Jesus
Louise Wener
Can't believe nobody's mentioned her yet.
Ahem...
sorry Tom, mentioned some time ago...
I've always said you were a nobody.
(Sheepish)