Entertainment For Lively Minds
Renegade: The Lives and Tales of Mark E. Smith
Posted by Red Umpire on 18 June 2009 - 4:38pm.
Saw the above for sale in the Manchester branch of Fopp for £5 today and very nearly bought it. The reason that I put it back on the shelf (well, actually, back on the pile on the floor) was because the blurb made it sound a bit like an angry old man ranting on at length about how rubbish everything and everybody is these days.
Has anybody out there read it? Should I have bought it? Is it "maybe the funniest music book ever written" as someone in the Observer is alleged to have said, according to the cover? Is the impression created by the blurb accurate? Or is it a very funny book in which an angry old man rants on at length about how rubbish everything and everybody is these days?
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Yes to all the above
But it's worth a fiver of anyone's money all the same.
"the blurb made it sound a bit like an angry old man etc"
Aye, but you can get that for nowt on here....
Remember though that if...
the quote on the cover just said "The funniest music book ever written", there's no guarantee that the reviewer was actually referring to *that* book :-)
i read it last month
it is rather forgettable. there's one or two fictionalised paragraphs and a few stream of consciousness passages that are good, but by and large it's a rather dull read - and I like the Fall. Save your money.
If you love The Fall...
...and i do ,then it's worth reading but he is a moany old git.
Agree with you
It is very moany, but no-one said he had to be lovable. A good Fall book is Simon Ford's.
And also...
a lot of what MES says is total made up bollocks. And I say that as HUGE Fall fan.
There's a bunch of Fall books around, The Fallen by Dave Simpson where he tracks down the many, many ex members of the group is a good read.
And for just a MES taster, I'd highly recommend Simon Armitage's "Gig" book which can be flicked through in Waterstone's in a couple of minutes (prior to purchasing the book, obviously...)
"a lot of what MES says is total made up bollocks"
and that differs from most musicians - especially front men - how exactly? :-)
Fair Point
But would you not say MES is in a league of his own?
Always makes for an entertaining read though.
I Loved it
I Loved it.
Made me laugh and also pleased not to be inside his head.