Kounelaki wrote:FC, you'll have to review this book at some point.
had it in my christmas stocking. Not sure that the reviewer at the top of this thread has read the book - riotous? Not really. He doesn't really shed any light on the music business and particularly not PR. The reviewer mention ruminations but there's not much of that - just the odd comment here and there, and he doesn't pass off the heart surgery as nothing much, though its passed over pretty quickly all the same. And its only in that section where he says much about being busy, with a list of all the bands and albums he's 'handling' at the same time. Not that its a bad read - entertaining enough. What you actually get is virtually nothing of the man himself - other than several times he tells you how shy he is - but a potted history of the bands (rock/punk/post punk and even Sun Ra) through his career, and sometimes it is just a paragraph. Lots of bunnymen stuff as you can imagine and he comes back to them again and again and again right at the end - though seems closer to copey and drummond so alot on them too. Theres' not much in critical analysis or pondering apart from at the end when he describes how he/why he stopped working with all of them. mainly they didn't need him in the cases of drummond and cope who were by 21st century their own cottage industries and didn't need muc of a PR bloke. Though he rues the way it ended with the bunnymen - finally mac calling him a traitor for mentioning the drugs in the booklet accompanying the box set. When was that? Was that when it all kicked off on the official forum and VT was born? On the second coming, as it were he mentions Paul Toogood leaving as 'so Paul did the decent thing and resigned'. Which is slightly different from what I've heard before which implied he was sacked - though does admit he was too close to Mac.
In one bit he says he and some bloke I've never heard of before - some indoe record company bloke - bonded over their mothers not being able to explain to their neighbours what their sons did for a living. Not sure I am at the end of this, though you know, read it in three days off and on so can't be that bad.
Interesting factet...... Houghton's secobnd wife was the woman who designed Billy Braggs early album artwork.