I don’t think I have devoured a book this enthusiastically in…well, a few years!
It really does have me gripped! It also has me doing something I rarely do…because my levels of concentration are so…paltry. 1) I can read it with noise around! (Mercifully, there hasn’t been much noise to distract me) and 2) I dived in whilst still in the midst of reading another book (Yes, I am STILL committed to reading The Master And Margarita – though I have not read any of it since before I left Oz! Bad Loz!). That is something I NEVER do! Or very rarely. It can be OK when the subjects are wildly different (usually I can cope with fiction vs non-fiction at the same time…two different works of fiction would prove difficult for me. And I read sssoooo slow (usually!), two books at once would take me an AGE to finish!
Despite the tales of STDs and loutish behaviour on a few pages…it really is about the music, and the band as a group of musicians, and the boys as individual musicians and songwriters and it is fascinating. I am loving it. It STILL makes me want ‘in’…because, despite all my Jim drooling and silliness, it is that music…especially during this early period that has me SSOO gripped. By God it is exciting reading about the formulation, the progression of them.
The more I read, the more I just fall in love with the band. I really do. But it also just makes me crave wanting to be there. To be involved, somehow. Again, like the Bowie book did when reading about the early years and the Mainman era. I mean, Tony Defries was an absolute cockwomble, but that whole “to be a rock star, you’ve got to spend like one” was, although just ridiculously ill-contrived, was just spellbinding to read about. The exploits and times of that period. Just…hell fire! And though the early period of the Minds doesn’t compare in that respect…it’s that getting going, musically. Learning the craft, touring, the differences in recording…that melting pot of sounds they have in those early years.
I love this band so damn much! And the book, so far, is just compounding all the reasons why I do.