In much the same way that too good an intro song or film can poleaxe the gig it's meant to be setting up, so it's entirely possible to sink a book with too good an introduction. Bill Drummond does the foreword here, talking in his usual wry, prophetic manner about secret histories and occult symmetries, the sort of thing you expect a hare would tell you if it deigned to talk, setting up something special. And then his former publicist Chris Houghton takes over for the book proper, and it's very

In much the same way that too good an intro song or film can poleaxe the gig it's meant to be setting up, so it's entirely possible to sink a book with too good an introduction. Bill Drummond does the foreword here, talking in his usual wry, prophetic manner about secret histories and occult symmetries, the sort of thing you expect a hare would tell you if it deigned to talk, setting up something special. And then his former publicist Chris Houghton takes over for the book proper, and it's very much the voice you'd expect from a guy who worked in the music industry, and liked pub rock but thought punk was a bit much. One can't prove a negative, and most books have a dull sentence somewhere, but I'm honestly not quoting selectively when I point at plodding prose like "In 1979 there was no doubting that the extreme work ethic and spirit of adventure that had characterised Talking Heads for the last eighteen months was paying off in spades." On top of which, I wouldn't like to state categorically that I've never liked a piece of music writing which refers to 'sides', but it certainly doesn't help. The abiding impression is of an affable chap who's met everyone (the Ramones, Tom Waits, the Undertones) and still come out of it all without a decent anecdote about any of them. Certainly one wouldn't wish him any ill; if he can be blokey in places, he was suitably unimpressed by the fellow who nicked a pair of Suzi Quatro's knickers. And he seems to have done good work selling these acts, many of whom can't have been easy to pitch at the time. But in terms of selling his own story now, no. What makes it more frustrating is that I went to such lengths to get this. Granted, it's not as if I had to pluck the withered scroll from a liche's hand, but the first time I reserved it from the library some swine stole it from the shelf, and then when I re-reserved it I was down to fourth in the queue. And if you think that's not much of a story, well, try reading the first hundred pages of this.



In short, I was right on the edge of bailing out, when Houghton's story reaches the point where he goes freelance, and then gets tangled up with Drummond and his Zoo. And suddenly it's a whole other book. Not one to compare with Copey or Drummond's account of the same events, sure, but a deserving companion piece. It still has some skimmable stretches, as when Houghton falls in with Creation; he's less impressed by their bullshit than most were in the eighties and nineties, but still ends up giving a gaggle of ornery pricks far more attention than they deserve. The story of the rise of the JAMs is hampered by Houghton fundamentally being on a different wavelength ("Bill and Jimmy are their own worst enemies. They take what they do very seriously but don't behave in that way." – this is not their problem, this is their genius), but I'm deep enough in the mire of their mythology that I find the extra fragments here fascinating all the same. Similarly, I imagine fans of the likes of Birdland, the Wedding Present and Cud, less written about these days (well, except for that curious Black Crown strip), might enjoy even their fairly cursory appearances. And if nothing else, when people have always been so happy to throw around accusations of 'hype' when discussing pop, it's good to read a hypeman's own account and learn that even he doesn't really know why it worked so much better for some acts than others.