Books
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With his utter devotion to music and his never-sated hunger for new sounds, no other DJ was more musically inspirational to British youth than John Peel. Despite his sudden death halfway through writing this memoir, Margrave of the Marshes works thanks the intervention of his widow Sheila. While her half lacks Peel's deliciously arcane prose style, she documents the remainder of his life well.Buy
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The story of Ibiza told as a mixture of travelogue and history lesson, Armstrong's at his strongest when detailing the rich past of the island, from the Carthaginians and Phoenicians, via the sixties jet set Euro-hedonists, right through to the red-faced Brits that populate San Antonio's bars today. The musical detail here, though, is patchy and occasionally plain wrong.Buy
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The story of the eighties club scene told through its visuals, from the early days of i-D and the Face's influential Neville Brody right through to acid house and the post-house graphics of Trevor Jackson and Derek Yates. Filled with flyers, posters, record sleeves and magazine layouts, plus biographies of the era's leading designers, it's essential reading for fans of graphic art.Buy
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The first great book about hip hop, written back when it was DEF, FLY and FRESH! as a daisy. After talking roots – African poets, soul preachers and doo-wop groups – Toop grabs Flash, Bambaataa and the rest, adding some white-gloved, fat boombox B-boy pics to boot. Rap Attack is essential old school literature, and updated editions leave the original text and photos graciously intact.Buy
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What’s your problem? Fear of music? tunes cause you pain? it’s all just noise? Call Oliver – ‘My wife’s not a hat’ – Sacks, famous neurologist, to help and explain, with odd tales of melodic malfunction. Sadly, it’s all genteel case histories with a classical bent – he blithely misses the millions of brains who’ve done their own weekend pharma-musico-neurological experiments.Buy
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The teenager is a post-war creation, but what were the ingredients? American industry spat out ‘juvenile delinquents’ as early as 1810, while in Victorian London gangs of hooligan scamps ran wild. WWI thinned a generation of dreamers and turned the survivors wild and weird, leaving the Hitler Youth to take advantage. When GIs, swing and rock’n’roll turned up, the job was already done.Buy
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Despite the cancer of Strictly Come Dancing, most of us shake it without worrying about the rules; we can thank the twist. A bum-wiggling transatlantic dance craze, it ushered in the shocking idea of dancing without a partner, showed the new power of youth culture and niftily de-coupled dancefloors forever. Along the way there’s racism, payola, mafia dons and a ton of nutty stories.Buy
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Quiffs, platforms, cut-off zoot suits, sunglasses and pop-socks, set off with a Neville Chamberlain umbrella and a smirk: les Zazous of wartime Paris kick-started club culture with swing records in secret cellars. Along with jazz musicans across Europe they showed up the Nazis as the squarest, grouchiest daddios in history. A laid-back look from American Parisian Zwerin.Buy
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Your gram of toot left an acre of virgin rainforest drowned in petrochemicals and made sure a peasant family can’t grow their own food. Sobering tales, smugglers adventures and a deal of hidden history to bore your mates with in this ripsnorting read about the devil’s dandruff. Not least, the truth about Coca-Cola’s central role in the worldwide trade in jazz salt. Not to be sniffed at.Buy
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Not enough drug books are written by wine writers. Walton’s thesis is that getting fucked up is a human right and a biological imperative, and he shows us piss-head hamsters and silver Edwardian ladies’ syringes to prove it. He treats legal and illegal drugs alike, arguing with a flawless objectivity that mainlining skag is not so far removed from necking too much Kenko.Buy
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In 1860s New York, the poorest drank poisonous alcohol from rubber tubes and whole families lived in the cupboard under your stairs. ‘Suicide Saloons’ had hatches in the floor for the cleaners to drop bodies in the river, and warring fire brigades would leave buildings burning while they fought their rivals. The bare-knuckled reality of ‘Gangs of New York’-era Manhattan.Buy
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The allure of Detroit to eggheads means most books on techno are written for autistic cyborgs. Sicko’s sharpened pen cuts through the crap, with great humour and precision, finding the human stories behind all that Third Wave futurology. Later chapters spread thin into a global checklist of techno’s many tendrils, but his journeys through Detroit’s pre-techno scene are outstanding.Buy
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When house was still in short trousers, champion raver Fleming self-published this psychedelic time capsule, took the pictures, did the interviews, wrote the theme tune, sang the theme tune, visited Detroit and Chicago, broke his ankle, collected loads of flyers and a tall stack of his own photos, hosed it all into an stone-age version of Photoshop and hit the button marked ‘SWIRL!’Buy
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After a total of 148 years writing about dance music, Broughton and Brewster emptied their hard disks for the men from the Ministry, found some lovely photos and added some jokes. The result was this beautifully designed coffee table book, which laid the ground for their classic, Last Night a DJ Saved My Life. The perfect present for tricky nephews. Doesn’t actually contain much Ministry.Buy
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From the times dinosaurs ruled the earth and Kool Herc rocked the Bronx. Back in the day – when it was fun, spelt F-U-N. Fricke and Ahearn (Wildstyle director) take us back, effortlessly, brilliantly, merging a barrage of photos and flyers with extended interviews starring a full cast of B-boys, MCs, graffiti writers and old school pioneer DJs. To the beat y’all, and it don’t stop.Buy
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Best-known for digging dirt on Elvis and Lennon, Goldman became fascinated with the disco underground after interviewing Francis Grasso for Penthouse. The result, an extended essay and photo album, is one of the classic texts of dance music (now an expensive collectors’ item), not least for the respect Goldman gave to a scene most people saw as a gimmick. Profound passionate and prophetic.Buy
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Village Voice clubs scribe Michael Musto sweeps you on a mid ’80s clubland safari, armed with an Andy Warhol cover quote no less, showing off New York’s post-Studio 54 places, faces and social graces. The arty be-seen scenes of Pyramid, Mudd Club, Danceteria and Palladium are the main stops on his tour; Paradise Garage doesn’t even merit a drive-past.Buy
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Written before ecstasy hysteria pretty much criminalised the flourishing US rave scene, Scott’s solid account of America’s dayglo dance teens feels like a first act in search of a climax. Chronicles NYC technophilia, west coast rave, including some great anti-Brit backlashery, and a trip to Sasha-loving Orlando, from whence emerged the cultural treasure we call breaks.Buy
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The classic account of how black music carved a place for itself in apartheid America, how ‘race records’ evolved into rhythm and blues, then soul and funk, helped by some wily entrepreneurs and the rapid social climb of the first black radio DJs. The ‘death in George’s story is when black music found white acceptance with the era of Motown pop.Buy
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Big Bangs: The Story of Five Musical Discoveries That Changed Musical History – Howard Goodall, 2001Not content with writing the Blackadder theme tune, Goodall is on a mission to educate the masses in the mysteries of classical music, focusing on five ‘big bangs’: the inventions of written music, the piano, opera, recording and some cleverness called equal temperament, the secret that keeps the world in tune. A fascinating intro to the principles that all music rests on.Buy
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