Not Found

Phill Jupitus
Favourite Book: Espedair Street by Iain Banks 
Not only the story of how a career in rock music attracts misfits, but a tale of how it also generates more than its fair share of recluses. In looking back at his life, the central character Danny reaches a crossroads. It was the first novel about the music business I had ever read, at a time when I was working in the music business, so it had a certain resonance. I couldn't put the damn thing down. Banks portrayed a real sense of how relentlessly normal everything is behind the scenes. The glamour's all out front and all fake.

Andrew Collins
Favourite Book: Diary of a Rock n Roll Star by Ian Hunter

The Mott The Hoople singer and Shropshire lad kept a diary for five weeks during an American tour in November-December 1972 and it remains the most honest, evocative, thrilling, mundane and hilarious account of on-the-road life, especially for an English band abroad ("neither big nor small" in Hunter's words).
His self-deprecating, borderline-miserable Midlands demeanour cuts through all the nonsense and he takes "Mandys", avoids groupies and buys endless guitars. I'll never get the image out of my mind of him sitting in "Woolworth's trunks" round the pool of the Hyatt House in LA. Genius. Should be read by anyone in a band before their first tour.

Gideon Coe
Favourite Book: A Riot of Our Own: Night and Day with the Clash
by Johnny Green and Garry Barker.

Brilliant account of life as the road manager for The Clash. Worth investigating for tales of him regularly dying Mick Jones' hair as part of his "rock and roll breakfast" and the rest of it's pretty fascinating too. Green has also just written a very good book about the Tour De France but that's another story.

There's also a brilliant compilation of rock and roll writing which I regularly Meaty
Beaty Big And Bouncy, edited by Dylan Jones and containing some of the best and more notorious rock and roll stories. Danny Baker's legendary encounter with the Jacksons never goes bad. The David Crosby stories are quite scary and I'd steer clear of the Chuck Berry bit if you've just eaten.

I also really like books on Serge Gainsbourg - though so far I've only read two. Alan Clayson's, View From the Exterior is especially good. I read it while on holiday alone in the south of France while knee deep in Pastis, Wine and cigarettes. Happy days.

Finally for tales of excess to make you shudder I'd recommend the recent biography of Canned Heat. The antics of the late Bob "The Bear" Hite and Blind Al Wilson make Pete Doherty look like Cliff Richard.

Vic McGlynn
Favourite Book: Boy George - Take it like a man.

From start to finish I was sat with my mouth in my lap. Bitchier than anything to have ever graced the pages of Popbitch. Brilliant

Stuart Maconie
Favourite Book: Ian Hunter. Diary Of A Rock And Roll Star.

Simply the best book about rock music ever written. Warm, brash, outrageous. This is the book that made the 13 year old me want to get into the rock and roll business. And it's the tale of a lost world of drugs and glamour and excess before rock stars went all wussy and "five portions of fruit and veg a day"

Mark Sutherland
Favourite Book: 'The Dirt' by Neil Strauss and Motley Crue.

This is a raw, uncompromising and, frankly, rather horrible journey through the halcyon days of LA hair metal. Unlike almost every other rock biog ever, the Crue have left nothing off-limits, detailing every sordid groupie encounter, drugs overdose and personal betrayal in gruesome detail. Make no mistake, Motley Crue are a terrible band and horrible people, but they have the most compelling cautionary tale to tell, and every page of it will grip you in a way their music never could. Mind you, you'll never eat burritos again.

Chris Hawkins
Favourite Book: For me it has to be On the Road by Kerouac.
I first read it while travelling the States. It may be clichéd but a friend and I were completely absorbed by the book as we drove across America - it truly enhanced our experience of listening to music.

John Aizlewood - Lamacq's Library reviewer 
Favourite Book: Living High In the Business Of Dirty Dreams by Nick Tosches
Was Dean Martin really the coolest (and drunkest) man to walk this earth? Why yes he was, even if most of his music was hopeless. Beautifully written, diligently researched, this - more than any other book - nails the essence of the Rat Pack, post-war American society and what happens, if like Dean Martin, everything and everyone comes to you without you having to do a thing, other than sing averagely.