books about music

i'm reading please kill me : the uncensored oral history of punk and it's got me wanting to read more stuff about contemporary music. i'm interested in basically any music scenes, the more specific the better. i wouldn't mind some good books on bands, great records, as well. i basically haven't read anything about music except kind of generalized things about music theory, which i'm not that interested in.

I read Beneath the Underdog by Charles Mingus and twas a good read.

techno rebels is great if you're interested in the old detroit scene (and if you can find a copy).

DJ Shadow's Endtroducing... (33 1/3) - Eliot Wilder

Its pretty much a book where Eliot Wilder interviews DJ Shadow about the process of making the iconic Endtroducing

was quite an interesting read.

How Bluegrass Music Destroyed My Life by John Fahey

The Rest is Noise - Alex Ross

Truly amazing and unbelievably exhaustive account of 20th century "classical" music, starting with early Mahler and R. Strauss all the way up to Reich, Adams and even dabbles in Radiohead and Björk. It reads like a novel. Great entertaining writing and incredibly informative. You don't have to know anything about 20th century classical or classical in general to enjoy this. Very few people know of more music than Alex Ross.

I read this great book about the Norwegian death metal scene YEEEAAAARRRS ago, and it was ace, BUT, I forgot the title. It had a burning church on the cover.

this is very good

so is this

this is a massive lol from start to finish

and this is my favourite music book, incredible:

more brilliant than the sun - kodwo eshun

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RivGWjlLoQ

Julian Cope's shit is supposed to be pretty good.

10,000th post v2.0, fuck yes.

I've been reading "Black Noise" by Tricia Rose

I highly highly recommend it. From 1994, about the emergence and growth of hip-hop from the beginning to the date it was published. Very well written and thorough.

Books I've read in the last year about music/noise/sound/sound in art that are all interesting to read, if not a bit intense at times.

Noise Water Meat - Douglas Kahn (this is like my Bible)

Background Noise: Perspectives on Sound Art - Brandon LaBelle (more art based than music, but still worth reading)

Noise Music: A History - Paul Hegarty (it's a bit hit and miss, and there's certain stuff I disagreed with, but it's a good attempt at doing a 'serious' book about the noie scene)

Sound Art: Beyond Music, Between Catagories - Alan Licht (nice book, comes with a cd and a foreward by Jim O'Rourke but doesn't really tell you much if you're already interest in sound art)

Ocean of Sound - David Toop (Toop is always pretty good, and this is an interesting book, lots of electronic stuff is mentioned ZOMG idm etc)

Silence: Lectures and Writings - John Cage (this is the Bible part 2)

Noise: Political Economy of Music - Jacques Attali (it's got a silly name, it has a wicked cover, and will make you feel like a pretentious bastard reading it on the bus, you owe it to yourself to read this)

Undercurrents: The Hidden Wiring of Modern Music - Tony Herrington (it's very Wire, not the band, the magazine, make of that what you will)

Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music - Christoph Cox (bible part 3? possiby)

Second The Rest is Noise, I enjoyed that.

Modulations: A History of Electronic Music - Throbbing Words on Sound

excellent book that tells the story of electronic music from the first experiments to aphex twin! a must!

  On 7/19/2009 at 10:37 PM, Dan C said:

Ocean of Sound - David Toop (Toop is always pretty good, and this is an interesting book, lots of electronic stuff is mentioned ZOMG idm etc)

yeah i've read this too, there's this nice chapter on afx!

I'd Rather Be the Devil: Skip James and the Blues - Stephen Calt

any of the Wax Poetics Anthologies

  On 7/19/2009 at 11:45 PM, takeshi said:

I'd Rather Be the Devil: Skip James and the Blues - Stephen Calt

any of the Wax Poetics Anthologies

This

Wax Poetics is one of the best music magazines out there.

If you're into The Beatles, It is inexcusable to miss out on The Beatles Anthology, 90% of the text is straight from the band themselves as they detail their lives from 1962-1970. Immensely fascinating, as one might imagine their lives to be. The other 10% of the text consists of acquaintances of the band who offer perspective on the moment being discussed.

I would second Barry Miles' Frank Zappa biography. It's pretty warts and all in it's portrayal of Frank.

Though I haven't read them, I continually hear excellent things from all of my friends about both Charles Mingus' Beneath the Underdog and Miles Davis' Miles. They have an ongoing joke amongst themselves about a part in BTU in which Charles describes at length on how he fucks women.

If you've ever been boggled by how the Beatles seemed to cram so much into only 8 years, there's a book called A Day In The Life which is literally just a calendar of those 8 years with what they did on each day...

i probably should have mentioned that i don't care about the beatles. i read the anthology when it came out, it was interesting, but that's one band i've heard enough about.

The Beatles -- "A Book About the Band The Beatles and it's 793 Pages and There's a Supplementary Volume as Well Which is Like 88 pages so Like You Should Check it Out..."

I gave a book report on this when I was in 7th grade ->

It is basically a collection of interviews with the band, compiled into a book. I lost my copy on a plane several years back and coincidentally met Slash in an airport on the same trip.

This is the U.S. press -> ... the one above was the U.K. press, I believe.

*edit*

this is pretty awesome, too...

These two are great:

what dan c said; also the 33 1/3 books are pretty interesting

yeah, so about the Bealtes. Theres this book

  On 7/20/2009 at 6:56 PM, playbynumbers said:

what dan c said; also the 33 1/3 books are pretty interesting

Which 33 1/3 books have you read?

I started the 33 1/3 book about Slayer's "Reign in Blood" and couldn't finish it. It was just a bunch of interviews with prominent metal musicians saying how "brutal" the record was and whatnot. No shit. The record is brutal. I figured that one out on my own.