Today I’m reviewing Billy Bragg’s, “Roots Rockers and Radicals: How Skiffle Changed the World.” I’m guessing the first question most Americans would have is why a book on Skiffle? Or maybe even what is Skiffle? And the short answer is that without Britain’s 1950s Skiffle music craze, there might never have been a Beatles, Yardbirds, […]
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We played Monopoly as kids, thrilled by the huge wads of cash we’d get at the beginning of the game. Even more thrilled by the huger wads we’d acquire throughout the game through selfish greed and ruthless speculation. But Monopoly was not originally a game that glorified selfishness and greed. On the contrary, the original
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Today I’m reviewing “NoMeansNo: From Obscurity to Oblivion: An Oral History,” by Jason Lamb, with Paul Prescott. PM Press published it January, 2024. Definitely one of the best band histories I’ve ever read. They relate the history through short interview clips of band members, friends, associates, and fans. And they intersperse this with tons of
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Michelle Cruz Gonzales’s “The Spitboy Rule: Tales of a Xicana in a Female Punk Band,” is one of the best rock memoirs I have ever read. It honestly portrays much of what made the 1990s punk scene beautiful, and much of what made it ugly, too. But what really makes this book great is how
“Tales of an Inland Empire Girl” is a beautifully written, edgy memoir by Juanita E. Mantz Pelaez. It’s the story of good girl’s downward spiral, from a studious bookworm into an angry, drinking, trouble-making punk rock teen, and her redemption that follows. It’s the story of a working-class family, struggling to make ends meet. Of
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