You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'book' category.
Justin just listed a small but very solid rock batch. Some of the highlights are a Rolling Stones Satanic Majesties 3D cover, Bob Seger System’s Mongrel, an early mono Chuck Berry on Chess, SRC’s 1st album, SRC’s 2nd album, a very nice mono T 2047 Meet The Beatles, a mono Beatles Revolver, an original The Crickets first album (which I wish I could keep), and a bunch of other stuff including some dance/funk in front that ends sooner.
Also, let me mention this again, in case you missed it, an interesting exchange and occurance that happened here at Cousins Vinyl dot com recently. Max wrote about Thunderclap Newman last week, which made me interested in learning more about a then 15 year old guitarist that recorded with them named Jimmy McCulloch who died at 26 of a heroin overdose. Max then looked into him more and wrote a follow-up post and mentioned this other guy who posted video footage of him on Youtube - which I replied and said it would be cool if this guy commented on our site and sure enough he did. Paul is his name, and although he’s only 20, he’s in the early stages of writing a biography about McCulloch’s life, which would be a fascinating contribution to music history. I believe he and Max exchanged emails, so look for more entries in the future about this subject. Really cool stuff! Good job Paul, keep going, man.
I have mentioned John Sinclair and his book Guitar Army in previous posts.
I was given a copy of the book recently and I started reading it last night. I can tell already it will be a must-read book for anyone interested in both the history of Ann Arbor-Detroit area rock and roll and also the history of the 60s and 70s social revolution in the Ann Arbor-Detroit area.
So far, I love Sinclair’s writing style. It is very Kerouac-like in stream of conscienceness, with long, excited, jazz-like passages. He began the book by describing the music he grew up listening to that influenced the 60s and 70s rock and roll movement: 1950s artists and groups, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Elvis, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, The Moonglows - he made the pages come alive with images of 45s spinning, rebellious teenagers dancing, the music jumping out at me in rhythm, putting the songs in my head. It actually made it hard to sleep afterwords. He described the youth’s consciousness as being off-limits to anyone with supposed authority, and with this birth of this incredible new rock and roll music out there, they had little interest for anything else. It reminds me again of Robert Jr. Whitall, founder of Big City Rythym and Blues magazine, who was himself a John Sinclair follower, telling me about how much they loved the blues and black music in general in those days - and that is what inspired the Ann Arbor-Detroit punk based rock and roll, which is still being emulated by today’s local bands.
Another exciting part of the book is that it comes with a CD of rare recordings of speeches and music by bands and influencial leaders during the time of the movement he was leading. I noticed it has Allen Ginsberg’s “Prayer For John Sinclair” as well as “Free John Sinclair Now” by the band Up!. We actually had a copy of a 45 that had “Prayer” on one side and “Free” on the other on a private label. We came across it a couple years ago and foolishly sold it - for good money - but now of course I wish I had it to display on this site.
Anyway, when I am done reading it I’ll post an official review - I’m just excited about starting it. Justin is anxious to read it after I’m done.
