great recs in here- thanks!
(not very) surprisingly few to my knowledge
The Rotters' Club, by Jonathan Coe and to a lesser extent the two sequels (Closed Circle and Middle England)
High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby
The Armageddon Rag, by George R.R. Martin
Platinum Blues, by William Deverell (Worn out lawyer see a has-been pop star becoming his daughter's boyfriend and gets trapped into becoming his manager for his comeback attempt)
Bourneville by Jonathan Coe (story more in jazz circles, as the main character is a cello player accompanying a jazz pianist)
Mr Wilder & Me , again by Jonathan Coe (the main person will become a film-music composer)
I'll try to see if I can locate these:
Sacred Locomotive Flies, by the late great Richard A. Lupoff.
Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell.
Last edited by Trane; 06-04-2024 at 11:30 AM.
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
Do not suffer through the game of chance that plays....always doors to lock away your dreams (To Be Over)
Last edited by Digital_Man; 06-01-2024 at 08:46 PM.
Do not suffer through the game of chance that plays....always doors to lock away your dreams (To Be Over)
Too bad they left the better passage out when they made the film: when he visits a future divorcee who wants to get annoy (and divorce) her estranged husband (out in Jamaica with 19-yo friend of their daughter) and asked her to get rid of enough records to pay for his return flight, and she wants to sell the whole of his mega-bucks collection for 50 bucks (of which she will get 10% commission).
Actually they shot the scene, but didn't include it in the final cut, but it's available as a bonus on the DVD
Last edited by Trane; 06-04-2024 at 11:01 AM.
my music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from drug-addicts to complete nutcases.
Not prog/fusion releated but fine novels with a musical background:
Toby Litt: I Play The Drums In A Band Called Okay (2008)
Joseph O'Connor (brother of Sinead): The Thrill of it All (2014)
Lars Saabye Christensen: Yesterday (indeed, about growing up while the Beatles release their singles and LP's. (don't know if it was translated in English though).
John Niven: Kill Your Friends (2008) - about the music-industry
I can forgive him for having a cat named N*gg*r-Man, given when he lived, but, yeah, it does, pretty blatantly in some stories. Stories like "The Call of Cthulhu," and especially "The Horror at Red Hook," talk about how "degenerate" and so on various non-white peoples are -- and what I mean by "white" in this sentence is very limited, excluding, for example, Italians, who are "degenerate."
A number of writers have taken it upon themselves to "reclaim" Lovecraft for liberalism. Probably the best of these is Victor LaValle's "The Ballad of Black Tom," which retells "Red Hook" from the point of view of a Black man who poses as a blues musician to smuggle magickal objects to various rich White people.
Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.
The thread made me think of Mark Shipper's Paperback Writer from the late 70's which had to do with a fiasco disco era Beatles reunion. I haven't tracked down this book but have read some of the (great) jokes.
The only OSC I have ever read is Ender's Game which I thought appeared to be a science fiction novel. Most of the characters were young boys. Before I was halfway into it I felt like I had been tricked into reading a kid's book. Either that is what it was or Card was insulting the intelligence of his readers. A very juvenile approach to sci-fi in any case. But of course, I had to finish it once I started. If Songmaster is anything like that, there is no way I would read it even with Jon Anderson's recommendation.
If you're into avant-garde, modern classical music, you should read Orfeo by Richard Powers.
From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Overstory, an emotionally charged novel inspired by the myth of Orpheus.
In Orfeo, composer Peter Els opens the door one evening to find the police on his doorstep. His home microbiology lab—the latest experiment in his lifelong attempt to find music in surprising patterns—has aroused the suspicions of Homeland Security. Panicked by the raid, Els turns fugitive and hatches a plan to transform this disastrous collision with the security state into an unforgettable work of art that will reawaken its audience to the sounds all around it.
No, I don't think Jon Anderson read it (not that I know of). I said my brother (who was and is a big Sci Fi guy) thought he would probably like it. Why he said that I can't say for sure because I never got very far with the book and I no longer have it. I don't know how much of a Sci Fi or fantasy reader J.A. was (or is). I think he was more into philosophical and spiritual stuff (I know he read Herman Hesse and Carlos Castaneda but not sure what else).
Edit: Ok, I found this on wikipedia which explains what Jon Anderson read that inspired him during the making of Olias of Sunhillow: "Anderson gained inspiration from science fiction and fantasy novels, works by J. R. R. Tolkien, The Initiation of the World by Vera Stanley Alder, and the art work from Yes's Fragile.[22] " So I guess I was wrong about him not reading Sci Fi or Fantasy and didn't know about him liking J.R.R. Tolkien but that certainly makes sense.
Do not suffer through the game of chance that plays....always doors to lock away your dreams (To Be Over)
In the '80s, I collected and read all the Lovecraft paperbacks adorned with Michael Whelan's fantastic painting that was cropped to cover different titles, then reproduced in full for the oversized trade editions.
I still have them and plan to reread them this summer.
whelanmichael_hplovecraft.jpg
I remember those editions -- they were gorgeous!
My HPL collection is a full set of the Arkham House h/cs, the S.T. Joshi-restored versions.
Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.
The Infinity Concerto by Greg Bear, as well as its sequel, whose title escapes me for the moment.
Confirmed Bachelors: the dramedy hit of 1883...
The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test--about the 60s, Merry Pranksters, and Grateful Dead connection.
^^^The only problem being that it isn't a novel. It's (more or less) non-fiction.
Cobra handling and cocaine use are a bad mix.
Bookmarks