Peel book

Stuart McHugh stuart@...
Wed Dec 8 14:46:17 CET 2004


>I have just been passing though the UK and apart from some record shopping
>....Aphrodisiacs album is great by the way .... I debated at length with
>myself whether to buy Mick Wall's book....in the end I did and rationalised
>it by saying that I have bought every music magazine with tributes to John
>so really the book is just the same.
>
>I have read half so far n nearly all of the quotes etc that  I have read
>have either come from John's programmes or the 2 BBC documentaries on
>him....in short there is little so far which is "insightful" other than
>perhaps his own thoughts.
>
>I share Phil's view concerning the author and can only hope that despite
>making some money he genuinely was writing this as a tribute.


I spotted the non-Mick Wall book - can't recall the author name - in 
Fopp for £7 and had a quick thumb through. As with the Wall one it 
seems to be padded out at the back with Festive 50s (doubtless nicked 
off the web,  wonder if any of our spelling mistakes have been 
retained!?) and a load of tributes from Tony Blair, Gaz Coombes etc, 
which may well have already been in the public domain.
As for the biographical content, all I can recall thinking of what I 
saw was that I could have done it myself (if I'd been of a mind to). 
Most of the facts I knew  already, and some of the other stuff had 
come to light in the various tribute documentaries on TV and in the 
press since his death.
The biog of the author didn't suggest that it was done by a 
particular fan of the man or the music - the author had worked on a 
Guns and Roses biog, I think, and edited something like the Virgin 
Rock Encyclopaedia.
Apologies for the vagueness in relating  the contents, but as you can 
tell I wasn't for buying it!

Stuart
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