Cider with Roadies by Stuart Maconie

 

This is the best autobiography I have read. His publisher can have that for any future editions if they like. To save them from what seems like the obligatory Daily Mail free advertising.* 

I read quite a few biographies. Lauren Bacall - engaging and fascinating throughout. Cyndi Lauper - I haven't finished this one actually, for some reason, it's just not fun ... and it should be, right?! Anthony Keidis - what an annoying, vile, arrogant little man. Slash - basically the same story as Anthony Keidis but somehow less vile. Stuart Peirce - surprisingly entertaining but he never mentioned me stalking him around Hungerford, which is rude. Al Jourgensen - let's never, ever talk about that again. The only one that comes close is Andrew Collins Where Did It All Go Right?: Growing Up Normal in the 70s. There you go, see, another writer.

The thing about Stuart Maconie's is that you can clearly see the difference between someone who is actually a writer, a good writer, and someone who is recounting a bunch of their garbled memories to some poor suffering ghostwriter.

I want to start with an apology to him. I say "start", I'm three paragraphs in but you get my point. I got the book at an event with him in Newbury. He was doing a tour (organised by my favourite book shop - The Hungerford Bookshop!) about his new book The Full English. I queued up to get it signed and when he asked who he should sign it to I said I didn't need a name. He asked if I was going to sell it on eBay! I'm still embarrassed now! I never thought about how that sounded. I just don't like to have my name put in the book! As best as I can explain it, I don't want the book to have any of me in it. I want the book to be just about the author. I genuinely didn't think about how it sounded, and this was the first time I ever had the courage to say I didn't want it to be signed to anyone. I think I forgot I didn't know him! His voice and personality feel so familiar that I feel like we've met lots of times. In fact, having read it now, if I ever meet Stuart again (see? I even think of him as Stuart!), I 100% guarantee that I'll forget I don't know him, and I'll go bounding up to him like we're old friends! For what it's worth, I have a few books signed, including Wes Craven, and I would never ever get rid of them! My signed books are for keeps!

I've babbled enough - I must talk about the book itself! In fact, I didn't even realise it was going to be an autobiography. I thought it was a compilation of anecdotes about his experiences with bands. So, at first, I was a tiny bit wary, thinking it was going to follow the usual formula of:

• 1/3 youth - fun and interesting.
• 2/3 fame - usually discussing a myriad of behind-the-scenes people I've never heard of or industry people by first name only with this assumption that you'll be able to work out who they are ....
• 3/3 getting older - reflecting. Everyone they know is dead or dying. Pretending to apologise to the band member/ co-stars they've pissed off but not really apologising. Boringness.

But it doesn't. I mean, of course, it's a chronological recounting of his youth and career path but it's not a self-indulgent therapy exercise. There's some personal information in there but it's all about his life through music. He mentions his family and friends, of course, but always in the context of his musical discoveries.

It probably helps that I was growing up through quite a bit of the same musical influences as Stuart. I mean, not all of it - I was a little bit young and a little bit south for Northern Soul. But my mum was a MASSIVE Elvis fan. I came to New Order late, Joy Division even later (perversely) but I was around for the Happy Mondays, Stone Roses, Smiths (although I suspect they'd split up when I "discovered them") and even Miles Hunt gets a mention! So I don't have that, "I came here to find out about your life not find that I already needed to know about most of it" feeling with this one.

And it's fun and non-waffly. He doesn't go off on a tangent at all. Well, at least, any tangents he does veer towards are within the current topic! And he has a great turn of phrase throughout. I love his description of what I think of as middle-of-the-road pop-that-thinks-it's-rock; "Establishment figures on auto-pilot - Elton John, Eric Clapton, Wings et all". 

The second half of the book does become more the anecdotes of his experiences with bands as I was expecting. I love his honesty in it. He doesn't hold back. Even though he's still very much a music journalist, he's not at all shy in telling the tales, both good and bad. There's a lot of good. Most of the musicians seem to be generally amenable, though that might come down to Stuart Maconie's own affable personality. They're all in there; Happy Mondays, The Fall, John Cooper Clarke, Primal Scream, Echo and the Bunny Men, Bowie, All About Eve, New Order ..... MC Hammer. The Napalm Death anecdote though.... 

And the behind the scenes at NME content, I find intriguing too. It's strange and confounding thinking of the humans behind the paper I read every week. It's somehow odd that someone who I feel like I know quite well now (not personally despite my brain's inability to always remember that!) is the person that was doing the thing that I was so enamoured with then.

I do want to read the sequel (assuming there is one) to see if he has a new opinion on Morrisey though.

 

*Is it just me that has noticed the proliferation of Daily Mail quotes on the front of books? It almost always seems to say, "Utterly hilarious throughout" or something effusively similar and then the book turns out to be about an old man struggling with old age and extreme loneliness or about immigrants in the UK settling in and doing very well for themselves and you can guaran-fucking-tee they didn't find that plot remotely funny. I'm absolutely positive they never read the books and just find the front of novels one of the few places left willing to link to their name. I'm seriously hoping the publishing companies wise up to this soon. I'm pleased to note that this book does not have a DM quote and I like to think that's intentional.