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Bad Vibes

Britpop and my part in its downfall

By Luke Haines

(5)

| Mass Market Paperback | 9780434018468

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Book Description

First, you fail. After four years of gigs no one attends, songs no one hears, perfect haircuts no one sees … London in the late eighties – where the pubs still close in the afternoon and dance music rules – is no place for an avant-garde songwriter like Luke Haines to be. Luke Haines, after all, hasContinue

First, you fail. After four years of gigs no one attends, songs no one hears, perfect haircuts no one sees … London in the late eighties – where the pubs still close in the afternoon and dance music rules – is no place for an avant-garde songwriter like Luke Haines to be. Luke Haines, after all, has never been to a rave. One near-death experience later and there’s nothing left to lose. With just a ruined piano and a couple of cardboard boxes, you record a demo in your flat, form a new band and give it a pretentious name.

Forget Blur/Oasis and Cool Britannia, none of that actually happened. This is the real story of English Rock in the nineties. Luke Haines has the inside line: from the teenage rampage of the early tours with Suede, mainstream success in France and failure in America, to the break-up of The Auteurs, the death of Britpop (the idiot runt-child of all music genres) and the birth of strange and frightening new projects Baader Meinhof and Black Box Recorder. In scathing and worryingly funny prose, Haines presents the evidence: Pulp, Elastica, Iggy Pop, Kurt Cobain (and his hatred of mushrooms), and the dark studio magic of Steve Albini. Plus the sackings, the surreal self-medicating procedures, how to be a bad loser at the 1993 Mercury Music Prize, and what it’s like to be attacked on stage by a vicious, drunken dwarf.

Bad Vibes is a pitch-black comic memoir from a legendary figure in the music world, variously described as pioneer, godfather or forgotten man of Britpop.

Critics

  • Bad Vibes: Britprop and my part in its downfall

    With his band the Auteurs, the author stood inside the Britpop tent pissing out; and now it seems to be time (look, Blur are back!) to cash those chips by writing a mean-spirited, pissy memoir of the era. ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Fri, 24 Sep 2010

  • The gospel according to Luke Haines

    Someone was bound to do it sooner or later. And who better than Luke Haines, rock music's perennial underachiever, its king curmudgeon, to pen Britpop's very own misery memoir? Over 256 agreeably spite-filled pages, he spins a series of tall tales in ... (read full critics)

    guardian.co.uk published on Fri, 24 Sep 2010

2 Reviews

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  • In questa breve e circostanziata biografia Haines (ex-The Auteurs, ex-Baader Meinhof, ex-Black Box Recorder, ex-molte altre cose) prende le distanze da tutto, soprattutto dal movimento che ha inavvertitamente contribuito a far nascere (Britpop) ma di cui non ha mai fatto parte (prova ne è la sua inv ... (continue)

    In questa breve e circostanziata biografia Haines (ex-The Auteurs, ex-Baader Meinhof, ex-Black Box Recorder, ex-molte altre cose) prende le distanze da tutto, soprattutto dal movimento che ha inavvertitamente contribuito a far nascere (Britpop) ma di cui non ha mai fatto parte (prova ne è la sua invidiabile longevità artistica). Non si tratta di una biografia "onesta", ché l'ego di Haines tracima ovunque, ma di uno sguardo divertente e naif ad anni, gli ultimi, in cui i negozi di dischi avevano ancora una loro ragione d'essere e le edicole affogavano nella stampa musicale.

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    Giovanni Linke Casalucci said on Jan 6, 2012 about the Others edition | Add your feedback

  • Brilliant! The not-so-famous Luke Haines ranting at everything and everybody. Bizarre and often very funny.

    bizarre
    –adjective
    markedly unusual in appearance, style, or general character and often involving incongruous or unexpected elements; outrageously or whimsically strange; odd: bizarre cl ... (continue)

    Brilliant! The not-so-famous Luke Haines ranting at everything and everybody. Bizarre and often very funny.

    bizarre
    –adjective
    markedly unusual in appearance, style, or general character and often involving incongruous or unexpected elements; outrageously or whimsically strange; odd: bizarre clothing; bizarre behavior.

    The Auteurs themselves passed me by, I was far too busy with blur et al, this book shows that whole period in a wonderfully dark new light.

    Is this helpful?

    M said on Mar 27, 2010 about the Others edition | Add your feedback

Book Details

  • Rating:
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  • English Books
  • Mass Market Paperback 243 Pages
  • Edition: 1
  • ISBN-10: 0434018465
  • ISBN-13: 9780434018468
  • Publisher: William Heinemann
  • Pub date: Jan 01, 2009
  • Also available as: Others and eBook
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