New Band Biography - Pre-order

Ordered mine at buecher.de

Haven't actually ordered this. Money's too tight to mention, if I may borrow a song title from Simply Red..I .might be able to convince someone to give it to me for Christmas!

Nor have I - I'm broke at the moment. Good idea about Christmas present though.

Delayed slightly by the PO spitting its dummy at Amazon, but my copy's finally arrived. (Possibly the longest-awaited pressie I've ever had, seeing as it was bought with birthday money back in March )

Only had a couple of minutes scanning through, but it looks OK. Not obviously fawning, a decent range of sources and right up to date, ending with the MIF events and - at least a mention of - the MEN gig. There's a decent selection of mono photos too, with some good, lesser seen pics. A tentative from me.

Yes, mines just arrived too, our postman doesn't deliver till coming up for midday.
Just flicked through to the end to see in how much detail up to date events were covered, and did like the author's quote of himself on his june visit to a certain room in Blueprint, which was hosting an event for the Unconventional music conference.

"Do many gigs take place here (?)" I asked naively,
"No it's Elbow's room," came the reply

Just looked at what photos had been used too, and recognised a fair few of them. Then just happened to glance at the opposite page to the last photo in the Asleep in the back' chapter to see a typo, where it appears that the song 'Stumble' is now called 'Can't Stop'!

What has happened is that section of the chapter has been copied and pasted I think, from an old interview in Crud magazine (link below), originally by James Berry, and cut back in incorrectly.

http://www.2-4-7-music.com/newsitems/jan02/elbow.asp

Anyway, will enjoy having another look at it later.

buecher.de wrote me it's on its way!

lucky with disease wrote:

...to see a typo, where it appears that the song 'Stumble' is now called 'Can't Stop'!

Yes, and it is unfortunately not the only mistake in the book, it seems to me a bit cobbled together. He (or the editor??) screwed up the date often, especially during "Cast of Thousands" and I am pretty sure, that John Cale was not in 2009 at Desert Island Disc because Guy talked about that during his old Payola Shows around 2006

But still it is a nice book and I hope the stuff I did not know before is true...

(some childphotoes of the Elboys would have been cute... )

The book is absolutely riddled with mistakes. Classic music press cut n paste job without checking facts.

I also don't agree with much of his opinion as regards to the merits or otherwise of individual songs. I mean Picky Bugger is a great track, but Elbow's finest? On an album which includes Great Expectations

Agree with TL about the photos - seen them all before, something from the real early days would have been nice.

lucky with disease wrote:

...to see a typo, where it appears that the song 'Stumble' is now called 'Can't Stop'!

I think much like Picky Bugger/Bastard it was a flaw on some media players miss-tagging the track. But it's totally unacceptable in a book like this!
Get a fact checker!

It does look cobbled together and a little light. Unfortunately Long Legs has stolen my copy so I might not get to read it for a while....

It's all about the pictures, some of them are so funny. The one of Mark in the boxing ring made me laugh for ages!!! The book itself has made me a little frustrated if you are going to do it, get it right.

Sounds like the bio is fairly lame, huh? Shame to hear it, though I had been worried it might be like that.

Sarah wrote:

lucky with disease wrote:

...to see a typo, where it appears that the song 'Stumble' is now called 'Can't Stop'!

I think much like Picky Bugger/Bastard it was a flaw on some media players miss-tagging the track. But it's totally unacceptable in a book like this!
Get a fact checker!

It is not even a mis-tag which would be a more credible mistake, look at the link, the descriptions have been copied exactly word from word (apart from the wrong song!) from another music journalist, who has followed Elbow all the way through (not just Manchester area gigs) who hasn't even been credited in the front Acknowledgements.

I didn't post anything before, because I didn't want to come across as negative and was waiting to see what the rest of you thought.
At least its not an officially recognised biography, in that there has been no mention or promotion of it from elbow management or Polydor/Fiction; then that would be a poor reflection.
I wonder what he has been paid for putting out what is basically a gathering of some of the already published material on Elbow, with spelling, grammatical and factual mistakes (It is easy to get careless sometimes with spelling etc, online, but to be called an author, publishing a book that will have a wide readership, surely it was proof read?)
So together with stuff already in the public domain, is the author's personal opinion, and anecdotes in italics of any local events he was at, where Guy or the band were present too.
The early chapters were more interesting as he did appear to have direct conversation with Guy Lovelady and also with John Bramwell, who talks a little about Elbow/Kloot relationship, but apart from that, the rest appears to be second hand, and known already.

LongLegs wrote:

It's all about the pictures, some of them are so funny. The one of Mark in the boxing ring made me laugh for ages!!! The book itself has made me a little frustrated if you are going to do it, get it right.

I amused myself by counting how many times Mark E Smith or The Fall were name dropped, (a book about Elbow eh? )
also how many times I am Kloot were called precocious,
and at the obligitory derogatory journo type remarks about 'prog' and that 'elbow are a male phenomenon' and fans are 'grey haired middle age men'

The description of Guy's early years seems a bit mixed up, as it reads; "the Garvey household' is suggested as a house with no heating, mould on the walls and parties every night'...surely that was when he first left home to fend for himself?

and more typos: Jesca, not Jessica and Hallé, not Hale.

Oh dear, it all sounds a bit disappointing; I'm glad I waited. I'll see if I can persuade Powys Libraries to get a copy.

I was still interested to read it, couple of things you wouldn't have known It was what was expected really.
There should have been a chapter on b-sides

Perhaps we can get them to commission us to do it for the second edition.