Without You: The Tragic Story of Badfinger (1997)

Books about musicians are sometimes nicely written histories with insightful commentaries and logical structures. But more often they are written by superfans with more enthusiasm than writing ability and an insatiable appetite for every mundane detail about the object of their affection. When Without You: The Tragic Story of Badfinger by Dan Matovina (1997) came up on my random reading list, I suspected it might be in the later category. And I was pretty spot on with that assumption.

Matovina's title doesn't lie: The story of Badfinger, a band that was chained to the Beatles in the press, repeatedly and ridiculously screwed over by its management, and which lost two of its members to suicide, is definitely a tragic one. Matovina worked for decades on this book -- interviewing the surviving band members (to the extent that they let him), their families, girlfriends, roadies, producers, engineers, and anyone else connected with the band. The strength of the book lies in these interviews, and for the most part Matovina does a nice job of piecing together the chronology of the band. The book is also liberally sprinkled with personal and professional pictures of the band and their friends and family, and this really helps break up the sometimes dense details and give some life to the narrative.

The author is at his worst when trying to describe what the music sounds like. Like really pretty bad. It's not an easy task to talk about music, and I think that task is made even harder when you are such a superfan. If Matovina could have cut down on those sections, and gotten an editor that could shape up his sometimes runaway sentences, he would have ended up with a much more readable book.

I learned more than a few things (actually, maybe everything?) about the band while reading this book, and if you are interested in Badfinger or the shitty nature of the music business in general -- and you have a little patience -- then this might be the book for you.

Now we should probably watch a little Badfinger:

Here is a little "Baby Blue" (one of my favorites):


A little "Without You":


And a jammy and awesome live version of "Suitcase".

The Spacenecks

Many myths surround the creation of the lovely sounds of The Spacenecks, but the most plausible and entertaining may be this one:

"Josh Spaceneck, Joel Spaceneck, and Jamey Spaceneck were three feral children found in the woods behind a Ben and Jerry's ice cream shop. Taken in and raised by a kindly rock and roll band, the trio seemed to be deaf-mutes. However, when exposed to strobe lighting and fog, the Spaceneck boys picked up their foster parents' instruments and unleashed a tsunami of blistering rock and roll. The government officially denies the existence of The Spacenecks to this very day."

Poor quality video of live Spaceneck hijinks and rocking available here.

Can't Stop, Won't Stop

When Choo nicely lent her copy of Can't Stop, Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation (2005) by Jeff Chang to Dr. M, I started flipping through it, and then just couldn't help reading it before we gave it back.

Chang gives an excellent history of hip-hop (mostly music, but also dance and graffiti) from 1968-2000. He nicely balances historical discussions of the political, social and cultural context of the movement with portraits of individuals and groups that helped shape and change hip-hop through the years. Rather than provide laundry lists of influential artists and albums, Chang picks a handful of key people and gives the reader a longer discussion of their life and work.

In addition, there are some great photographs, and the book has a nice size and shape (is it weird that I sometimes love how a book feels in my hands even more than I love the book itself?)

I learned a thing or two from this book, and would totally recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in hip-hop culture.

[Check out Jeff Chang's page here for more information on this book, his other projects, and the author himself.]

SBW: Thursday Edition, GBV-style

It is hard when one of your secret boyfriends is the former bass player in a band that has since broken up. It makes it very difficult to find a picture that is just of him and that really captures the cute teddy-bear nature of his face, and the awesome rock and roll power of his stage presence. Tim Tobias is one such fellow.




Since Guided by Voices is pretty much Dr. M's favorite band of all time, we saw them every chance we could get before they broke up (which I think, for me, was five or six times?). Most of the times that I saw them, Tim Tobias was the bass player in the lineup. Just look at how cute his round face is. I love it.

On stage, Tim Tobias and Nate Farley would sometimes get so riled up by the rock and roll and the whiskey that they would kiss each other. I can't really explain it, but this was extremely sexy.

Once we saw them play an in-store at Waterloo, and we were ridiculously early (as usual). I was pretending to browse through CDs and Tim Tobias was looking at the CDs just across from me. Our eyes met and he smiled. Truly magical, folks. And honestly, probably the closest I've gotten to a personal encounter with any of my SBs.

It's hard to pick a favorite SB of all the GBV members (except the drummer, for whom I have no particular feelings). Nate Farley kisses the bass player and has this awesome rock and roll arm thing he does on stage. Plus cute tattoos. Tim Tobias has the teddy bear face and droopy eyes that I like. Robert Pollard does high kicks, has sexy grey and sometimes curly hair, and swings his microphone a lot. Doug Gillard is a class act, a great dresser, and an amazing guitarist. It is hard to choose, but, world, I've made my choice.