-
By Instrumentation
Books on Music
-
-
-
Accessories
|
|
|
| The Isle of Noises: Rock and Roll's Roots in Ireland |  | Author: Mark J. Prendergast
Publisher: St Martins Press
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $15.94 (100%)
New (4) Used (19) Collectible (1) from $0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 2463759
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 315
ISBN: 0312039824
Dewey Decimal Number: 782.4216609415
EAN: 9780312039820
ASIN: 0312039824
Publication Date: March 1990
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Shows definite wear, and perhaps considerable marking on inside. 100% Money Back Guarantee. Shipped to over one million happy customers! Your purchase benefits world literacy!
|
| Customer Reviews:
Irish rock: from the 50s to the late 80s September 12, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This valuable book may be inevitably dated as I review it over fifteen years after I bought it. It's a 1989 edition, unchanged save a two-page preface, of a 1987 title published in Ireland as more blandly if sensibly 'Irish Rock.' Still, as with Colin Harper and Trevor Hodgett's "Irish Folk, Trad & Blues: A Secret History" (London: Cherry Red, 2005; also reviewed by me), it offers the perspective of an obsessed, well-educated, and youthful Irish fan turned diligent chronicler. Both books share an engagingly intelligent yet consistently lively way of narrating, insight into the ups and downs of fame and its discontents, and an impressive knowledge of the more dimly recalled nooks and obscured crannies amidst which lurk the remnants of hundreds of bands and thousands of songs. Unfortunately, much of their discography can now be obtained only by the affluent collector rather than the curious listener.
Prendergast went on around the millenium to publish a thick book, "Ambient," on the surprisingly wide musical and historical perimeters as well as the heart of that then-trendy sound; little in Isle would anticipate this later interest. Attention-- too rare in many music books for the common reader-- is paid to elegant prose style, appropriate metaphors, and careful annotation. The book's only four chapters, but many sub-sections. 1) Beat Groups to Prog; 2) Folk into Rock; 3) Van M.; 4) Modern Music. Intriguing in retrospect that one of the biggest, if brief, successes of the 90s was not yet on Prendergast's or anyone's radar at the time of this book's appearance, Cranberries. That band's sudden rise and fall would have offered its own instructive lesson on the comet-like path so often understandably sought if less rarely attained by Irish musicians here: leaving the pub and townhall for the giddy dazzle of international stardom and chart hits. Of course, alongside such as Clannad, U2, Sinead, Bob Geldof, Pogues, and less so on Undertones, SLF, Hothouse Flowers, and more on Thin Lizzy, Rory Gallagher, and Christy Moore, for example, there are dozens of little-known artists that however briefly Prendergast allows finally at least in print their own moment in the limelight.
These musicians often prove to me more fascinating. Horslips, Virgin Prunes, Radiators (from Space), Dr. Strangely Strange or (for me still unheard--that record collector vs. curious fan dichotomy preventing me from finding an affordable copy of...) the album produced by Hendrix of Eire Apparent: such lesser-known artists (at least outside of themselves limited Irish circles) for me gain in allure. The stories of those better known to me appear less engaging, perhaps since they tend to repeat what fans already may know. Yet his sections on such artists are dependable guides into the Irish-dominant facets of more popular artists' careers, especially in their lesser known formative years in Ireland. Of course, for such a book to appeal to a wider readership, the bulk of the text is given over to more familiar artists whom Prendergast generally allows their fair say with well-chosen quotes, lots of primary archival research, good publicity photos, and fresh interviews, He also includes mini-reviews and tracklists of a standout artist's best records.
These reviews for me tend for me to tilt a bit too generously, and Prendergast in his geniality may allow his first-hand acquaintance with some of the artists he endorses to be naturally forgiving especially of their more craven moments on vinyl in their bids for mass acceptance (i.e. outside a few hundred folks in Ireland). Taken with an antidote against blarney within these pages, Prendergast does provide a thoughtful tour through a half-century in which Irish musicians-- and I stress those less recognized abroad such as Horslips who had chosen to remain in Ireland rather than rush off to London or L.A. early in their careers-- step out from the shadows and stereotypes into which they had by London or L.A. been often exiled to or relegated. I often return to this book as a reference and only wish that Prendergast would provide a follow-up from circa 1988 to the present to continue the tales he tells and to introduce new ones.
|
|
|
| |
