Backstage & Beyond Vol. 2: 45 Years of Modern Rock Chats & Rants - Softcover

Sullivan, Jim

Softcover

ISBN 13: 9798987989104

Publisher: Trouser Press Books, 2023

Synopsis

Jim Sullivan — a 2023 inductee into the New England Music Hall of Fame — spent 26 years writing for the Boston Globe and two decades more writing for national publications. He has interviewed and reviewed countless musicians, many of them multiple times.

The second volume of Backstage & Beyond, his music-writing anthology, focuses on artists who came to prominence in the 1970s and ’80s: punk, new wave, post-punk and beyond. Eleven of them are already in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Chapters on:

• The Ramones
• The Sex Pistols / Public Image Ltd.
• The Clash
• Patti Smith
• Buzzcocks
• The Damned
• The Fall
• Joy Division / New Order
• The Cure
• Stiff Little Fingers
• Gang of Four
• The Pogues
• The Police
• The Cramps
• David Byrne / Talking Heads
• Beastie Boys
• Elvis Costello
• Billy Bragg
• The Cars
• English Beat
• Morrissey
• Pixies
• Mission of Burma
• Feelies
• Puff Daddy
• Spiritualized
• Frankie Goes to Hollywood
• Swans
• U2

About this title

About the Author

Jim Sullivan, a 2023 inductee into the New England Music Hall of Fame, spent 26 years writing about music for the Boston Globe and two decades more writing for countless national publications, including USA Today, the Boston Phoenix, Boston Herald, Trouser Press, Record, Creem, New Musical Express, The Guardian, Rock and Roll Globe, LA Weekly, Rock's Back Pages, the Christian Science Monitor, Best Classic Bands, Newsweek, Playgirl and The Forward. He has interviewed and reviewed countless musicians, many of them multiple times.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Artist quotes from Backstage & Beyond Volume 2:

Johnny Ramone “I hate disco music. It’s some kind of communist plot to make our brains smooth, to take the crevices out of it.”

John Lydon “I’ve always been true to my word, and I mean what I say. You might not like what I do, but at least I mean it.”

Joe Strummer “People in England realize that anybody can be a star. Beginners have to realize they can be stars; otherwise, they ain’t gonna bother with it.”

Patti Smith “When I’ve had brief periods of the muse taking an extra-long vacation you wonder, did it go to Zanzibar? Is it never coming back?”

Pete Shelley (Buzzcocks) “We’re not a statement, we’re an adjective. Each time we play it’s like an accident in creation.”

Captain Sensible “If you think punk is monotonous, one-dimensional, two-minute noise bombs then, yes, you’ll be upset by some of the Damned catalog.”

Mark E. Smith “I sounded about 50 when I started out. I was world-weary at 18. It’s an advantage, when you think about it.”

Peter Hook “The band came to a tragic end, but that does not change the fact that Joy Division was a great band to be a part of.”

Morrissey “Celibacy is an unfortunate tag.”

Robert Smith (The Cure) “I loathe the Morrissey kind of wallowing in despair. I don’t find it very entertaining to be around somebody who’s morose all the time.”

Jake Burns (Stiff Litle Fingers) “We’re only political in the original meaning of the word: of the citizen. All we’ve ever done is write about things we knew.”

Hugo Burnham (Gang of Four) “If you’re not in conflict, you’re not making great art. We made delightful noise, we enjoyed a few drinks, we got into fights with people.”

Shane MacGowan (Pogues) “I’m just following the Irish way of life: cram as much pleasure as you can in your life and rile against the pain that you have to suffer as a result.”

Sting “In the initial stages of the Police, it was very hard to get gigs. We couldn’t feed ourselves, so I got an agent who sent me for TV ads.”

Poison Ivy (Cramps) “Our songs have to do with, from the male point of view, being intrigued by the power and mystery of females.”

David Byrne “If you play music outside the alternative rock spectrum it’s hard for people to conceive that you can like this music the way you can a rock band.”

Mike Diamond (Beastie Boys) “What started as us having a good time was manipulated into this big business. We said, ‘This is not why we started.’”

Elvis Costello “I did interviews when I started out and they were mostly unsatisfactory. I said, ‘I’ll show you — you want punk, this is fucking punk.’”

Billy Bragg “I don’t think it’s my duty to change people’s mind. The most we can do is to begin the debate.”

Greg Hawkes “The Cars were a new wave band. I always thought of us as a pop-art band, in the Warhol sense, but also we were pop and sort of arty.”

Dave Wakeling (English Beat) “Everything we feared came awfully true — the rich got richer, the poor got poorer, the health system became decrepit.”

Black Francis (Pixies) “I am the Ernest Hemingway of indie rock.”

Bono (U2) “The review has gone straight to our heads and we’re discussing breaking up the band!!”

Edition details

• Publisher: Trouser Press Books
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798987989104
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 299