Thursday 5 November 2009

Rip it up and start again

by Simon Reynolds.

(Flashback, circa 1982, I'm 11 years old & transfixed, watching Orange Juice on Top of the Pops... 'Rip it up and start again' sings Edwyn Collins. 'I wish he would' comments my dad from the other end of the sofa, in classic dad fashion.)

It's a really good book from rock's Most Serious Writer - he's forgotten more obscure bands than you ever knew existed - all about that time between the end of the punk and the beginnings of the new Romantics. Someone will like to find this - won't they? I wish someone would find one, even if they don't comment here. *




* Do you reckon the staff in TFL lost property office sit around reading the lost books, trying on the lost gloves, twirling the abandoned umbrellas and playing the discarded tubas that are left on the tube? I hope so, it would make me happy to think someone's reading them.

5 comments:

  1. Need to reread this one. Have it on my bookshelf and loved it first time round.

    I guess with this project, like sending messages in bottles or balloons with notes on, you have to just get them out there, and be optimistic that someone picks them up. It's such a wonderful idea, that it almost doesn't matter :)

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  2. Cheers, Del! Good point. I keep forgetting to take this one out of my bag, so it is not out there yet.

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  3. I must start going on the central line jsut to find one of your books! Haven't read Rip It Up and Start Again - really want to. You couldn't leave it on the district line to Richmond could you? XXX

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  4. Aw, RoMo, I would have saved it for you xxx

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  5. You can borrow my copy... Once I've reread it!

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