Next week is Nick Soulsby in Outsideleft. For a while now, Nick has been one of our favorite rocknroll writers, it feels like an amazing privilege to finally have him amongst our pages.
While getting all the Nick Soulsby stuff together Jason and I were talking about how, right next to listening to music all day, reading anything about music glues our eyes to the page. We can't resist books by or about musicians. It doesn't matter what's what, Hammer of the Gods - I overheard American kids whisper of salacious excesses, I never read it after that, I mean I can't imagine; Stones aftershow shows, Elvis books, The Boy Looked at Johnny, that Patti Smith collection, and how about getting the CHristine Otten's Lost Poets book down from the shelf for another look, and all the rest, and looking forward to whatever Stormzy produces. Even that strange Morrissey book where the last 1000 pages just beat me with show after show box office ticket sales detailed, in lieu of great new lyrics, his forte, or music. Seems Trumpian now somehow. Whatever. When we can't listen to music we read about it.
We're pretty sure that Nick Soulsby can't resist rock books too much either. So much so, he's written a few that are certainly a credit to the canon, and given the artists he's chosen, authoritative volumes for sure...
He began by co-authoring a book ostensibly about Nirvana's b-side collection, Incesticide.
In 2015 St. Martin's Griffin published I Found My Friends: The Oral History of Nirvana, a groundbreaking look at the most influential band of the early 90s, for which Nick interviewed over 150 musicians from bands that played and toured with Nirvana, the likes of Dinosaur Jr., The Dead Kennedys, and many smaller, but no less fascinating bands.
In 2016 Cobain on Cobain (Chicago Review Press) is the most extensive and complete portrait of Kurt Cobain’s life as it unfolded, featuring in depth and exclusive interviews with Nirvana at the height of their fame, has been described as the definitive source for anyone searching for Kurt Cobain’s version of his own story.
We Sing A New Language, his 2017 Thurston Moore book from renowned rock publisher Omnibus, features a cavalcade of indie rock all-stars... including Thurston Moore and Lydia Lunch, Richard Hell, Mogwai s Stuart Braithwaite, Wilco s Nels Cline, Michael Gira, Dave Markey (who directed 1991: The Year Punk Broke), Don Fleming, Richard Kern, Lee Ranaldo, Jim Sclavunos, and Glenn Branca.
Nick's latest and possibly greatest book is the critically acclaimed Swans: Sacrifice And Transcendence: The Oral History (Jawbone Books), published earlier this year. We can assure you, it's the perfect gift for dad rockers of a certain ilk. The Swans were the self-styled loudest band in the world in the 80s, but the bands' philosophical underpinnings mean there is way more to them than outlandish amplification. Sacrifice and Transcendence is that story told in more than 125 original interviews.
Aside from all that In 2014 Nick curated the compilation No Seattle: Forgotten Sounds Of The North West Grunge Era 1986–1997 with Soul Jazz Records, and he also wrote the oral history of the band Fire Ants for the reissue of their 1993 EP Stripped.
And now Nick Soulsby Week in Outsideleft. We'll have an interview, our music editor Jason has a review of Swans: Sacrifice And Transcendence: The Oral History, there'll be an excerpt from the book too. Finally. Nick provides the latest in our series of hated records of all time. We're all for Hate where it really matters, in lists of songs and albums and not really anywhere else. Real-life haters take note.
And it all begins on Monday.
I am going to add links from this page as the Nick Soulsby content gets published on outsideleft, but for now here's a link to Nick's author page at Amazon, at Goodreads and his astounding music blog...
Nick Soulsby Week Essentials:
A Big Interview with Nick Soulsby
Swans: Sacrifice and Transcendence. Jason Lewis reads the Runes
Michael & Jarboe & Ted & Thurston
Nick Soulsby's Teethgraters
External Nick
Nick's Music Blog
Nick Soulsby author page at Amazon
Nick Soulsby on Goodreads
