Naturally, all the best Stranglers stories can be found within the pages of The Burning Up Times PDF!

But then - we are in that fortunate position to be unauthorised, and uncensored.

 

Everything else can be found in the official publications below. Happy reading!

 

 

‘Strangled’s ‘must get’ book of the year…’

 

’77 Sulphate Strip

Barry Cain

© 2007 Ovolo ISBN: 978-0-9548674-9-2

Former Record Mirror scribe Barry Cain dusts down his 1977 archive interviews of Messrs Lydon, Scabies and Cornwell and revisits the chief Punk protagonists 30 years on to prod them with their musings. Trumpeting his Famous Five - Pistols, Jam, Clash, Damned and Stranglers - ’77 Sulphate is a marvellous first-hand account of the year music exploded and it’s hard to put his book down. The witty, tongue-in-cheek text is fluid, informative and infectious – like amiable Barry himself, who was there at the start - and it’s difficult not to love him and get wrapped up and speeding alongside. Never mind the bollocks – here’s all the excess, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll you’ll need without the aid of a Tardis. Thank God there’s a follow-up fix in the pipeline.

(Can’t possibly imagine who Hugh refers to at the bottom of page 301 – Ed!)

 

NB. Barry has given his first ever interview – for The Burning Up Times – see Issue 3.

 

 

Hugh Cornwell: the Hooverdam Companion

© Chris Wade.

Wisdom twins Books: WT001

 

 

Rarely can an author so quickly lose a reader’s faith by his inability to get facts right as Chris Wade does with his fulsome companion to Hugh Cornwell’s Hooverdam album Hugh Cornwell: The Hooverdam Companion.

Call this reviewer a nit picker, but details count. And if the reader distrusts your words, you’re lost. It took four lines for Wade to claim that Keith Floyd died the day after the television screening of the “Keith Meets Keith” documentary. Floyd famously, and sadly, died at home hours before the screening.

Details count. I know what Wade meant, but details count.

The author then goes on to play another dangerous game: passing on one’s own opinions as fact. On the same page we get the bold statement: “Hugh Cornwell is, in short, an icon.”

Maybe… But not really…

“…but it is only when you stop and think about the many things he has achieved…”

Such as song writing, playing music and er… remind me?

“… that you fully realise how important he really is to British culture.”

Now he’s taking the piss surely?

Sad though it is, but these statements about cultural icons are more fitting of Johnny Rotten and the Sex Pistols and the Punk movement as a whole. Owing to the Stalinist rewriting of music history in the 70s by such journalists as Tony Parsons and Jon Savage, to the Great British public Hugh Cornwell and the Stranglers are just sidebars in the great story of those times. And it pains this reviewer to admit that.

There can no argument that Hugh and The Stranglers are important to British music, but the country’s culture as a whole? That’s going too far.

And this is the problem all the way through this book. Wade so desperately wants to correct the history books; is so keen for his hero to be seen as the greatest songwriter of the age.

“Great periods in music like this don’t come very often” he continues, and this reviewer is reaching for the sick bag… but all of sudden he reins it in, and confesses that this book is really just “a fan’s account of this era.” Thank god, a fact at last…

So, we’ve made it through the first two pages, and if you haven’t put it back on the shelf, or back on the counter at one of Hugh’s gigs with the words: “How much!?” there is actually a bit to admire in this book.

Strangely lacking original interviews with either Hugh himself or the drummer Chris Bell and a very brief and shallow piece with bass player Caz Campbell, the chatty, amateurish style of writing suits the shoddy presentation.

Apalling font choices, photocopy-quality images, and a cover whose laminate peals off far too easily, is topped off by a Cornwell logo where the background doesn’t match the rest of the cover (see above). Was this designed in Word, or Microsoft Works?

On the content side though, Wade’s unfettered enthusiasm for the album, more often than not called Hoover Dam rather than the correct Hooverdam (those damn details again), does get quite infectious. Some of his song-by-song summaries do a good job and I found myself reaching for the iPod to discover if I could see “the images of fingers frantically typing on keys, the papers moving up quickly and the return bar of a typewriter slamming after each complex line” in Philip K Ridiculous. I could. Kind of.

The summaries on the whole, tell us more about Wade than the music: he loves this album! It’s the best ever made! It’s the soundtrack to his life!

The interview with record label boss Charles Kennedy is easily the highlight. It’s fascinating to hear about the music business and get a more balanced assessment of Hugh’s place in the world. Wade asks all the right questions (even if he did use the “icon” word again) and he is blessed with a subject willing to talk.

There are some pretty average live reviews and some re-hashed Cornwell interviews from other sources, and an extensive set of those badly reproduced photos spread throughout the book, so it’s a nice enough package – were it be given away free at a gig, or for £3…

It would be much stronger obviously with an original Cornwell interview.

All in all, by the end, your reviewer found it hard to be too tough on a guy who has gone to a great deal of effort to get all this off his chest and into the hands of a few fans.

With a decent editor, a designer, some new fonts, and a cup of tea and a chat with his icon this could really have been worth a spot on any fan’s bookshelf.

 

 

The Best Of The Stranglers

© 2008 Wise Publications ISBN: 978-1-84772-493-9

Features lyrics and guitar tabs to nineteen Stranglers tunes including Grip, Hanging Around, Nuclear Device, Let Me Down Easy and Norfolk Coast.

 

 

 

 

 

The Stranglers: Song By Song

Hugh Cornwell and Jim Drury

© 2001 Sanctuary ISBN: 1 86074 62 5

An enthralling insight into the stories behind each Stranglers song. Recommended, in fact, essential reading, even though Hugh had to take out all the song lyrics...

 

 

 

 

The Men They Love To Hate

Chris Twomey

© 1992 EMI  The Old Testament CD box set CDSTRANG1

After years of gathering dust unpublished, Chris Twomey’s epic work, The Men They Love To Hate finally sees the light of day, albeit within EMI Records 4 CD Stranglers box set, The Old Testament. Thorough and painstakingly researched, the booklet covers the years 1974 to 1982.

 

 

 

 

 

 

No Mercy, The Authorised and Uncensored Biography of The Stranglers

David Buckley

©  1997 Hodder & Stoughton ISBN: 0 340 68062 8

Informative read, in what should have been the definitive Stranglers tome, amid claims of unfair bias against Hugh, and Buckley’s detracted writing, Essential purchase, nevertheless. 

 

 

 

 

A Multitude of Sins, The Autobiography

Hugh Cornwell

© 2004 Harper Collins ISBN: 0 00 719082 4

The book flits at break-neck speed from scene to scene, but do we ever get to find out who the real Hugh Cornwell is in the rush? He has his own energetic style, but it only really comes alive on the stage when Hugh reels off the golden nuggets, interspersed by the related golden oldie hits of yesteryear.

 

 

 

 

Punk Rock: An Oral History

John Robb - £10.99 plus p+p - OUT NOW!

© 2006 Ebury Press ISBN: 0091905117

512 pages of punks key figures, featuring interviews from over 100 contributors including Hugh Cornwell, JJ Burnel, John Rotten, Glen Matlock, Mick Jones, Don Letts, Captain Sensible, Jah Wobble, Penny Rimbaud, Slash and Billy Bragg:. 'To see the Clash on the White Riot tour was like discovering how to be a rock star: you just did it yourself. You didn't wait for someone to come and discover you. That was the most important thing that came out of punk...We came home and we cut our hair and bought skinny trousers. It was year zero. That was the moment for me.'

 

 "Punk Rock" is a book like no other. It is an oral history of a radical movement which exploded in Seventies Britain. With its own clothes, hair, artwork, fanzines and radical politics, Punk boasted a DIY ethos that meant anyone could take part. The scene was uniquely vibrant and energetic, leaving an extraordinary legacy of notorious events, charismatic characters and inspirational music.

Now, for the first time, we can read all about events such as the Sex Pistols' swearing live on the "Bill Grundy" TV show and staging their anti-Jubilee riverboat party on the Thames, famous gigs at the Roxy and 100 Club, and the groundbreaking records by the Pistols, the Clash, the Damned and others. From the widely debated roots of punk in the late-Sixties through to the fallout of the post-punk period in 1984, and the ongoing influence on today's bands, "Punk Rock" is the definitive oral history of an inimitable and exciting movement.

Readers of The Observer will have seen excerpts from the book by Burning Up Times contributor John Robb. To get your copy, go to: www.goldblade.com

 

Sex & Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll: the Life of Ian Dury

Richard Balls

© 2001 Omnibus Press ISBN: 0 7119 8644 4 (2nd edition)

The author has dutifully and lovingly chronicled this revealing biography of one of New Wave’s most endearing characters. Collated from a broad range of friends, family and former band mates, the book ends with a meet with the man himself prior to his sad death in March 2000. Obscure pub rockers Kilburn & The High Roads are here – as are the band we all know and love, The Blockheads, Detail is painstakingly researched, ‘though not without error: “The Stranglers had been formed by Hugh Cornwell, Jean Jacques Burnel and Jet Black, after they met at college in 1974…”

 

Should have come to us for Stranglers’ formation facts! As Ian may himself be saying: “Oi! Oi!”

 

Down By The Jetty: the Dr. Feelgood Story

Tony Moon

© 2002 Northdown Publishing ISBN: 1-900711-15 (2nd edition)

Canvey Island’s high octane R&B band Dr. Feelgood stormed the mid 70’s pub rock scene and took on the world, unknowingly paving the way for Punk with their hard, uncompromising sound and style. Down By The Jetty author Tony Moon (initiator of Strangled fanzine) writes with fluency and affection about his first love, with the co-operation of all band members, past and present. Damned fans might be forgiven for thinking the front cover is a Grave Disorder rip-off; it’s the same artist, Vince Ray. Recommended purchase.

 

No More Heroes - the complete history of UK punk 1976 - 1980

Alex Ogg

© 2006 Cherry Red ISBN 1-901447-65-00

A good reference book for all old punks, profiles of over 400 bands including an extensive chapter on the Stranglers. The author is a bit of fan of the band and for once they get a good press! Highly recommended - James Greenfield.

 

 

 

 

 

Have we missed out anything? Want to add your resume? editors@strangled.co.uk

 

Check out Strangled WISH LIST for JJ’s response to one particular Stranglers book…

 

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