The Go-Betweens recorded six albums that are among the finest work of the 1980s, earning them a reputation as the ultimate cult band and the lasting esteem of their peers, from R.E.M. to Sleater-Kinney. In 2000 they returned to making records--and received the best reviews of their career. David Nichols relates their story with wit and verve, and since the Go-Betweens had personalities as well as talent, their biography is compelling reading, not just for committed fans but for anyone interested in the current music scene. I loved this book, raved Jonathan Lethem. How elegant that the dark-horse band lavished with obsessive and loving attention by David Nichols should be the one whose weird and lovely depths can truly sustain and reward it the life-altering Go-Betweens.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
David Nichols is a historian. He lives in Melbourne.
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More About the Author
David Nichols has worked as a magazine editor and journalist in Sydney and Melbourne. His writing appeared for a considerable period in the well-regarded magazine Puncture. The Go-Betweens was his first book, published in 1997 by Allen and Unwin Australia and then reissued in an updated form by Verse Chorus Press in 2003. He has also published a history of the Kingsford Legal Centre, From Roundabout to Roundhouse and has co-edited Deeper Leads, a collection on Victorian goldfields history, with Keir Reeves. He is co-editor, with Hannah Lewi, of Community: Building Modern Australia (UNSW Press, 2010) and is the author of an as-yet-untitled history of Australian popular music since 1960, to be published by Verse Chorus Press in 2012. He is a contributor to 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die and the Encyclopedia of Australian Architecture. He is lecturer in urban planning in the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning at the University of Melbourne. He is married with four pets.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating stuff,
By Travis Dubya McGee Bickle "elitist duffer" (Texas Quail Hunting Camp) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Go-Betweens (Paperback)
Reading their background, it's easy to see why those GoBs boys turned out the way they did...becoming artists was really the only route for them. Their saga as a band, as has been noted before (particularly with the comparisons of 16 Lovers Lane to Rumours) is much like that of Fleetwood Mac's, given that virtually everybody in the band slept with everybody else. The only difference is the GoBs saga is interesting...
How did they ever, given their artsy, elitist and androgynous ways, avoid a pummelin' at the hands of some of those brutish, thuggy, beer soaked hooligan types you know all those towns in Australia had to be crawling with? Bully for them that they did. Kudos to the author, for his erudite scholarship. If not for him, the world would have no way of knowin' this stuff...though, I don't agree with some of his critical assessments. For instance, "Horsebreaker Star" is pretty much GM's best solo work and stands with anything the GoBs did. Not so, according to the author - he deems it a failure. He also doesn't, apparently, rate 16 Lovers Lane as high as I do. Reading between the lines, it seems to me that he's dissing it for being a commercial move. I think it's simply the best thing they've ever done and one of the few truly perfect rock/pop albums in existence. No matter though - if you're a GoBs fan, this book is a compelling experience that'll have you combing through your record collection to re-experience all the thrills the author describes....
5.0 out of 5 stars
just excellent...,
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This review is from: The Go-Betweens (Paperback)
... but maybe only for diehard fans like me. A million anecdotes make it interesting to read. And at the end you think: What a shame that Grant McLennan had to die so early.
5 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
High, low and in-between,
By Peter Azzopardi (Geelong, Vic AUS) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Go-Betweens (Paperback)
The book is old news now, however, such is the alure of good music, the band -and this biography- only happened to me much later than the event (note that an updated of the book is planned sometime soon as the bands two songwriters have since reformed as The Go-betweens). David Nichols, a Melbourne writer and some-times musician, tells us in the preface that he began the book with the question as to why people start bands, a seemingly strange premise but he succeeds in showing the apparent cultural vacuum that was Brisbane in the late 1970s through numerous and detailed chapters concerning the genisis of the band. These early chapters in the book are by far the best: several funny anecdotes and personal insights into the founding members of the band and punk music in an ultra-conservative Queensland make for a great read, especially for obsessives of the band such as myself (they are not really a band to have a casual acquaintance with). The latter chapters are much thinner by comparison, which is a shame for their music only (or arguably) got better as the eighties progressed. As relationships in the band begin to deterirate and band politics come to the fore, its as if Nichols loses interest in his subject, the original premise not loose enough to sustain an even and truly thorough examination. There is no question that the author has a great passion for the band and its music (it literally shines through in the first chapters which I have read repeatedly), it is just that the angle comes off as a little superficial as not a lot of insight is given to what makes the bands music and albums so special. Four stars for the first half alone though.
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