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On Some Faraway Beach

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This is the definitive biography (so far) of Brian Eno--founding member of Roxy Music, experimental musician and composer, occasional essayist/lecturer, producer, visual artist, and for some of us one of the most interesting people alive.

David Sheppard begins by recounting a teenager's precocious interest in art and tape recorders, and his excited response to 1950s musical genres such as doo-wop. One of Eno's defining moments came during his late teens, dutifully recorded by Mr. Sheppard (p. 45): the mother of his then-girlfriend wondered why someone as bright as he was wanted to be an artist. He would say later: "[I]t set a question going in my mind that has always stayed with me, and motivated a lot of what I've done: what does art do for people, why do people do it, why don't we only do rational things, like design better engines? And because it came from someone I very much respected, that was the foundation of my intellectual life."

And what a life! Eno thrived at Ipswich, whose eclectic faculty was devoted to upsetting everybody's preconceptions. He became familiar with the works of John Cage, LaMonte Young, Steve Reich, Cornelius Cardew, and other leading lights of the musical avant garde. He participated in Cardew's Scratch Orchestra, this being his first appearance on vinyl. He would join Gavin Bryar's colorful Portsmouth Sinfonia, which combined virtuosos with folks who had never before touched their instrument (Eno played clarinet!!!!!). And he would encounter cutting-edge rock groups such as the Velvet Underground, whose third album he considered a masterpiece.

Sheppard recounts how Eno ended up--literally by chance--in Bryan Ferry's Roxy Music. He encountered sax/oboe player Andy Mackay on a train and learned of the band's need for someone who could record their demos. When the members of the band heard the sounds he produced on a synthesizer he found in the studio one day, they invited him to join. Sheppard does not spare us from what some would consider Eno's shadier side--his cross-dressing, for example, or his having his way with Roxy's many groupies, during a period when Eno frankly stated that his main interests were music and sex. Eventually he and Ferry butted heads, and he was out of the band. Eno had been feeling the need to stretch beyond the confines of Roxy; he had recorded tape-loop experiments with Robert Fripp (also feeling confined by the demands of being King Crimson's frontsman) that were released as No Pussyfooting.

Eno would release four albums loosely categorizable as "rock": Here Come the Warm Jets, Taking Tiger Mtn. (by Strategy), Another Green World (which many of us consider his finest achievement!), and Before and After Science. Sheppard recounts the insights, experiments, and sometimes struggles that went into these--Eno did experience periods of sleeplessness, anxiety and self-doubt, especially as he felt the pressure to duplicate the success he'd achieved with the magnificent Another Green World. But he emerged triumphant.

He recorded another Fripp collaboration (Evening Star, which I consider superior to No Pussyfooting). He produced (and performed on) ex-Velvet singer Nico's melancholy solo album The End. He worked with Fripp and Bowie on the latter's infamous trilogy (Low, Heroes and Lodger). He produced Talking Heads, eventually recording My Life in the Bush of Ghosts with David Byrne--easily the most influential release of that year (1981) with its use of samples instead of vocals and building rhythmic sound-sculptures around them. He produced Devo's quirky debut Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! (although the results there were mixed at best). Right around this time he also became a hero to the New York City avant-punk underground by producing the controversial No New York, featuring four of that scene's most adventurous bands (The Contortions, Teenage Jesus, Mars and DNA).

Eno was nothing if not versatile. Beginning with the quiet and unobtrusive Discreet Music, Eno forged "ambient music" from its origins in avant garde composers into something almost commercially viable--Music for Airports, for example. His interest was not so much in fixed composition as in creating an environment with sound, incorporating random elements wherever possible. To enhance this process, in the mid-1970s he and artist Peter Schmidt had constructed a special deck of cards entitled Oblique Strategies. Each card bore a written instruction. When at an impasse, one could pick a card and then do what the card said. The most famous of these was, "Honor thy error as a hidden intention." Another read: "Make a list of everything you might do and then do the last thing on the list." Another: "Emphasize the flaws." Still another: "Remove specifics and convert to ambiguities."

Eno plucked other "ambient" artists from obscurity and got them on the map. Harold Budd is an example. Eno produced Budd's Plateaux of Mirror for his Obscure series which released Discreet Music and collaborated with him on The Pearl. Eno would also promote the career of avant-garde trumpet player Jon Hassell, collaborating on the latter's Fourth World Vol. One Possible Musics among others. Later Eno would produce Laurie Anderson, James, and especially (after a period of hesitation) the Irish super group U2. U2 developed a trademark depth and resonance. Eno probably deserves the credit for this. Eventually he and Bryan Ferry would mend their differences; the two would co-compose several tracks on recent Ferry solo releases.

While producing U2 and others, or collaborating with the German group Cluster (Cluster & Eno, After the Heat), Michael Brook (Hybrid), John Cale (Wrong Way Up), Jah Wobble (Spinner), or Peter Schwalm (Drawn From Life), Eno began forging his own creation: "generative music" which made use of the possibilities of computers to yield pieces that would never sound the same twice. Generative Music 1 came out of this; also The Shutov Assembly and The Drop. Eno also set up visual art installations such as I Dormienti, White Cube, The Quiet Room, and several others. The purpose of these was to create a total environment of light and sound which would enhance the viewer/listener's experience of time--by suggesting that one is experiencing only a small and temporary slice of something that had always been going on and would continue indefinitely into the future. Segments of music from each of these, and others besides, were released as a special series by Eno's company Opal. These are hard to find (I was able to purchase several on eBay for in some cases fairly hefty sums). Of course, the CDs miss an important point--it is not the music that is the star of the show but the environment which includes the music as one not quite separable component and places "equal value" on all its components. Eno overcame this limitation by releasing the entrancing 77 Million Paintings, software which when installed on your computer brings Eno's visual art directly into your study in constantly shifting, nonrepeating patterns set to "Quiet Room" generative music.

Unlike many artists Eno has always been comfortable around technology. He's a systems thinker--perhaps the only such thinker who has consciously employed systems theory to create art and music with an eye to accessibility to a large audience and acceptability within large public-access venues (airports are an example). Even early in his career, he was fascinated by the possibilities of self-regulating systems and how an experimental musical composition consisting of a few instructions could come to regulate itself given its environment (see his essay "Generating and Organizing Variety in the Arts"). Eno's recreational reading included authors such as Stafford Beer (Brain of the Firm, Designing Freedom and other books and essays which apply cybernetics to management). Eno remained fascinated with the media in which he worked. He was the first to release a CD consisting of 61 minutes of unbroken trancelike music--Thursday Afternoon. There is an accompanying video version approximately 20 minutes longer. New technology made this possible.

What emerges from David Sheppard's detailed and engaging account is a portrait of a man whose intellect engaged the world around him on multiple levels--the world of people, of music and the arts, of technology and its possibilities, and of "big ideas" of culture. "Culture," says Eno, is "everything you don't have to do"). We have to eat, so that isn't culture, it is part of being human (or, more precisely, being part of a biological system). We don't have to eat caviar, or sushi. So that's culture. At times we get the impression Brian Eno is curious about nearly everything. His diary from 1995--A Year With Swollen Appendices--is a fascinating account of his day-to-day observations, thoughts, and doings, which includes lengthy correspondences with Stewart Brand (of Whole Earth Catalog fame). Eno avoids the usual fixed premises or preconditions, but instead adopts a methodology of: "Establish your parameters, set things in motion, see what happens." His methodology avoids fixed rules but instead adopts a sense of what James P. Carse calls "infinite gamesmanship" (cf. Carse's Finite and Infinite Games). Instead of aiming for a definite outcome with winner and loser, we set about to continue the play.

Although his compositions and methods may seem whimsical, Eno clearly cares very much where this world is going; hence his participation in the West Coast based Long Now Foundation (http://www.longnow.org - see his essay "The Long Now") and his opposition to the U.S.-led war of aggression against Iraq (see articles "How to Lie About Iraq" and "The Missionary Position"). The latter culminated in one of his rare live appearances on the Stop the War Benefit Concert DVD.

There you have it. Brian Eno, now 60 years old and still going strong, a life worth celebrating. This review may have seemed to be more about him than David Sheppard's book. So let me just say: that this book belongs in every Enophile's library. If you've no knowledge of Eno, you might wonder what is the point of so detailed a biography of an artist/composer. But if you've found his music, his interviews, and his current activities at all interesting and stimulating, you'll find this book to be "unputdownable." If you're new to Eno, I'd get Another Green World first, and perhaps a few more CDs like Music for Films, or Another Day On Earth which features his recent return to standard, accessible songs and lyrics. Google his name and read some of his essays and interviews online. Then realize that these offer but mere glimpses into the thought processes behind the music. Sheppard's book fleshes everything out and gives us a complete and well-rounded portrait of one of the most significant artists, composers and cultural commentators of our time.

David Sheppard has written an engaging and intellectual biography of Brian Eno, while admitting that we really need an Eno Enyclopedia to begin covering the territory required. Unfortunately he starts out well, covering Eno's early life, the 70's and early 80's quite authoritatively, but it then appears he tires of the subject, and we fairly gallop our way through the late 80's, 90's and beyond. I wanted the same in depth analysis for the whole period, or perhaps he should have written two books and given each time frame equal treatment. All the same I enjoyed reading more about Eno, to the point that I ended up playing each of the albums as Sheppard passed on his intelligence about their genesis. It was enlightening to read about Eno's lack of formal musical qualifications - (I realised he wasn't a God after all, and was/is prone to same foibles as us all) - but my admiration for his output was not diminished for the experience, and I can honestly say that if you're as interested in Eno as I am obviously am (and I mean to demonstrate my bias), then overall you'll not find this book an entirely disappointing experience.

I have been waiting for an in depth book on Brian Eno for some time. As an admirer of Eno's work for some time, it is so compelling to hear how he has achieved his niche in the world of Popular Music as well as finding his own niche in Ambient Music. The book makes you want to go back and rediscover the albums one by one, and even scour cyberspace for those little gems that may have fallen through the cracks in your own collection.

Great to hear unbiased opinions on Brian and his music from the likes of Gavin Bryars, John Foxx and Russell Mills. You really get a sense of a man who has been extremely busy, and pushing the boundaries for modern music. With out the likes of Eno and his collaborators, music over the years would be a very different and I sense boring affair.

My only criticism of the book is Sheppard's overuse of wordplay. Maybe he's trying to impress Eno himself with his complex use of the English language and I found on many occassions cringing at the long winded sentences describing for example the Punk Movement. I'm sure the author has worn out many Thesauruses in the writing of this book. His style of writing would be more useful to analysing Atonal Classical music than the more direct Ambient Music of Brian Eno.

So many music biographies so often miss the point via brevity, misplaced gushing praise, or lack of authoritative support. Not so here. This is an excellent book, clocking in at 439 pages, and written with serious intent and obviously fully researched. Perhaps most importantly, the author had access to both the subject of his book and many of those involved, adding to the quality of the finished product.

Brian Eno's early life and influences are fully developed, as is his time with Roxy Music and his early works. Every important release, be it solo material or collaborations are fully expounded upon, giving the reader genuine insight into the working process behind these works. Perhaps as importantly, each is directly tied into what went before and what is to come; a chronology of influences.

As the pages turn, Eno's output is explained in a way that for me anyway, demystified much of his works, while at the same did not lesson the "magic" contained within them. Indeed, it would be difficult to read this book without listening to the recordings being written about and hearing them again with new ears.

Unfortunately, and preventing what otherwise could have been a 5-star book, as the years roll by, the later works are given less and less pages... rushing to the end without the detailed narrative it began with. In fact, almost every recording of the past 20 years is given little more than a sentence. This was a major disappointment.

Another minor quibble is the lack of a discography, which would have served as a valuable reference point.

All that said, there is no finer book on the life and works of Brian Eno currently available and those interested in understanding the who, what, when and where of this most important of recording (and visual) artists, should regard this volume as a desert island selection.

Author David Sheppard was surely paid by the word for this work. The only way to give a sense for it is to pick a typical quote. On p. 89, referring to the first Roxy Music album: "In its deftly shaken cocktail of pastiche retro chic, avant rock swagger and, courtesy of Eno, mysterioso futurism, the _Roxy Music_ album pulled back the velvet curtain on an impossibly modish, devastatingly stylish demi-monde. Mature, urbane, yet delivered with unquenchable hauteur of beautiful, breathless youth, Ferry's disquisitions on playboy ennui were viscerally thrilling and divinely decadent...As a narrator Ferry could be suave, tender, predatory, and often all three in the same song. He evinced a picaresque character, part-libertine lotus eater, stiletto-sharp urban hipster and brooding metaphysical lover - the improbable progeny of Charles Trenet, Lou Reed and John Donne, exquisitely lit with downtown neon and dusted with space age glitter." (p. 89)

Holy Thesuarus, Batman!

But let you think the book is a tiresome exercise in adjectival overload, he redeems himself with trenchant little asides like this one (p. 91, referring to the cover photography of the album): "...Eno, in leopard-skin chemise and trowelled-on foundation looked sleek, seedy and android-like - although his clenched pose suggested a man passing a troublesome stool."

Actually, once you get used to the rhythm and the "any adjective is better than no adjective, and a long one is better than a short one" style of Sheppard, I find the book becomes quite readable. Weaned on a diet of Shakespeare, Chaucer and J. P. Donleavy I've only needed to resort to the dictionary a few times ("selaphobia?") and there is plenty of bigraphical, musical, and historical meat in Sheppard's servings.

I agree with some of the other reviewers that Eno's more recent experiments and projects get strangely short shrift towards the end of the book. Halfway through it, he's only arrived at 1975.

Personally I'm very much enjoying it, although if someone told me Sheppard's prose caused in them an irresistible urge to hurl the tome into the abyss, I could understand and sympathize. I would have rated it 4 stars, but it is so thorough, and so meticulously researched, and since I didn't buy it but borrow it from the local public library, I generously bumped it up to 5.

Only a couple of nitpicking minor errors found: "we" for "the" on one page, and in a footnote a reference to a CD released in 1976. Undoubtedly "LP" or "album" was meant as there were no CDs at that time.

... and one could be forgiven if that is the only opinion of Eno you came away with after reading this book. As the official review cites, the focus is on Eno's life and career almost exclusively up to the mid eighties. The last 25 years are covered in a blur of 80 pages. Nonetheless, Eno is a fascinating little aesthete who succeeds by sheer will, whether or not he knows where that will is headed. His sensibilities are such that he takes paths at a time when he ought to, learning as he goes that he has just accomplished something he did not know how to do. Sworn to never holding a real job, he prepares himself to listen, to assemble, to cut and paste a life that makes for a great read.
Throughout the book, he is commended by his male colleagues for being a great friend, an intuitively brilliant producer, and a genuinely giving and visionary artist. There aren't quite as many accolades listed from his conquests, but this is rock and roll, after all. The otherwise monastic Rupert Freep is brought back down to earth, and for that alone, the book is a worthy peruse. Bowie also comes off with a sense of genuine humanity that makes him even more endearing than what his excesses may have projected.
In the end, you'll have a deeper appreciation of many of the side characters in Eno's professional life, most notably Manzanera and Holger Czukay, and you will be left wondering whether Sheppard was told, like Eno was with "Before and After Science", to just get on with it. It would have been of equal interest to learn how all this accumulated wisdom played out in the latter thinking of one of the Cotswold Gnomes.

I'm a long-time Eno fan and this book helped me to understand him much better. It explains how he became one of the most respected avantgarde musicians and producers, starting from an initial interest in plastic arts. It describes his creative process (sometimes song by song) and really makes you curious to listen to his music again. My only complaint is that the rhythm suddenly changes from 1983/84 onwards. Mysteriously, the author mentions this work and collaborations in a very superficial way, even though he was in charge of producing U2's greatest albums (Unforgettable Fire, Joshua Tree, Achtung Baby and Zooropa), besides other important releases. I guess the author was more interested in the 70's and early 80's Eno, but there was so much more to tell about the years after... In a few words, it starts fantastically, and in the last pages you realized that something's missing. I agree that Eno was more productive in the 70's, but it doesn't justify why some albums (Talking Heads) deserve detailed explanations and some others (U2, James) so few text.

It also demystified my vision of Eno as some androgynous, ascetic, wise monk, kind of like the Mr. Spock or Kwai Chang Caine of pop music. It also made me pull out my old Roxy Music and Brian Eno records, although I didn't really gain any additional appreciation of the music, except for the song "Bogus Man," which for some reason I'd never really noticed much before but now realize is one of Roxy's greatest songs. I also need to get those Fripp & Eno albums again. Unfortunately, I started losing interest in the book around the same point I started losing interest in Eno's career (video art, U2, Nerve Net, etc.), so I skimmed my way through the last part of the book.

An interesting book about an interesting man. This deepened my appreciation of Eno, even though the research behind this biography only touches the surface. I think it will take time and a much tougher/critical biographer to really uncover the forces that make Eno tick. The biographer does have an amazing style. This is a stimulating read.

In the course of observing the rock based recordings of the late 20th Century, two names keep surfacing when it comes to exemplary album production. Brian Eno and Rick Rubin. Between the two of them, they have been responsible for some of the biggest and best selling albums of the rock era. Eno with his work on bands like U2, Coldplay and the Talking Heads, and Rubin with everyone from the Beastie Boys to the Red Hot Chili Peppers; Tom Petty to Metallica.
Yet, as much as they are icons of rock production, the similarities seem to end there.

In his book, `On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno', author David Sheppard chronicles both the life and the oeuvre of the enigmatic Mr. Eno; from his early upbringing in Suffolk, England to his days in an English provincial art school, to his joining a barely formed Roxy Music (where he is first credited with performing `treatments'), a decade-long solo career, on through his many cerebral and aesthetic projects (`Oblique Strategies` being one of the most famous), several highly regarded avant-garde musical collaborations (first with Robert Fripp, then with David Byrne), a long series of ambient-based albums ultimately leading to his high-profile production work with David Bowie, Devo, U2, Coldplay and others.

Brown's chronology, `Rick Rubin: In the Studio,' while similar in development (sans the musician part) began in the dorms of NYU where his DefJam Records first took off, to his early years exploring hardcore rock and street based hip-hop, collecting a list of associates ranging from the aforementioned Beastie Boys, to RUN DMC, Slayer and more. Eventually, Rubin formed his own label (parting ways with co-Def Jam owner, Russell Simmons), moved to California and formed Def American (later just `American') Recordings. Rubin's stature continued to rise, and whilst not being much of a musician nor an engineer, he ended up helming records from the likes of the Chili Peppers, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, the Dixie Chicks, Neil Diamond, Linkin Park and others.

The two books have much in common with and are as diverse as their respective subjects. While Sheppard's book is both detailed and an intelligent rendering of the events in and surrounding it's subject, Brown's book is more tactical and directly relating to each of the recordings involved. Sheppard's work is much more fluid and articulate in describing the ever-weaving career path (including numerous non-music endeavors - like his ambient wallscape `77 Million Paintings`) while Brown largely sticks to the nitty-gritty of the details of the making of each record outlined. (Brown's is rightly subtitled as part of his `In the Studio' series.) Sheppard seems to have spent much more time with the principals in Eno's life's work, while much of Brown's book is, unfortunately, based largely on an assemblage of reworked press quotes.

In all, both books shed a light on the sometimes hidden-from-view process of the recording studio. Sheppard's Eno tome comes across as a much more painstaking and revealing work, while a similar type of in-depth, wide-ranging examination of Rubin's career is still yet to be written. - Tim Devine