Well, I finished reading 'The People's
Music' by Stuart Maconie last night. When I posted about it yesterday, several
people accused me of being unfair. But although some of the later chapters are
better, the book is still a big disappointment. It is just so lightweight. It
reads like a series of columns in a popular magazine. And the mistakes are
unforgivable (Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull did not play the first Glastonbury.
It was Ian A Anderson, an acoustic singer songwriter and a completely different
dude). Other statements remain unsubstantiated. For example it is fairly well
accepted that John Lennon went off in a huff after George Harrison refused to
let Yoko appear at the Concert for Bangladesh. However, Maconie says that his
non-appearance was because of his unwillingness to cut short a holiday. If this
is true, it is actually quite a major thing for Lennon scholars. But where did
he get it from?
I really wanted this book to be good. But
it isn't. Maconie is a fine writer, and I suspect that an editor somewhere took
a hatchet to his prose and dumbed it down outrageously. That, dear readers, is a
sign of the times.
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* The Gonzo Daily is a two way process. If
you have any news or want to write for us, please contact me at jon@eclipse.co.uk.
If you are an artist and want to showcase your work, or even just say hello
please write to me at gonzo@cfz.org.uk.
Please copy, paste and spread the word about this magazine as widely as
possible. We need people to read us in order to grow, and as soon as it is
viable we shall be invading more traditional magaziney areas. Join in the fun,
spread the word, and maybe if we all chant loud enough we CAN stop it raining.
See you tomorrow...
* The Gonzo Daily is - as the name implies - a
daily online magazine (mostly) about artists connected to the Gonzo Multimedia
group of companies. But it also has other stuff as and when the editor feels
like it. The same team also do a weekly newsletter called - imaginatively - The
Gonzo Weekly. Find out about it at this link: http://gonzo-multimedia.blogspot.com/2012/11/all-gonzo-news-wots-fit-to-print.html
* We should probably mention here, that
some of our posts are links to things we have found on the internet that we
think are of interest. We are not responsible for spelling or factual errors in
other people's websites. Honest guv!
* Jon Downes, the Editor of all
these ventures (and several others) is an old hippy of 53 who - together with
his orange cat (who is currently on sick leave in Staffordshire) and two very
small kittens (one of whom is also orange) puts it all together from a converted
potato shed in a tumbledown cottage deep in rural Devon which he shares with
various fish, and sometimes a small Indian frog. He is ably assisted by his
lovely wife Corinna, his bulldog/boxer Prudence, his elderly mother-in-law, and
a motley collection of social malcontents. Plus.. did we mention the orange
cat?