Cider with Roadies is the true story of a boy's obsessive relationship with pop. A life lived through music from Stuart's audience with the Beatles (aged 3); his confessions as a pubescent prog rocker; a youthful gymnastic dalliance with northern soul; the radical effects of punk on his politics, homework and trouser dimensions; playing in crap bands and failing to impress girls; writing for the NME by accident; living the sex, drugs (chiefly lager in a plastic glass) and rock and roll lifestyle; discovering the tawdry truth behind the glamour and knowing when to ditch it all for what really matters. From Stuart's four minutes in a leisure centre with MC Hammer to four days in a small van with Napalm Death it's a life-affirming journey through the land where ordinary life and pop come together to make music.
In this hilarious and heart-warming collection of essays, the bestselling author reflects on a life spent exploring the British countryside on foot. From the splendor of the Pennines and the Lake District to the drama of the Dorset coast; from the canals of the Midlands to wildest Scotland, this book is an attempt to explain a passion for walking and the delights it can bring. Culled from Stuart Maconie’s monthly column in Country Walking, it’s full of the beautiful places, magical moments and wonderful characters he has encountered on his travels. It discusses such intrepid adventures as taking on the famous “Wainwright” fells of the Lake District, walking Hadrian’s Wall with colleague Mark Radcliffe, and why the most important things to carry in a rucksack are a transistor radio and a small bottle of red wine. Praise for Stuart Maconie “Maconie makes a jovial, self-deprecating narrator. Sharp and funny.” —The Guardian “He is as funny as Bryson and as wise as Orwell.” —The Observer “Stuart Maconie is the best thing to come out of Wigan since the A58 to Bolton.” —Peter Kay “An heir to Alan Bennett . . . stirring and rather wonderful.” —The Sunday Times
Everyone talks about 'Middle England'. Sometimes they mean something bad, like a lynch mob of Daily Mail readers, and sometimes they mean something good, like a pint of ale in a sleepy Cotswold village in summer twilight. But just where and what is Middle England? Stuart Maconie didn't know either, so he packed his Thermos and sandwiches and set off to find out... Is Middle England about tradition and decency or closed minds and bigotry? Is it maypoles and evensong, or flooded market towns and binge drinkers in the park? And is Slough really as bad as Ricky Gervais and John Betjeman make out? From Shakespeare to JK Rowling, Vaughan Williams to Craig David, William Morris to B&Q, Stuart Maconie leads the expedition, with plenty of stop-offs for tea and scones, to discover the truth.
A Northerner in exile, Stuart Maconie goes on a journey in search of the North, attempting to discover where the clichés end and the truth begins. He travels from Wigan Pier to Blackpool Tower and Newcastle's Bigg Market to the Lake District to find his own Northern Soul, encountering along the way an exotic cast of chippy Scousers, pie-eating woollybacks, topless Geordies, mad-for-it Mancs, Yorkshire nationalists and brothers in southern exile. The bestselling Pies and Prejudice is a hugely enjoyable journey around the north of England.
Factory, mine and mill. Industry, toil and grime. Its manufacturing roots mean we still see the North of England as a hardworking place. But, more than possibly anywhere else, the North has always known how to get dressed up, take itself out on the town and have a good time. After all, working and playing hard is its specialty, and Stuart Maconie is in search of what, exactly, this entails what it tells us about the North today. Following tip offs and rumour, Stuart takes trip to forgotten corners and locals’ haunts. From the tapas bars of Halifax to the caravan parks of Berwick Upon Tweed, from a Westhoughton bowling green to Manchester’s curry mile, via dog tracks and art galleries, dance floors and high fells, Stuart compares the new and old North, with some surprising results. The Pie at Night could be seen as a companion to the bestselling Pies and Prejudice, but it is not a sequel. After all, this is a new decade and the North is changing faster than ever. This is a revealing and digressive journey and a State of the North address, delivered from barstool, terrace, dress circle and hillside.
He is as funny as Bryson and as wise as Orwell' Observer It was the spirit of our finest hour, the backbone of our post-war greatness, and it promoted some of the boldest and most brilliant schemes this isle has ever produced: it was the Welfare State, and it made you and I. But now it's under threat, and we need to save it. In this timely and provocative book, Stuart Maconie tells Britain’s Welfare State story through his own history of growing up as a northern working class boy. What was so bad about properly funded hospitals, decent working conditions and affordable houses? And what was so wrong about student grants, free eye tests and council houses? And where did it all go so wrong? Stuart looks toward Britain’s future, making an emotional case for believing in more than profit and loss; and championing a just, fairer society.
The Lives Less Ordinary series brings you the most exciting, adventurous and entertaining true-life writing that is out there, for men who are time-poor but want the best. Lives Less Ordinary drops you into extreme first-hand accounts of human experience, whether that's the adrenaline-pumping heights of professional sport, the brutality of the modern battlefield, the casual violence of the criminal world, the mind-blowing frontiers of science, or the excesses of rock 'n' roll, high finance and Hollywood. Lives Less Ordinary also brings you some of the finest comic voices around, on every subject from toilet etiquette to Paul Gascoigne. Anyone who every dreams of being in the music business thinks that 'being with the band' is an instant passport to free drugs, women and hedonistic, rock 'n' roll good times. But Stuart Maconie hilariously tells a different story of the slow-drip hell of continental travel in the claustrophobic confines a small van with a certain death metal trio. This digital bite has been extracted from Stuart Maconie's brilliant book Cider with Roadies.
The Sunday Times Bestseller 'A tribute and a rallying call' - Guardian Three and half weeks. Three hundred miles. I saw roaring arterial highway and silent lanes, candlelit cathedrals and angry men in bad pubs. The Britain of 1936 was a land of beef paste sandwiches and drill halls. Now we are nation of vaping and nail salons, pulled pork and salted caramel. In the autumn of 1936, some 200 men from the Tyneside town of Jarrow marched 300 miles to London in protest against the destruction of their towns and industries. Precisely 80 years on, Stuart Maconie, walks from north to south retracing the route of the emblematic Jarrow Crusade. Travelling down the country’s spine, Maconie moves through a land that is, in some ways, very much the same as the England of the 30s with its political turbulence, austerity, north/south divide, food banks and of course, football mania. Yet in other ways, it is completely unrecognisable. Maconie visits the great cities as well as the sleepy hamlets, quiet lanes and roaring motorways. He meets those with stories to tell and whose voices build a funny, complex and entertaining tale of Britain, then and now.
These are the songs that we have listened to, laughed to, loved to and laboured to, as well as downed tools and danced to. Covering the last seven decades, Stuart Maconie looks at the songs that have sound tracked our changing times, and – just sometimes – changed the way we feel. Beginning with Vera Lynn’s ‘We’ll Meet Again’, a song that reassured a nation parted from their loved ones by the turmoil of war, and culminating with the manic energy of ‘Bonkers’, Dizzee Rascal’s anthem for the push and rush of the 21st century inner city, The People’s Songs takes a tour of our island’s pop music, and asks what it means to us. This is not a rock critique about the 50 greatest tracks ever recorded. Rather, it is a celebration of songs that tell us something about a changing Britain during the dramatic and kaleidoscopic period from the Second World War to the present day. Here are songs about work, war, class, leisure, race, family, drugs, sex, patriotism and more, recorded in times of prosperity or poverty. This is the music that inspired haircuts and dance crazes, but also protest and social change. The companion to Stuart Maconie’s landmark Radio 2 series, The People’s Songs shows us the power of ‘cheap’ pop music, one of Britain’s greatest exports. These are the songs we worked to and partied to, and grown up and grown old to – from ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ to ‘Rehab', ‘She Loves You’ to ‘Star Man’, ‘Dedicated Follower of Fashion’ to ‘Radio Ga Ga’.
In Hope and Glory Stuart Maconie goes in search of the days that shaped the Britain we live in today. Taking one event from each decade of the 20th century, he visits the places where history happened and still echoes down the years. Stuart goes to Orgreave and Windsor, Wembley and Wootton Bassett, assembling a unique cast of Britons from Sir Edmund Hillary to Sid Vicious along the way. It’s quite a trip, full of sex and violence and the occasional scone and jigsaw. From pop stars to politicians, Suffragettes to punks, this is a journey around Britain in search of who we are.
Stuart Maconie goes in search of the places, people and events that have shaped modern Britain. Starting with the death of Queen Victoria, to the Battle of the Somme and the General Strike, and on to the docking of the Empire Windrush and Bobby Moore raising the Jules Rimet trophy, he chooses a defining moment in our nation's story from each decade of the last century and explores its legacy today. Some were glorious days, some were tragic, or even shameful, but each has played its part in making us who we are as a nation. From pop stars to politicians, suffragettes to punks, this is a journey around Britain in search of who we are."--Publisher's description.
Everyone talks about "Middle England." Sometimes they mean something bad, like a lynch mob of "Daily Mail" readers, and sometimes they mean something good, like a pint of ale in a sleepy Cotswold village in summer twilight. But just where and what is Middle England? Stuart Maconie didn't know either, so he packed his Thermos and sandwiches and set off to find out. "Is Middle England about tradition and decency or closed minds and bigotry? Is it maypoles and evensong, or flooded market towns and binge drinkers in the park? And is Slough really as bad as Ricky Gervais and John Betjeman make out? "From Shakespeare to JK Rowling, Vaughan Williams to Craig David, William Morris to B&Q, Stuart Maconie leads the expedition--with plenty of stop-offs for tea and scones--to discover the truth.
James have been a bizarre, quixotic feature on the British musical landscape for over 15 years. The band fell together in their native Manchester in the mid-eighties and quickly became one of the leading lights of the British music scene. As the nineties developed, James penetrated the mainstream and became consistent chart-toppers while never losing the credibility earned by the quizzical intensity of their talismanic singer Tim Booth. James have now been a totem for two generations of alternative music fans, and they have entered the new millennium with their fire burning as brightly as ever.
In this hilarious and heart-warming collection of essays, the bestselling author reflects on a life spent exploring the British countryside on foot. From the splendor of the Pennines and the Lake District to the drama of the Dorset coast; from the canals of the Midlands to wildest Scotland, this book is an attempt to explain a passion for walking and the delights it can bring. Culled from Stuart Maconie’s monthly column in Country Walking, it’s full of the beautiful places, magical moments and wonderful characters he has encountered on his travels. It discusses such intrepid adventures as taking on the famous “Wainwright” fells of the Lake District, walking Hadrian’s Wall with colleague Mark Radcliffe, and why the most important things to carry in a rucksack are a transistor radio and a small bottle of red wine. Praise for Stuart Maconie “Maconie makes a jovial, self-deprecating narrator. Sharp and funny.” —The Guardian “He is as funny as Bryson and as wise as Orwell.” —The Observer “Stuart Maconie is the best thing to come out of Wigan since the A58 to Bolton.” —Peter Kay “An heir to Alan Bennett . . . stirring and rather wonderful.” —The Sunday Times
Cider with Roadies is the true story of a boy's obsessive relationship with pop. A life lived through music from Stuart's audience with the Beatles (aged 3); his confessions as a pubescent prog rocker; a youthful gymnastic dalliance with northern soul; the radical effects of punk on his politics, homework and trouser dimensions; playing in crap bands and failing to impress girls; writing for the NME by accident; living the sex, drugs (chiefly lager in a plastic glass) and rock and roll lifestyle; discovering the tawdry truth behind the glamour and knowing when to ditch it all for what really matters. From Stuart's four minutes in a leisure centre with MC Hammer to four days in a small van with Napalm Death it's a life-affirming journey through the land where ordinary life and pop come together to make music.
Everyone talks about 'Middle England'. Sometimes they mean something bad, like a lynch mob of Daily Mail readers, and sometimes they mean something good, like a pint of ale in a sleepy Cotswold village in summer twilight. But just where and what is Middle England? Stuart Maconie didn't know either, so he packed his Thermos and sandwiches and set off to find out... Is Middle England about tradition and decency or closed minds and bigotry? Is it maypoles and evensong, or flooded market towns and binge drinkers in the park? And is Slough really as bad as Ricky Gervais and John Betjeman make out? From Shakespeare to JK Rowling, Vaughan Williams to Craig David, William Morris to B&Q, Stuart Maconie leads the expedition, with plenty of stop-offs for tea and scones, to discover the truth.
A Northerner in exile, Stuart Maconie goes on a journey in search of the North, attempting to discover where the clichés end and the truth begins. He travels from Wigan Pier to Blackpool Tower and Newcastle's Bigg Market to the Lake District to find his own Northern Soul, encountering along the way an exotic cast of chippy Scousers, pie-eating woollybacks, topless Geordies, mad-for-it Mancs, Yorkshire nationalists and brothers in southern exile. The bestselling Pies and Prejudice is a hugely enjoyable journey around the north of England.
An accessible introduction to the study of popular music, this book takes a schematic approach to a range of popular music genres, and examines them in terms of their antecedents, histories, visual aesthetics, and sociopolitical contexts. Within this interdisciplinary and genre-based focus, readers will gain insights into the relationships between popular music, cultural history, economics, politics, iconography, production techniques, technology, marketing, and musical structure.
The author of Detroit 67 captures Northern England’s underground music scene of the 1970s and ‘80s in this candid memoir of late nights and heavy beats. Young Soul Rebel is a compelling and intimate story of northern soul, Britain's most fascinating musical underground scene. Author Stuart Cosgrove takes the reader on a personal journey through the iconic clubs that made it famous, like The Twisted Wheel, The Torch, Wigan Casino, Blackpool Mecca and Cleethorpes Pier. He also details the bootleggers that made it infamous, the splits that threatened to divide the scene, the great unknown records that built its global reputation and the crate-digging collectors that travelled to America to unearth unknown sounds. A sweeping memoir that covers fifty years of British life, Young Soul Rebel places the northern soul scene in a larger social and historical context that includes the rise of amphetamine culture, the policing of youth culture, the north-south divide, the decline of coastal Britain, the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry, the rise of Thatcherism, the miners' strike, the rave scene and music in the era of the world wide web.
The Lives Less Ordinary series brings you the most exciting, adventurous and entertaining true-life writing that is out there, for men who are time-poor but want the best. Lives Less Ordinary drops you into extreme first-hand accounts of human experience, whether that's the adrenaline-pumping heights of professional sport, the brutality of the modern battlefield, the casual violence of the criminal world, the mind-blowing frontiers of science, or the excesses of rock 'n' roll, high finance and Hollywood. Lives Less Ordinary also brings you some of the finest comic voices around, on every subject from toilet etiquette to Paul Gascoigne. Anyone who every dreams of being in the music business thinks that 'being with the band' is an instant passport to free drugs, women and hedonistic, rock 'n' roll good times. But Stuart Maconie hilariously tells a different story of the slow-drip hell of continental travel in the claustrophobic confines a small van with a certain death metal trio. This digital bite has been extracted from Stuart Maconie's brilliant book Cider with Roadies.
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