PRESSING NEWS: BRITISH MUSIC AS IT HAPPENED 1962-1972
Published in November 2024
A huge number of new records came out in the UK every week in the 1960s and 70s, many of them accompanied by press releases. These offered important and fascinating information but were almost all discarded, meaning that very few have survived. The product of decades of painstaking collecting and research, Pressing News reproduces 125 of them, accompanied by a wealth of other promo items and supporting imagery from music magazines, the underground press and local and national newspapers.
Artists featured span household names (the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie and Pink Floyd), cult heroes (Nick Drake, Syd Barrett, Mighty Baby and Comus) and lesser-known lights (Tintern Abbey, July, Fuchsia and COB).
Pressing News is a deluxe limited edition large-format hardback, quarter-bound in cloth and containing over 400 full-colour pages.
You can order and learn more about Pressing News here.
LABYRINTH
Published in January 2024
‘Utterly engrossing… Featuring large sleeve reproductions (both front and back), period reviews, historical overviews and vintage music press ads, Labyrinth finally puts this music on the pedestal it rightly deserves’
– Jon Newey, editor-in-chief, Jazzwise
‘The logistics in gathering these albums together are head-swimming… A seriously impressive work, music curation at its finest… For anyone with even a cursory interest in a genre often untouched by music scholars, it’s essential’
– Shindig
The massive Labyrinth celebrates over three hundred British jazz albums released between 1960 and 1975, offering background details, excerpts from original reviews, and high-quality images that reproduce their artwork and labels at near-full size, as well as an introduction by Tony Reeves (Mike Taylor Quartet, New Jazz Orchestra, Colosseum).
Covering trad jazz, mainstream jazz, abstract jazz, avant-garde jazz, serial jazz, free jazz, Indo-jazz, jazz-rock and more, it tells a story Britain should be proud of: open-minded and creative musicians pushing the boundaries of their art in the face of penury and indifference, and welcoming influences from a range of cultures via immigrant musicians such as Joe Harriott (Jamaica), Amancio D’Silva (India), Guy Warren (Ghana) and Harry Beckett (Barbados).
You can learn more about Labyrinth here.
NICK DRAKE – THE LIFE
Published in June 2023
“This is the book we’ve been waiting for – the one Nick’s legacy deserves and so badly needs. Richard Morton Jack has reconstructed Nick’s life with great sensitivity and care, and in remarkable detail. It is a biography to be treasured.”
– Joe Boyd
The only biography of Nick Drake to be written with the blessing and involvement of his sister and Estate, drawing on copious original research and new interviews with his family, friends and musical collaborators, as well as deeply personal archive material unavailable to previous writers, this is the most comprehensive and authoritative account possible of his short and enigmatic life.
Updates, and material gathered during the research and writing process, can be accessed by joining the book’s Facebook group here.
You can learn more about Nick Drake – The Life here.
“Illuminating. The definitive word on Drake”
– the Observer
“A powerful, affecting act of reconstruction… A rich depiction of Drake’s world, as close as anyone’s going to get to finding him’”
– the Sunday Times
“A fully formed human being emerges from the myth… This tremendous book is surely the final word”
– the Irish Independent
“The definitive account… The Drake completist could ask for nothing else”
– the Daily Telegraph
“The most complete and authoritative study of Nick Drake’s life and work to date, an outstanding document of an extraordinary artist”
– the Irish Times
“Morton Jack’s feat in coaxing a full-scale biography from his enigmatic subject’s life is considerable”
– the Financial Times
“Morton Jack has done a tremendous job”
– the Sun
“The account worthy of a musical messiah”
– the Spectator
“The most factual and detailed picture of the singer’s 26 years on Earth we are ever likely to read, debunking many of the myths”
– the Guardian
GALACTIC RAMBLE
Published in March 2019
Galactic Ramble features reviews of thousands of British and Irish pop, rock, folk and jazz albums issued between roughly 1963 and 1975. It juxtaposes new reviews with old ones, culled from a vast range of sources, so that both vintage and modern perspectives can be gained. Totalling well over a million words, and including masses of rare images, it is by far the most comprehensive critical guide of its sort in existence.
The print edition of Galactic Ramble is sold out, but it can be downloaded here.
“I don’t have any rock reference books like the new edition of Galactic Ramble… The writing’s entertaining, and the perspectives are thoughtful and informed… Galactic Ramble does a great service to rock scholarship in general”
– Richie Unterberger
“Richly rewarding… Compelling, exhaustive and addictive’”
– Record Collector
“Hugely immersive… Contains the most extensive coverage yet of British jazz albums released during this golden period”
– Jazzwise
“Huge and hugely enjoyable… like browsing a long-abandoned record shop with an extraordinary inventory and an amiably knowledgeable staff”
– Mojo
“This book goes a long way towards opening up knowledge of the field… A huge undertaking”
– The Wire
“Endlessly fascinating… A treasure trove that will offer pop music obsessives many hours of serendipitous pleasure”
– The Daily Telegraph
“An astounding piece of work… If you like British popular music of the 60s and 70s, this is pretty much an essential purchase. Nothing else yet comes close to either the scope or entertainment value of this book”
– Shindig [Book Of The Year]
“For a true hit of nostalgia, nothing beats Galactic Ramble, whose survey of both famous and deeply obscure British albums from the 1960s and 1970s is the next-best thing to flicking through stacks of vinyl in a dusty record store”
– The Financial Times
PSYCHEDELIA
Published in June 2017
A large, detailed guide to 101 underground rock and pop albums issued between 1966 and 1970, from Britain, America and further afield. It includes many colour images and a large amount of ancillary information about the late 60s counterculture, from festivals and films to posters and the press.
“Smartly presented and written with enthusiasm and insight, Psychedelia offers page after page of fun and fascination”
– It’s Psychedelic, Baby!
ENDLESS TRIP
Published in December 2010
Endless Trip features reviews of thousands of US and Canadian pop, rock and folk albums issued between roughly 1965 and 1974. It juxtaposes new reviews with old ones, culled from a vast range of sources, so that both vintage and modern perspectives can be gained. Totalling well over a million words, and including masses of rare images, it is by far the most comprehensive critical guide of its sort in existence.
“A one-way ticket to essentialdom… Exhaustive, knowledgeable, perceptive’”
– Record Collector
“With an introduction by Lenny Kaye, it’s hard not to be immediately impressed with Endless Trip… It puts the spotlight on many records that have been missed by other similar books, akin to shining a light into Tutankhamun’s tomb… Mind-blowing’”
– Shindig
“As close to heaven as pop anoraks like me are likely to get… Essential”
– The Daily Telegraph
“Those who think they already know about everything covered in Endless Trip will find themselves rediscovering their record collection through fresh ears, while less experienced heads will be sent on a thrilling (and possibly wallet-draining) voyage of musical discovery’”
– The Wire
The print edition of Endless Trip is sold out, but it can be downloaded here.
THE BUMPER BOOK OF BRITISH SLEAZE
Published in October 2007
Greed. Perjury. Adultery. Fraud. Buffoonery. Here, for the first time, is an A-Z of the moments of madness and lapses of judgement that bedevilled our Honourable Friends between 1986, and 2007. Celebrating 21 glorious years of political ineptitude, from Cash For Questions and Compassionate Conservatism to Back to Basics and Tony Blair, via scores of lesser-known crooks, cranks and creeps who don’t deserve to be forgotten, this is a joyous tribute to the one proud constant in our political landscape: sleaze. Featuring an introduction by Private Eye‘s Francis Wheen.
You can buy The Bumper Book Of British Sleaze here.
‘A terrific compendium of appalling behaviour by those in whom we have entrusted our vote’
– Sunday Times books of the year
‘A forensic account of how hundreds of party politicians have behaved in a morally questionable way’
– Politics UK
