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On Some Faraway Beach: The Life and Times of Brian Eno
Authorised biography of Brian Eno - the 'Father of Ambient Music'
A sonic alchemist to the stars, Brian Eno's address book is a veritable who's who of rock and pop. Tellingly, his involvement with Roxy Music, David Bowie, Talking Heads and U2 has coincided with these artists producing their most challenging and critically revered work.
ON SOME FARAWAY BEACH is the first serious, critical examination of the life and times of Brian Eno, from an idiosyncratic childhood to 1960s art school and the sharp end of pop charts around the world.
A sonic alchemist to the stars, Brian Eno's address book is a veritable who's who of rock and pop. Tellingly, his involvement with Roxy Music, David Bowie, Talking Heads and U2 has coincided with these artists producing their most challenging and critically revered work.
ON SOME FARAWAY BEACH is the first serious, critical examination of the life and times of Brian Eno, from an idiosyncratic childhood to 1960s art school and the sharp end of pop charts around the world.
560 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 1, 2008
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 70 reviews
June 19, 2009
Fine, as bios go. There's some great stuff early on, and up until 1980 or so, the book is fairly compelling. But after that, perhaps the author's appetite dies with mine, for the whole U2 experience is dismissed within a dozen or so pages. This is fine by me, as I have little interest in U2, but it does serve to give the narrative a bottom-heavy feel, with almost every week in 1974 (for example) being covered before a sprint through two decades' worth of projects, the 80s and 90s, with many left out.
I'd have done the same thing, of course.
Much as I devour these things and enjoy the details, I frequently find the standard rock bio format is insufficient for all but the most standard of biodegradable rockers. Eno warrants something more speculative, perhaps.
I'd have done the same thing, of course.
Much as I devour these things and enjoy the details, I frequently find the standard rock bio format is insufficient for all but the most standard of biodegradable rockers. Eno warrants something more speculative, perhaps.
December 28, 2023
12/2013
This was a long, dense book, and it took me a long time to read. It was thorough, to say the least. Of course, it's covering the career of a man which spans the last 40 or 45 years and is all very documented. Why would you leave anything out? It had to be dense and detailed, and the writer David Sheppard did a great job. Honestly I sort of skimmed after Fear Of Music though. The 70s had been overwhelming. Overwhelmingly good and interesting, definitely. I love early Roxy Music, love Love Eno's early 70s solo albums, love the work he did with Bowie and the Talking Heads. It was super interesting to read about all this.
And to know the cool origin of such inscrutable, mysteriously deep lyrics as,
"We are the 801
We are the central shaft."
This was a long, dense book, and it took me a long time to read. It was thorough, to say the least. Of course, it's covering the career of a man which spans the last 40 or 45 years and is all very documented. Why would you leave anything out? It had to be dense and detailed, and the writer David Sheppard did a great job. Honestly I sort of skimmed after Fear Of Music though. The 70s had been overwhelming. Overwhelmingly good and interesting, definitely. I love early Roxy Music, love Love Eno's early 70s solo albums, love the work he did with Bowie and the Talking Heads. It was super interesting to read about all this.
And to know the cool origin of such inscrutable, mysteriously deep lyrics as,
"We are the 801
We are the central shaft."
June 4, 2010
this book was too well researched and not well edited-- I really liked it at first but then it became a little bit of a slog and I skimmed through some of the technological (nonmusical) noise towards the end. the writer was working well too hard with the crafty clutter sentences and insecure word choices, smug self satisfaction notwithstanding here and there. Sheesh, what's the zappa line about Rock Criticism? Although this guy really is worried about the commentariat, I hope he doesn't anymore because the anxiety was palpable. The stuff on Roxy music and the mid seventies new york music scene was velly good but it waned dramatically after the Budd stuff.
Unfairly on my part, I think less of Eno than I did before I started (and he was a demigod to me) because of the hagiographic tone of the account as well as the incredible selfregard that would slip out here and there, though it's definitly hinted at in the last paragraph RE Fripp. Most disappointed that he abandoned his child when he was young, and annoyed that he's just another limey when it comes to slagging off los angeles, but that's me being subjective. he does like Rorty, so that's something. And it gave me a much better appreciation of Lanlois and Budd. Best thing about the book: all the various influences and tangents that eno took, so I have a list of all new musicians to follow (Neu! and others) as well as reminding me how much I like the talking heads.
Unfairly on my part, I think less of Eno than I did before I started (and he was a demigod to me) because of the hagiographic tone of the account as well as the incredible selfregard that would slip out here and there, though it's definitly hinted at in the last paragraph RE Fripp. Most disappointed that he abandoned his child when he was young, and annoyed that he's just another limey when it comes to slagging off los angeles, but that's me being subjective. he does like Rorty, so that's something. And it gave me a much better appreciation of Lanlois and Budd. Best thing about the book: all the various influences and tangents that eno took, so I have a list of all new musicians to follow (Neu! and others) as well as reminding me how much I like the talking heads.
June 30, 2018
Reading a biography of a musician is always a bit treacherous, in that we must seriously beware of its marketing role, even if unintended, of making one want to rush out and buy that musician's entire discography. This is doubly true for a musician like Eno, for whom the main compositional tool is the studio and whose main musical products, therefore, are recordings. I, for one, count myself lucky that I'd at least already had a substantial Eno discography before I even started reading On Some Faraway Beach, and that the only album the book actually got me to buy was that by Eno's frenemy Gavin Bryars, Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet (the version featuring Tom Waits). Otherwise — I probably really would have gone on a shopping spree.
Brian Eno, naturally, is one of my favorite musicians, and there are ways in which a chronicle of his life can't help but be revelatory. The best part of the book, to me, was the story of Eno's very African music-influenced New York period around 1980, which I really knew little about before:
Eno was still an habitué of Washington Square Park, often accompanied by Fred Frith. There, they would listen to the innumerable busking musicians and watch the fledgling break-dancers dervish away. Frith remembers how Eno's ingenuous engagement with New York's eddying street culture was compromised by his escalating celebrity....
Maybe it's because I'm a New Yorker myself, but Sheppard's account of the comparatively brief time Eno spent here raised his narrative to a fever pitch. It seemed natural, after reading this section (chapters 11 and 12), that the same musician who popularized ambient music should in fact be responsible for the production on such energy-intense albums as No New York and Remain In Light. Sheppard gives enough insight into where Eno's head was at during that time that it became no longer a disjuncture in my own head.
Unfortunately, his loving recounting of Eno's New York life slowly starts dissolving into a scattered timeline of his wide-ranging artistic projects soon thereafter (something many rock biographies do, and which I loved Marcus O'Dair's Robert Wyatt biography Different Every Time so much, in part, for not doing). There is a particular paragraph in chapter 13, in fact, where one can feel the author's energy simply starting to tail off:
The release of On Land marked the close of a chapter for Eno — the final instalment of the Ambient series coinciding with the end of his years of frenetic record-releasing and a waning of his collaborative promiscuity. Indeed, promiscuousness of any kind was off the agenda as he spent increasing amounts of time sequestered in his loft, working, reading, thinking...
It's a shame, really, that On Some Faraway Beach (named after one of my favorite Eno songs, too) couldn't have been better written. Some of the "transitions" Sheppard comes up with to move his story along are laughable:
By this stage [Lloyd] Watson was very much integrated into the Roxy camp, so much so that he bore witness to some of its most intimate activities... "Brian later recorded a song called 'The Fat Lady of Limbourg' — not many people know that it was based on a real person. She was indeed a rotund girl from Limbourg in Belgium and Brian and she became, shall we say, extremely well acquainted...."
Raucuous, corpulent conquests from the province of Liege were but the tip of the libidinous iceberg for Eno, however....
It was a shame that I had to rate this book lower than the five stars I gave to Eric Tamm's Brian Eno: His Music And The Vertical Color Of Sound, but I stand by it. Tamm's book was *really* my literary introduction to the Enoverse, and plays up the theoretical aspects of its artistic output while hiding some of the man's less savory personal qualities. (Sheppard reports, for instance, that when Eno played a record by Fela Kuti's Africa 70 band for visitors, he would "joke", "That's his seventy wives, the lucky fucker!") Really, though, the two books work well in concert. Read Sheppard for the story, then Tamm to smooth it over with some comfortable abstraction...!
Brian Eno, naturally, is one of my favorite musicians, and there are ways in which a chronicle of his life can't help but be revelatory. The best part of the book, to me, was the story of Eno's very African music-influenced New York period around 1980, which I really knew little about before:
Eno was still an habitué of Washington Square Park, often accompanied by Fred Frith. There, they would listen to the innumerable busking musicians and watch the fledgling break-dancers dervish away. Frith remembers how Eno's ingenuous engagement with New York's eddying street culture was compromised by his escalating celebrity....
Maybe it's because I'm a New Yorker myself, but Sheppard's account of the comparatively brief time Eno spent here raised his narrative to a fever pitch. It seemed natural, after reading this section (chapters 11 and 12), that the same musician who popularized ambient music should in fact be responsible for the production on such energy-intense albums as No New York and Remain In Light. Sheppard gives enough insight into where Eno's head was at during that time that it became no longer a disjuncture in my own head.
Unfortunately, his loving recounting of Eno's New York life slowly starts dissolving into a scattered timeline of his wide-ranging artistic projects soon thereafter (something many rock biographies do, and which I loved Marcus O'Dair's Robert Wyatt biography Different Every Time so much, in part, for not doing). There is a particular paragraph in chapter 13, in fact, where one can feel the author's energy simply starting to tail off:
The release of On Land marked the close of a chapter for Eno — the final instalment of the Ambient series coinciding with the end of his years of frenetic record-releasing and a waning of his collaborative promiscuity. Indeed, promiscuousness of any kind was off the agenda as he spent increasing amounts of time sequestered in his loft, working, reading, thinking...
It's a shame, really, that On Some Faraway Beach (named after one of my favorite Eno songs, too) couldn't have been better written. Some of the "transitions" Sheppard comes up with to move his story along are laughable:
By this stage [Lloyd] Watson was very much integrated into the Roxy camp, so much so that he bore witness to some of its most intimate activities... "Brian later recorded a song called 'The Fat Lady of Limbourg' — not many people know that it was based on a real person. She was indeed a rotund girl from Limbourg in Belgium and Brian and she became, shall we say, extremely well acquainted...."
Raucuous, corpulent conquests from the province of Liege were but the tip of the libidinous iceberg for Eno, however....
It was a shame that I had to rate this book lower than the five stars I gave to Eric Tamm's Brian Eno: His Music And The Vertical Color Of Sound, but I stand by it. Tamm's book was *really* my literary introduction to the Enoverse, and plays up the theoretical aspects of its artistic output while hiding some of the man's less savory personal qualities. (Sheppard reports, for instance, that when Eno played a record by Fela Kuti's Africa 70 band for visitors, he would "joke", "That's his seventy wives, the lucky fucker!") Really, though, the two books work well in concert. Read Sheppard for the story, then Tamm to smooth it over with some comfortable abstraction...!
March 6, 2009
While I was fascinated by the information about Eno's eclectic creativity, I was appalled: this book contains some of the worst sentences ever written in the English language! Especially in the early chapters set in Britain, the overly-Rococo word choice was painful. My other objection was that Eno seemed to have contributed little new to the book. I would recommend it as a great collection of disparate material mostly already available elsewhere. It was a very, very thoughtful gift from my girlfriend.
March 27, 2012
Brian Eno is a fascinating guy. I loved learning about his quiet, solitary childhood and his wacky art school days. He's the most collaborative person I've come across and I loved reading about his continuous experiments. I wanted to know more about the idea/ contemplative side of Eno, so I thought the book got clogged up with the accounts of all his collaborations and lost the creative spark of that drove them. Reading this book has sent me on an extended Talking Heads/ Eno kick. One neat side benefit of reading his bio was that he was so integrated into the music scene, that his bio is very much like a history of music over the past fifty years. Plan to read some Eno interviews to get a better idea of what's goin' on in that busy head of his.
January 12, 2021
An horrific example of biography run amok. Eno’s music deserves so much better than this solipsistic paean from an author who cannot get out of his own way. I’m giving it 2 stars solely on the merit of allowing myself to re-immerse in Eno’s music, some which I wasn’t previously aware of, though I would’ve been better served to just check his discography on Wikipedia.
December 9, 2009
It's OK. Sheppard draws on some new interview material (albeit not with Eno). Other than that, there's fair bit of recycled material and it's rather uneven: very good and detailed on Eno's work up to about '82 and then it speeds up and gets rather superficial.
March 22, 2018
Some great detail and research here, but also way too much fanboy dribble. Also, needlessly long clusters of adjectives and adverbs - in short, overwritten.
October 7, 2021
From his work with Talking Heads to U2 to Paul Simon (???) to his own varied solo recordings, Brian Eno has been a quirky presence on the music scene since first appearing as a member of Roxy Music. Sheppard gives us an exhaustive look at his career, his influences, his working methods, and the mercurial philosophies that have guided him. I think Eno's career even exhausted his chronicler - once you get beyond his work on U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind, the final chapters turn from information dense into more of a series of bullet point highlights of the near-decade that followed. Still, a nice precis of Eno's career if you're interested - because there has never before been someone quite like him.
February 6, 2021
EXCELLENT bio of a brilliant mind. This is a nice introduction to Eno's work, primarily diving into the first two decades (!) of his career; there are many interviews available to catch up on his most recent two decades (!). While I wasn't all that interested in his sexual prowess and proclivities, but I DID love the references to the many artists (musical and literature) who influenced Eno's development. An absolutely must-read for fans of the genre and fans of Eno himself.
October 9, 2019
It's always good to read about experimental artists. It's easy to get complacent and forget the exhilarating joy of writing an ambitious short story or a song. This bio details the 70s and early 80s career of Brian Eno very well. Like most books about rock musicians, it gets less interesting in the later years.
August 20, 2014
A moderately interesting book about a very interesting man. It's less of a biography than a hagiography - the author is clearly smitten with Eno, which isn't such a bad thing. However, it prevents him from taking an unbiased look at Eno, or from treating his works as anything less than the sheer genius of a holy man. (There's a John Cale anecdote about Eno threatening him with chopsticks, one of the rare bits that shows him in a less-than-saintly light.)
I'm not sure about the target audience is for the book. It's largely made up of previously published anecdotes and interviews, so Eno fans (such as myself) will have to slog through a lot of stuff to learn anything new. (Eno struck by a car, Eno invents ambient music, Eno punctures a lung, Eno produces Bowie/Talking Heads/U2/etc.) Casual fans, or folks who just want to learn about a seminal figure in music, will be put off by the book's length and exhaustive detail.
For me, the most interesting bits are about Eno's childhood, largely because I didn't know as much about those days. Later portions of the book go over stories that I already knew, without putting them in any sort of context. I think that this book could be a third as long and just as informative.
There are a couple of books I'd recommend ahead of this one. Longtime fans will appreciate the insights in Eno's own "A Year With Swollen Appendices". For newcomers to Eno's work, I suggest reading Geeta Dayal's 33 1/3 book on "Another Green World" while listening to the album of the same name.
Curious omission: There's precious little mention of Roger Eno in the book. While it's a book about Brian, it barely acknowledges the existence of a man who was an occasional collaborator, and his brother to boot!
Minor quibbles: The book doesn't seem to have been closely edited, so there are occasional bits where the prose gets absurdly flowery, or the author resorts to British slang ('small beer'). In addition, as is common with books written by people who aren't historians or biographers by trade, the selection of photographs seems haphazard, and some photos have no captions to provide context.
I'm not sure about the target audience is for the book. It's largely made up of previously published anecdotes and interviews, so Eno fans (such as myself) will have to slog through a lot of stuff to learn anything new. (Eno struck by a car, Eno invents ambient music, Eno punctures a lung, Eno produces Bowie/Talking Heads/U2/etc.) Casual fans, or folks who just want to learn about a seminal figure in music, will be put off by the book's length and exhaustive detail.
For me, the most interesting bits are about Eno's childhood, largely because I didn't know as much about those days. Later portions of the book go over stories that I already knew, without putting them in any sort of context. I think that this book could be a third as long and just as informative.
There are a couple of books I'd recommend ahead of this one. Longtime fans will appreciate the insights in Eno's own "A Year With Swollen Appendices". For newcomers to Eno's work, I suggest reading Geeta Dayal's 33 1/3 book on "Another Green World" while listening to the album of the same name.
Curious omission: There's precious little mention of Roger Eno in the book. While it's a book about Brian, it barely acknowledges the existence of a man who was an occasional collaborator, and his brother to boot!
Minor quibbles: The book doesn't seem to have been closely edited, so there are occasional bits where the prose gets absurdly flowery, or the author resorts to British slang ('small beer'). In addition, as is common with books written by people who aren't historians or biographers by trade, the selection of photographs seems haphazard, and some photos have no captions to provide context.
August 6, 2019
I'm a musician myself and very biased as I like Brian Eno's music and life views.
The biography is very thorough and even for someone like me, who recognises most of the references noted here, it was a though read spread across a lot of time. It might also be the pauses I took to actually listen to the songs in the timeline - something I greatly encourage all readers to do, it puts you in that atmosphere and timeframe.
In the end I learned a lot of interesting facts about one of my idol and got so much more motivated to stick to my own musical journey.
I'd put this in the "must read" bin for most musicians.
The biography is very thorough and even for someone like me, who recognises most of the references noted here, it was a though read spread across a lot of time. It might also be the pauses I took to actually listen to the songs in the timeline - something I greatly encourage all readers to do, it puts you in that atmosphere and timeframe.
In the end I learned a lot of interesting facts about one of my idol and got so much more motivated to stick to my own musical journey.
I'd put this in the "must read" bin for most musicians.
October 22, 2011
Brian Eno had his fingers in so many musical pies of the 1970s and 80s, beginning as an untrained synthesizer-player in Roxy Music, then putting out albums of his own, both rock and then "ambient" -- a genre he more or less invented, replacing muzak with "Music for Airports" and so on -- moving on to influentially collaborate with David Bowie and Talking Heads... and this book takes us through his development, even if his actual personality remains fairly elusive. But this book reminds one of how fertile his thought has proven, missteps included here and there.
January 24, 2022
Sheppard can get mad-carried away with his high-falutinisms and I don't find much of his analysis on Eno's work all that revelatory, coming off particularly perfunctory with his analysis in the book's final quarter. Rather his craft shines brightest when pontificating on Eno, the human, and all of the colorful characters dotting his life. His book has also been useful for all of the directions it's pointed me towards within Eno's oeuvre as well of his affiliates'.
March 16, 2019
Probably for fans only. It does a good job of rendering Eno the person vs Eno the myth and has some juicy stories around the more well-known collaborations with Bowie, Talking Heads and U2. Amusingly written.
July 17, 2017
Riveting - one of the best biographies I've read.
October 14, 2018
A seemingly well-researched and lively journey through all things Eno (even if it does somewhat continually foreground his various sexual proclivities).
August 24, 2025
'On Some Faraway Beach -- The Life and Times of Brian Eno' is, well, a biography of Brian Eno up to about 2008. It's a fairly standard approach, with a chapter on the early life, another and a half on the precocious art school student looking for a break; by the beginning of the fourth proper chapter, Roxy Music is negotiating a record deal. At the other end, after U2 calls Eno, things start speeding up again -- mirroring Eno's career, which tips over into one of a 'celebrity producer', still innovative, still edgy -- but no longer 'the' avant-garde, as he was between 1972 and 1982 or so.
Eno himself is one of the few musicians who has pulled off the trick of becoming a public intellectual -- alongside David Byrne, who of course also plays a part here. A rather enamoured one, in fact, as Eno characteristically takes over a Talking Heads album or two: "By the time they finished working together for three months, they were dressing like one another. They're like two fourteen-year-old boys making an impression on each other", as Tina Weymouth complained to The Face.
I wonder whether the art school 'theorist' would come across as excessively tedious if given free rein to talk for hours, as he was wont to do for interviewers who had the patience. And I wonder he would be as interesting as company for a meal as, say, Neil Tennant -- who has steadfastly refused to take on a similar public role beyond one of a musician. Nevertheless, Eno's cerebrality makes his biography more interesting and it also contributed to his success as a ('non-')musician, as an artistic svengali, and as a catalyst for interesting, new things.
Eno's career as a solo artist in his own right has been excellent, but it is as a producer and collaborator that he really stands out -- as someone who has managed to force other artists out of their comfort zones and into finding new ways to express themselves. In addition to Talking Heads and U2, there was of course Bowie (the Berlin albums), plus John Cale, Robert Fripp, Robert Wyatt, Roedelius, and many others. Sheppard is good in explaining the impact of these various collaborations at the time, and the reader finds themselves wanting to listen to all of this. Now where to find the time?
It's a good book, even though every now and then Sheppard slips into the slightly grating, excessively flowery, 'funny' music journalist register. But this is a minor flaw in an otherwise pleasant read. It's fun if you're into Eno, Bowie, Talking Heads, and suchlike.
Eno himself is one of the few musicians who has pulled off the trick of becoming a public intellectual -- alongside David Byrne, who of course also plays a part here. A rather enamoured one, in fact, as Eno characteristically takes over a Talking Heads album or two: "By the time they finished working together for three months, they were dressing like one another. They're like two fourteen-year-old boys making an impression on each other", as Tina Weymouth complained to The Face.
I wonder whether the art school 'theorist' would come across as excessively tedious if given free rein to talk for hours, as he was wont to do for interviewers who had the patience. And I wonder he would be as interesting as company for a meal as, say, Neil Tennant -- who has steadfastly refused to take on a similar public role beyond one of a musician. Nevertheless, Eno's cerebrality makes his biography more interesting and it also contributed to his success as a ('non-')musician, as an artistic svengali, and as a catalyst for interesting, new things.
Eno's career as a solo artist in his own right has been excellent, but it is as a producer and collaborator that he really stands out -- as someone who has managed to force other artists out of their comfort zones and into finding new ways to express themselves. In addition to Talking Heads and U2, there was of course Bowie (the Berlin albums), plus John Cale, Robert Fripp, Robert Wyatt, Roedelius, and many others. Sheppard is good in explaining the impact of these various collaborations at the time, and the reader finds themselves wanting to listen to all of this. Now where to find the time?
It's a good book, even though every now and then Sheppard slips into the slightly grating, excessively flowery, 'funny' music journalist register. But this is a minor flaw in an otherwise pleasant read. It's fun if you're into Eno, Bowie, Talking Heads, and suchlike.
October 30, 2024
A very conventional bio of a famously unconventional artist.
Eno is an anti-genius. He's not virtuosic at anything except thinking about things; when he's created great art, it's been via the creative use of the work of other musicians and a willingness to approach the act of recording music differently. Where a genius like David Bowie can go from a flash of inspiration to a completed masterwork in a few hours, Eno achieves his ends by setting up processes and patterns, working at them and seeking out novel, engaging dynamics among them. He thus doesn't have it in him to produce works of great skill or which impress with their communication of feeling or vision; instead, his artistic triumphs have been works that are simply different in exciting, provocative ways, and which have a tendency to inspire more conventionally-inclined artists to explore the new avenues that Eno's work implies, but which it rarely explores in depth. He's cerebrally inspiring rather than emotionally moving.
Eno has continued to work to this day, though, as is so often the case, all his most influential work dates to the first half of the 80s and earlier; by far his most critically and commercially successful since then, and thus his most influential, has been as producer for other artists, primarily U2. As a result, this bio naturally focuses heavily on his earlier work (the 80s don't start until more than two-thirds of the way in), and it enters fast-forward resume mode around the mid 90s.
There are some very embarrassing basic errors in the text that an editor should've caught, from typos to errors of fact- eg Sheppard says Daevid Allen was in Quiet Sun (no, it was Charles Hayward, who was later in Allen's band Gong), he describes "Kuomintang" as a region of China (it is of course a political party), he says Joe Morello was part of the Dave Brubeck Trio (he was part of Brubeck's best-known lineup, a Quartet).
Eno is an anti-genius. He's not virtuosic at anything except thinking about things; when he's created great art, it's been via the creative use of the work of other musicians and a willingness to approach the act of recording music differently. Where a genius like David Bowie can go from a flash of inspiration to a completed masterwork in a few hours, Eno achieves his ends by setting up processes and patterns, working at them and seeking out novel, engaging dynamics among them. He thus doesn't have it in him to produce works of great skill or which impress with their communication of feeling or vision; instead, his artistic triumphs have been works that are simply different in exciting, provocative ways, and which have a tendency to inspire more conventionally-inclined artists to explore the new avenues that Eno's work implies, but which it rarely explores in depth. He's cerebrally inspiring rather than emotionally moving.
Eno has continued to work to this day, though, as is so often the case, all his most influential work dates to the first half of the 80s and earlier; by far his most critically and commercially successful since then, and thus his most influential, has been as producer for other artists, primarily U2. As a result, this bio naturally focuses heavily on his earlier work (the 80s don't start until more than two-thirds of the way in), and it enters fast-forward resume mode around the mid 90s.
There are some very embarrassing basic errors in the text that an editor should've caught, from typos to errors of fact- eg Sheppard says Daevid Allen was in Quiet Sun (no, it was Charles Hayward, who was later in Allen's band Gong), he describes "Kuomintang" as a region of China (it is of course a political party), he says Joe Morello was part of the Dave Brubeck Trio (he was part of Brubeck's best-known lineup, a Quartet).
August 20, 2024
Given Eno's unrivalled eclecticism, any biography of him is bound to also serve as a decent history of popular music and the intersection of the avant-garde and pop culture in the 20th century. David Sheppard's book is an engrossing story of Eno's life and the ideas that animate it. It is also an extremely severe demonstration of the John Mulaney birthday sign effect. I'm not unhappy that Eno's 1970s are covered in more detail than his 1990s - nobody would be. But even collaborations as important as his records with U2 are shunted into a single chapter, along with everything else he was up to in the late 80s and early 90s. Later chapters dissolve into lists of single-paragraph descriptions of Eno's various projects, with massive records sometimes afforded as little time as relatively inconsequential installations. But maybe that's the key takeaway from Eno's story: that I'm wrong to value one of those things over the other.
I will say, it's amusing to read Sheppard's dismissal of generative art in the year 2024. In 2008 it must have seemed like a blind alley. Guess Eno was right again. Alas.
I will say, it's amusing to read Sheppard's dismissal of generative art in the year 2024. In 2008 it must have seemed like a blind alley. Guess Eno was right again. Alas.
September 28, 2019
Other people are important. They think differently than I do. They do different things. Some of them do remarkable things. Some of them do remarkable things a remarkable number of times.
In order to do that, they need to find ways to open themselves up to those experiences and find ways to create completeable projects that will either end in relatively short order or create interim products.
Brian Eno is a singular unit in this world. Since he was a kid, he has been able through luck or skill to find himself open to interesting opportunities. In this book, sometimes with overly flowery prose, Sheppard sketches for us a plausible timeline and a plausible path of evolution for Eno that got him where he is now.
Relationships, both personal and artistic (rarely what one would call professional, even if they clearly are), are part of this flow.
As someone who wishes to create more, the intentional and unintentional aspects of Eno's style appeal to me. This gives me things to ponder, things to experiment with, and things to avoid.
Creativity made flesh.
In order to do that, they need to find ways to open themselves up to those experiences and find ways to create completeable projects that will either end in relatively short order or create interim products.
Brian Eno is a singular unit in this world. Since he was a kid, he has been able through luck or skill to find himself open to interesting opportunities. In this book, sometimes with overly flowery prose, Sheppard sketches for us a plausible timeline and a plausible path of evolution for Eno that got him where he is now.
Relationships, both personal and artistic (rarely what one would call professional, even if they clearly are), are part of this flow.
As someone who wishes to create more, the intentional and unintentional aspects of Eno's style appeal to me. This gives me things to ponder, things to experiment with, and things to avoid.
Creativity made flesh.
March 31, 2020
Overall. I found "On Some Faraway Beach" to be necessary & indispensable, overall. I personally did not have an issue with the writing as it tended to veer towards typical music biography. My biggest issue really were the glaring typos & somewhat vague information:
Case in point. On page 393, it is mentioned that John Cale introduced Eno to 'chaos pads' i.e. the Korg Kaoss Pad Effects unit. Would have loved to know about this specifically. But que sera, sera...
I also felt this book spent to much time on Roxy Music but almost glossed over other important phases of Eno's Musical Life, which probably would have made for a longer book, mind you, but I am sure more in depth information & anecdotes is available in biographies related to Eno collaborators.
I took me forever to read this book even though it is barely over 430 pages but that is mostly due to me reading (& finishing) other things at the time. I wish I had solely devoted my time to this book.
Case in point. On page 393, it is mentioned that John Cale introduced Eno to 'chaos pads' i.e. the Korg Kaoss Pad Effects unit. Would have loved to know about this specifically. But que sera, sera...
I also felt this book spent to much time on Roxy Music but almost glossed over other important phases of Eno's Musical Life, which probably would have made for a longer book, mind you, but I am sure more in depth information & anecdotes is available in biographies related to Eno collaborators.
I took me forever to read this book even though it is barely over 430 pages but that is mostly due to me reading (& finishing) other things at the time. I wish I had solely devoted my time to this book.
February 26, 2024
Reached about halfway and found this a chore to read. Very dense and overwritten. Was excited to glimpse an understanding into Eno's creative processes and collaborations, but it felt like mostly a praise of the authors favourite artist. As a biography of an eccentric and esteemed character, it became mostly accounts of a timeline of work. Felt very repetitive and got quickly bored of hearing how the industry regarded his releases, and how sex obsessed he was (finding young girls delightful :/), when it seemed to have little consequence overall. Except for allegedly causing his lung to collapse on tour with Roxy. Might return to it but currently feeling unmotivated.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 25, 2019
I had mixed feelings about this one. It had really enjoyable descriptions of Eno's art school days along with his career with Roxy Music and early solo albums. But nearly the entire biography was journalistic third person description with very few interview quotes from Eno himself. I've honestly found interviews with Eno often more engaging because he's such a deep thinker and has a lot of interesting ideas, and I wish we got to see more of that on display here.
September 28, 2020
Really enjoyed this read. A thorough discourse on the life of a fascinating cultural character that had a Forrest Gump like ability to interact with many of the movers and shakers of the 70's, 80s & beyond. The author seems to have immersed himself into Eno's world with ample aid from his subject and his family and friends. Was impressed with the variety of the author's vocab and thanks to reading on a tablet was able to easily look up and understand his descriptive prowess.
June 10, 2024
Great biography of a fascinating character, filled with information about Eno's artistic process and personal life.
The later chapters do start to drag, much as Eno's later work becomes less ground-breaking. I appreciate that the author isn't afraid to criticize his subject or the music, and clearly picks some favorites - helpful for assembling a playlist to accompany your reading. It would have been nice to include a full discography in the appendix.
The later chapters do start to drag, much as Eno's later work becomes less ground-breaking. I appreciate that the author isn't afraid to criticize his subject or the music, and clearly picks some favorites - helpful for assembling a playlist to accompany your reading. It would have been nice to include a full discography in the appendix.
January 17, 2021
Loved this - especially since it sat on my shelf for 10 years patiently waiting. A great summary of the many musical projects Eno has occupied, assisted, created and conceptualised. A brilliant mind that made the best delivery systems as a blatant and alleged "non musician" and this is some great analysis of his 40+ years of creating and re-creating.
February 23, 2021
Mostly 'workmanlike' biography
A good biography with some detailed critical commentary, particularly of the music. A good place, after the music, and his diaries, to start to get an understanding of Brian Eno.
A good biography with some detailed critical commentary, particularly of the music. A good place, after the music, and his diaries, to start to get an understanding of Brian Eno.
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