Sparks-Tastic: Twenty-One Nights with Sparks in London

by Tosh Berman

In 2008, Tosh Berman—author and publisher of TamTam Books—got on a plane with a single motive: "Sparks Spectacular." It had been announced that the band Sparks would perform all twenty-one of their albums in a succession of twenty-one nights in London...a monumental experience for any Sparks fanatic. Part travel journal, part personal memoir, Berman takes us through the streets of London and Paris, observing both cities' history and culture through the eye of an obsessive Sparks fan's lens. Including album-by-album reviews of all twenty-one albums and beyond, Sparks-Tastic defines a place and time in music history that's too defining to be ignored.

Genres: Music

312 pages, Hardcover

First published April 22, 2013

About the author

I'm the publisher and editor of TamTam Books. I publish the works by and on Boris Vian, Guy Debord, Serge Gainsbourg, Jacques Mesrine and Ron Mael & Russell Mael (Sparks), and Lun*na Menoh.

My books are:

"Sparks-Tastic" (published by Rare Bird/A Barnacle Book).

"The Plum in Mr. Blum's Pudding" (published by Penny-Ante Editions)

"Tosh: Growing up in Wallace Berman's World" (City Lights Books) 2019

tosh.substack.com

Reviews

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

It doesn't matter that this isn't released yet or that I haven't read it. I've turned its pages in my mind.

It is a noumenon that glows with an unseeable light—a light whose warmth is felt on the skin of one's soul, which it either salves... or burns.

I like this book a priori. I've enjoyed it since the beginning of time; I enjoyed it before enjoyment was even invented.

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Colin Marshall from the Los Angeles Review of Books interviewed me regarding my book "Sparks-Tastic." Its a wonderful chat!


https://soundcloud.com/lareviewofbook...

Also David Ulin of the Los Angeles Times did an interview as well:

http://www.latimes.com/features/books...

A very interesting review of "Sparks-Tastic" here: http://frenchybutchic.blogspot.be/201...

A review from The Flaneur website:

http://flaneur.me.uk/04/book-review-s...

A review from THE CHISELER: http://chiseler.org/post/83714868651/...

[Michael · Rating 1 out of 5]

In promoting this book, the writer makes clear that it is not exclusively about Sparks' historic stretch of 21 concerts in London performing each one of the band’s 21 albums in full. Instead, the shows are supposed to be the centerpiece for a personal look at Sparks and Berman’s relationship to the band as a longtime fan, Berman’s personal story and a travelogue. Unfortunately, the foundation of this book is the weakest part (even though Berman’s justification for going to London to see the shows is that he will be able to write a book about the experience), and other problems make it a frustrating read.

Substantively, the book rarely coheres, because he has a hard time connecting the various parts as having any relationship but temporal. Just because these things happened at the same time doesn’t necessarily make them interesting. Indeed, Berman’s personal story, which covers his becoming a Sparks fan, his marriage, his relationship to his parents (especially his late father, a famous artist who he still represents), etc., rarely leaps off the page. Berman does not come off as a very compelling figure, yet I have very little doubt based on his very full life that he is. Worst of all, he has, for the most part, very little of interest to say about the shows themselves.

Much of this stems from Berman’s writing, which is sturdy and direct, but lacks pizzazz. This is exacerbated by the poor organization – this book is crying out for strong editorial guidance. Without it, portions pop out randomly, so the book doesn’t flow well. Moreover, the text is frequently repetitive, as many (oft-mundane) observations are observed over and over. This is a short book, yet it could easily be boiled down by at least half.

But I keep going back to the weakness of the writing about the concerts, the raison d’etre of this project. I wonder if Berman is simply too close to the subject, and his love for the band stunts his ability to articulate what transpired with any specificity. Moreover, there are nagging errors that make me question if he’s the superfan he claims to be. For example, “Bon Voyage” is about the people left off Noah’s Ark – one doesn’t even need to be a fan to glean this obvious interpretation. Example two – “Arts & Crafts Spectacular” is from the original Halfnelson demos, a fact most hardcore fans know, because they have a bootleg copy of those demos.

This book is frustrating, as I think that if Berman sat down with a fellow Sparks fan (especially one who went to the shows – I caught the first five), it would be a much richer experience, as I’m sure the stories he would tell would be much more vivid than what comes across on these pages.

[Frenchy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Note: this is a copy of the review I wrote on my blog http://frenchybutchic.blogspot.be/201...


In 2008, the Los Angeles band Sparks did a marathon 21 nights in London, playing each one of their records in its integrality in chronological order, riffing on the trend of bands or musicians playing their often most famous records entirely (a trend I love because you get to rediscover albums and songs). Sparks is a band made out of two brothers, Ron and Russell Mael, and assorted studio and tour musicians.
Like the Rolling Stones, it's been around almost forever (slightly less longer than the Stones) and has never split up. Unlike the Stones, they keep on issuing very good albums, such as the recent Lil' Beethoven or The Seduction of Ingmar Bergman.

If you've been following FBC! for a while, you know that we do indeed like this band very much, but what you don't know it that yours truly has been converted to the cult of Sparks by the fabulous Tosh Berman, former book buyer at Booksoup in Los Angeles, and current publisher of TamTam Books, specialized in international but also very francophile books by or on such luminaries as Boris Vian, Serge Gainsbourg, or crime boss Jacques Mesrine.
I have met Tosh only once in my life, but we have a virtual friendship on some social networks, where he posts truly inspirational links that exhale coolness, dandyism, elegance, intelligence and great taste. After several years of being acquainted with his posts, I tend to see him as the resident genius of Facebook and Goodreads, in the same sense that the Ancient Romans had resident geniuses to protect their house. A benevolent, protective presence, here to guide you through the maze of great music and literature. Tosh is also the son of the late artist Wallace Berman, and is married to the artist Lun*na Menoh, and so his life revolves around books, music, and art… and many other things!

Through his enthusiasm for Sparks I started listening to them (I knew some of their songs, including their duet with Les Rita Mitsouko), then went to see them live* twice and had a blast each time. I don't remember if I was acquainted with Tosh when Sparks did their London marathon concerts, but I wasn't surprised when he announced he was writing a book about the experience, because Tosh is the ultimate Sparks fan. He kindly sent me Sparks-Tastic: Twenty-One Nights With Sparks In London after it came out and I fully intended to review it earlier, but some massive writing endeavor of another kind kept me from doing it. I'm finally getting around to it.

The book is curiously existential but in a sort of floating, detached way that is difficult to explain, because it is laden with personal anecdotes that would contradict the impression of detachment one gets from reading it. It starts with Tosh, in Los Angeles, being apprised of the news that Sparks are going to play all their albums live in London, and anguished about he financial impossibility to go there and attend. From then on, quite a few things happen but we're never really told of how they do happen. Like miracles. Did Tosh go into enormous debt to afford the trip and the stay? Was the experience of seeing Sparks 21 nights in a row playing their entire discography a transformative experience? Did he connect with other Sparks fans?

Unlike many books written by fans, Sparks-Tastic is neither the exact memoir of an obsession nor a meticulous retracing of the long career of the writer's idols. Thankfully. I've been fascinated by the whole fans phenomenon for a few years now and I'm usually disappointed by books written by fans** (including biographies) I've read, such as books on John Cale, The Fall or Scott Walker, because they usually lack deep insight into the reason for the writer's obsession, and as far as being informative they tend to lack intellectual rigor - I guess being trained as a historian pretty much ruined Pop writing for me.

This is not the case here, and in that regard the book is highly unusual. For starters, it isn't a book about Sparks. There are some autobiographical components to it but aside from the very poignant passages about how the death of the author's father they don't really delve deep into the psyche of the author. Except that the link between Wallace Berman's death and Tosh Berman's obsession for a band that offers him an alternative, imaginary life better than the real one is made abundantly clear and is obvious to the writer himself. Usually fans don't willingly show self-awareness for their love of this or that band, especially when it solely focuses on one band member or a solo act, but even when they obsess about the band as whole (let's remember that Sparks is relatively unusual as it is made of two brothers). Here Berman clearly connect the dots between his need for an alternative musical life reflecting his inner turmoil, and the premature loss of his father.
In that regard the book isn't so much about Sparks themselves, as I said - there is surprisingly very little about the band and their music in it, given the fact that each concert has a chapter devoted to it - nor about Berman as a person, but it's a document about someone's dreamed life of idealized places (London, Paris), characters (some pages are devoted to Charlie Chaplin) and books. We learn almost nothing about Berman himself save for his love for his wife and family, his devotion to the alternate history of vernacular and pop culture, and the fact that he's crazy enough to go on this big adventure of going away to Europe for more than a month when he can ill-afford it, and comes back with a book.

We're apprised of the writer's daily routine during these days in London, a routine that exemplifies the loneliness of the stranger in a foreign country, able to get by but not to truly communicate with other people. It's a bit reminiscent of Teju Cole's Open City when the narrator finds himself in Brussels on an insane quest to locate his grandmother but spends his days cooped in, giving up on the pretext for the trip to stay locked inside his own alternate world. There are small points of friction with the others but no real exchange. Here Berman goes around in London, but aside from the brief time he spends staying with friends, he doesn't go out of his way to meet people or explore new places. He's on a mission to attend the concerts, and nothing will distract him from it.
Each concert has a chapter devoted to it with a brief introduction to the record being played and Berman's opinion of the album in question, but it doesn't devolve in long discussions about the merits of this or that song or the personnel involved. Sometimes production is mentioned - there is nothing that define more an era of music than the style of production - in relation to the year/location it evokes for the author. There are mentions of the walks Berman takes on his way to the concert venue, flâneur or dérive-style, if you will, and personal anecdotes about his life in Los Angeles when that particular album was released.
Occasionally he describes the other concertgoers, whose age decrease as the gigs go on and the band plays more recent albums, spotting some people who like him come regularly, but he never engages with them, and they never engage with him. It seems that Sparks' audience is entirely made up of loners, at least its London audience.

From this description you could think the book is boring when it isn't at all. It's fascinating for this floating quality of detached narration, when the narrator pretty much describe his own life in all its poignancy, a life that looks alternatively beautiful and terribly sad. It's the life of an aesthete who has built his entire existence around things of beauty, eccentricity and intelligence, confronted to the boredom of daily life; but whose imperative to construct his own alternate reality is triggered by an irreparable early loss that hovers on every page of the book. As such Sparks-Tastic is a curious literary object that like all interesting things is difficult to define. It's a testimony to a very personal way one can decide to counteract the harshness of contemporary society by living in an idealized world of one own's choosing, where interior feelings find a match in a specific type of music and in this particular case, a set of smart, ironic yet deep lyrics about loneliness, inadequacy, and the impossibility to fit in when confronted to oppressive normalized standards of living.


The book is available at your corner independent bookstore where they can order it for you if they run out, so buy it there rather than on Amazon (where I linked above for convenience sake, but Jeff Bezos doesn't need your money).




*If you live in Los Angeles and they play in town, book your tickets early because they're always sold out.
** Strangely, books written by fans seem to be by male writers. Whereas many truly crazy obsessive (stalker) fans tend to be female. The sexual politics of fandom however appear to be both obvious and complicated, regardless of gender and sexual orientation, and I've never really read anything great about music fans themselves. I'd be interested if someone has good reads to recommend on the subject.

[Sean Kottke · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a relatively newly minted Sparks fan, I found this a quick, enjoyable read. I’d have liked more specific song-by-song musings than general impressions of each album, and definitely more notes on the performances. Still, the author lets the reader know up front that it’s not going to go too far down those rabbit holes, so it is what it is. He does a fine job of conveying why Sparks matters to him, which really captures well what’s captivated me about their music.

[Jeff Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brisk and charming tour through the heady discography of Sparks and the highly theatrical world constructed by the Mael brothers. This book is part aesthetic memoir, part rock criticism, and part travelogue - Tosh Berman weaves the different strands together through his attendance of the group's epic London concerts where they played each of their 21 albums in sequence. As a relative newcomer to Sparks, this proved an ideal intro to their varied output, though I suspect hardcore fans will find plenty to enjoy, too. I've been spinning "Kimono My House" and "No. 1 in Heaven" over the past few days - and looking forward to diving deeper.

[Kimley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yep, this is the good stuff. We all need a bit of "-tastic" in our lives.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Berman can report on two things here: being at the Sparks Spectacular -- 21 nights of 2008 shows in London that recapitulated the L.A. band Sparks' entire recorded output (an outrageous feat that few bands would endeavor); also, how Berman, a slightly younger contemporary of the band, experienced the release of all those records, in their sequence -- here the report verges, really, on memoir, Berman's first foray into memoir (he had another go in Tosh: Growing Up in Wallace Berman's World [2019]). He had access to the band. He did not stay with them. It's easy to judge a book like Sparks-Tastic against a classic like Stanley Booth's The True Adventures of the Rolling Stones, through the research of which Booth had similar access.

Tosh Berman is not a music journalist. He's a poet, who happens to be the son of an important West Coast assemblages-maker, Wallace Berman, so that the son's education was epicurean, informal, and pop. That is, he finds work that he can be drawn to, obsess over, and study through. His basic apprehension of an art object is as to an order of the poetic, whether the field is visual, sound, or narrative. When it's narrative, the approach identifies heavily with the childlike, and this is what draws him to Ron Mael lyrics, especially on those Seventies Sparks records. Berman's father, Wallace, conversely, intensely disliked art history and art criticism, and this draws the rebellious son to judgment. The authority in this book is quite casual but always evident.

Obviously, this book will disappoint Sparks fans who wish a reporter like Stanley Booth was detached. Observing Sparks' British audience, that embraced the band before an American audience did, Berman's journaling may seem messy. There's a tension here: Sparks form a crucial neuronal link in the sequence connecting Laurel Canyon L.A. pop to British glam-rockers John/Bowie/Plant & Page etc. who came to Los Angeles to soak it up and the punk music emerging from the San Fernando Valley. The punkiest girl in the GoGos, Jane Weidlin -- huge Sparks fan. The Topanga-raised Berman is witness to all this, but no Tom Wolfe, researcher on the road. This makes Sparks Spectacular seem like a stunt. But it's an unusual music book, and full of a gentle curiosity not alienable from Sparks' quite alien pop.

[Monica · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up (luckily from the library - glad I didn't pay anything for it) after seeing Sparks play two nights in Los Angeles at the Disney Concert Hall. I'm relatively new to Sparks, having only heard about them last year after a mention at the end of Stephen Morris' memoirs in a list of music that influenced him. He mentioned The No. 1 Song in Heaven, and I went off to listen to it and was hooked. Later on, I would realized that I had seen the video for Cool Places on MTV back in the day, but hadn't remembered it until seeing it again.)

Anyway, I knew before reading this that it was more of a travel memoir about Berman's trip to London to see Sparks perform all of their (at the time) 21 albums in 21 nights back in 2008. Since I enjoy travel memoirs, and I understand music obsession, I figured I'd check it out.

Unfortunately, it's rather dull. Berman attends the concerts, but doesn't write much about them. He doesn't even interact with anyone else at the shows, which would have made for more interesting reading. There's a bit about where he stays and the people he stays with. There's also reflection on growing up listening to Sparks in LA, which I found interesting, and the death of his father, the artist Wallace Berman. And that's about it.

He opines a little bit about the different Sparks albums, but it's hard for me to take any of his opinions too seriously when he says things like No. 1 in Heaven is "disco's highpoint in its rather short history". Um, no. I mean, I love the song, and maybe it's a highpoint in pop disco history, but to say it's better than Donna Summer's I Feel Love? Um, no. Just no. Does this man know anything about music?

It also would have been nice to have listed the songs on each album in the book for each chapter talking about the concerts. Yes, I could (and did) look each of them up, but it was distracting. Granted, I have not been a true blue fan since the '70s or anything, but, to be honest, even with bands I've loved for years, I don't always remember the names of the songs on each album. I guess that's what comes from listening to a lot of music while driving.

So, it was an ok read if you're a Sparks fan, but, well, I can't really recommend it.

[Curmudgeon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sparks are one of my favorite bands. They've been around for a long time, and they've made a lot of music in a lot of different genres over the years. Some of the albums and songs are much better than others, but that's to be expected from any band whose career spans decades. I wasn't introduced to Sparks until my senior year of college, but I'm sure if I were older and wealthier and had known about them earlier, I would've been tempted to go all-in for the insane flight of fancy that was seeing Sparks performing all 21 of their albums in 21 nights in London. (Hell, I flew to Los Angeles once to see them perform the exact same setlist two nights in a row--though the first night had a highly entertaining cameo appearance by Weird Al Yankovic during "Amateur Hour" in the encore.) When I learned someone wrote a book about the experience, I thought it would be an interesting read. I wasn't necessarily looking for a recap of the concerts themselves, but maybe at least an exploration of the changing sound and style of Sparks over the years, how their high and low points were received by their fans, or how it all related to the broader world of popular music. There was a little bit of that...but not a lot. Most of the book was about the author. The parts that weren't about him were often about his wife or his friends or his family. The parts that were about Sparks frequently contained sweeping statements about the band and its fans that I didn't find particularly universal or relatable. I don't know. The whole thing felt more like a task to get through, rather than a celebration. (Was this how it felt to write the book?) Perhaps this is mirrored in the way the author described the series of concerts as being like factory work for both the band and the audience alike. You clock in, you clock out. Is this what the music of your favorite band is to be reduced to? A job? The whole thing was an oddly dispiriting read.

[Mixter Mank · Rating 2 out of 5]

A frustrating read. Tosh Berman, son of artist Wallace Berman (who appears on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's), is a self-professed loner, outcast, and obsessive Sparks fan. Berman spends most of the book reflecting on his life, travels, and (obsessive) relationship with Sparks' music, often lost in a melancholic reverie. It's actually pretty incredible how little he discusses the twenty-one Sparks shows. As someone who'd love to know what it was like to see these shows, I'm left with so many unanswered questions. This book could have been amazing, a much-needed critical overview of Sparks' overlooked career and document of the Herculean stretch of historical shows. Instead, we get a (poorly written) slim edition that, based on the evidence, could have been written by someone who never attended the shows.

But alas, I kept reading, which is to say that the book offers something - a glimpse of the world through the eyes of a self-professed loner, outcast, and obsessive Sparks fan. Berman's got the market cornered on that one! Asserting that Sparks and Sparks fans are outcasts, the book reads as a tribute to social misfits, bursting with Berman's own awkwardness. He compares everything to Sparks (even when it doesn't really seem to make sense), and yet he refuses to talk to a single audience member, even the members he sees every night. His unapologetically long tangents reveal Berman to be well-read and cultured, but we can attribute the book's failure to his lack of people skills. He seems too unplugged to know what his audience might want from a book like this. If Berman's notions about Sparks fans are true, let's hope that when that comprehensive critical companion to the Sparks oeuvre finally gets delivered, it's not written by a Sparks fan.

Okay. All that said, seeing as there's so little written about Sparks, I'd recommend this to anyone with a strong interest in the band.

[Carlos Allende · Rating 1 out of 5]

I must begin by saying this is not a book for everyone, and definitely not for every mood.

There is no plot. The author travels to London to attend a series of 21 concerts by his favorite band, Sparks, one for each of their albums. The book is not about Sparks, though, but about Berman's obsession with the band and his feelings, rather than his experiences during a month abroad — he starts with a week in Paris.

I didn't know the band. I listened to some of their albums in Spotify to better understand the book. They're ok. I actually preferred those albums the author says are the worst —LOL. You don't really need to know much about Sparks to enjoy this book but about what it means to have an obsession and enjoying it in solitary. The author is happy not to share the experience with no one, not even other concert goers.

The book felt to me like a movie, like a black and white, foreign movie you see at an art theatre. Slow, calm, oftentimes poetic, and then it ends. Nothing happened, but somehow, because you were able to walk in somebody else's shoes and share his thoughts, you enjoy the experience.

If you have never gone to a concert or the movies all by yourself and loved the experience, you probably won't be able to empathize with the author. If you have, you will probably love this book.

[Merral Wyer · Rating 1 out of 5]

1 star...and that is for the lovely colour plates of each of Spark's albums printed in this book. I was really disappointed with this. The first book someone writes about each of the 21 x 21 Sparks concerts in London, which is what the title suggests but really, there are few actual mentions of each night. Just as you think you're going to get a really good review of a night TB goes off on one of his many tangents which is usually about himself, one of his members of his family or the history of Islington....It's more of a Tosh Berman memoir...about himself, than an account of those wonderful, magical concerts in London.....And the Paris chapter...Really was pointless....Very, very disappointed and to any Sparks fans expecting it to be about '21 Nights With Sparks In London' is going to be massively disappointed.....the title should read...'21 Nights In London With Tosh Berman'....Don't waste your money fellow Maelians.....

[Kenneth · Rating 2 out of 5]

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/12008638

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting, very quirky book about one man's obsession with an interesting, very quirky band...An enjoyable read. Makes me want to explore the Sparks discography...