[All Hopped Up and Ready to Go: Music from the Streets of New York 1927 - 1977] [Author: Tony Fletcher] [February, 2010]

by Tony Fletcher, Unknown Author

Paperback

About the author

Tony Fletcher is the author of seven non-fiction books and one novel.  His biography of drummer Keith Moon  has been named in many a Best Music Book list, and his biography of R.E.M., updated in 2013 as Perfect Circle,  has been published in over half a dozen countries.   A Light That Never Goes Out: The Enduring Saga of The Smiths was published in the UK by William Heinemann in September 2012, and by Crown Archetype in the USA in December 2012, with paperback editions following in the corresponding months of 2013. A memoir of his South London schooldays,  Boy About Town , was published in the UK by William Heinemann in July 2013, and is now available as a paperback in both the USA and UK through Windmill Books/Cornerstone Press.

Fletcher gained his entry into music journalism by founding a fanzine at his London school in 1977; by the time Jamming! ceased publication in 1986, it was selling 30,000 copies a month. Along the way he interviewed the likes of Pete Townshend, Paul McCartney, Paul Weller and U2, as well as dozens of up-and-coming, predominantly independent post-punk acts.

A contributor over the years to a multitude of magazines, newspapers, radio and television shows, primarily in the UK and USA, Fletcher now lives with his family on a mountaintop near the village of Woodstock in New York State. There he runs, skis, maintains his web site www.ijamming.net, serves on his local school board, and plays Hammond B-3 and Rickenbacker in the Catskill 45s, a group that only performs songs from 45 calendar years ago.