Bill’s review of Who Cares Anyway: Post-Punk San Francisco and the End of the Analog Age > Likes and Comments
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Saw Caroliner in the late 90s, what a mind-melt of a show.
I generally don't comment on reviews, but because this one seems to be getting more views than the others have, I will make an exception here:
1) Thank you for reading/purchasing the book and taking the time to write a review.
2) The "early sections" (pre-1990s) constitute roughly 70% of the book.
3) There are three chapters on Grux/Caroliner, and to my knowledge, these constitute the most thorough written treatment of this topic to date. I don't think "an occasional swipe" is a fair or accurate description of this.
4) I read an article of yours ("Bill Hsu Presents Early 80s/90s San Francisco post/ art / punk / noise"), and the first four acts you mention -- Minimal Man, Trial, Glorious Din, and Tragic Mulatto -- are all covered in more detail here than in any previous book that I'm aware of. I think you wrote this article before having read my book, but you (accurately) describe these groups as having been "poorly documented." I think this book goes a long way toward addressing that lack of documentation. For example, the Minimal Man chapter (4,000+ words drawing on interviews with over a dozen people who knew Patrick Miller) is the closest anyone has come to assembling a timeline of the group's various lineups and of Miller's life and art. Your review doesn't acknowledge any of this.
5) You write that "there were bands I liked a lot more, who played more shows and made more records than the more casual side projects covered here." And I don't know if there's a tactful way to say this, so apologies in advance if it comes off wrong, but ... this was never intended to be a book about who played the most shows or made the most records, or which bands you (or anyone else) personally liked the most.
As Michael Azerrad put it in his preface to Our Band Could Be Your Life, "There are plenty more books to be written about this subject; I invite you to write one of them."
I put everything I had into this book, and while I appreciate everyone who reads it and comments on it, I don't think it's fair to be judged on criteria that are simply not relevant to the actual point of the book.
I've been telling friends to check out this book.
As Dennis noted, the article for his blog was a restoration; the original appeared in 2020.
It's not your fault or the fault of the book that I liked other bands of the period a lot more (other than Caroliner).
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Russ
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Oct 17, 2024 06:57PM
Saw Caroliner in the late 90s, what a mind-melt of a show.
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I generally don't comment on reviews, but because this one seems to be getting more views than the others have, I will make an exception here:1) Thank you for reading/purchasing the book and taking the time to write a review.
2) The "early sections" (pre-1990s) constitute roughly 70% of the book.
3) There are three chapters on Grux/Caroliner, and to my knowledge, these constitute the most thorough written treatment of this topic to date. I don't think "an occasional swipe" is a fair or accurate description of this.
4) I read an article of yours ("Bill Hsu Presents Early 80s/90s San Francisco post/ art / punk / noise"), and the first four acts you mention -- Minimal Man, Trial, Glorious Din, and Tragic Mulatto -- are all covered in more detail here than in any previous book that I'm aware of. I think you wrote this article before having read my book, but you (accurately) describe these groups as having been "poorly documented." I think this book goes a long way toward addressing that lack of documentation. For example, the Minimal Man chapter (4,000+ words drawing on interviews with over a dozen people who knew Patrick Miller) is the closest anyone has come to assembling a timeline of the group's various lineups and of Miller's life and art. Your review doesn't acknowledge any of this.
5) You write that "there were bands I liked a lot more, who played more shows and made more records than the more casual side projects covered here." And I don't know if there's a tactful way to say this, so apologies in advance if it comes off wrong, but ... this was never intended to be a book about who played the most shows or made the most records, or which bands you (or anyone else) personally liked the most.
As Michael Azerrad put it in his preface to Our Band Could Be Your Life, "There are plenty more books to be written about this subject; I invite you to write one of them."
I put everything I had into this book, and while I appreciate everyone who reads it and comments on it, I don't think it's fair to be judged on criteria that are simply not relevant to the actual point of the book.
I've been telling friends to check out this book.As Dennis noted, the article for his blog was a restoration; the original appeared in 2020.
It's not your fault or the fault of the book that I liked other bands of the period a lot more (other than Caroliner).
