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Cider with Roadies

Author: Stuart Maconie
Publisher: Ebury Press
Category: Book

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Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars

23 reviews
Sales Rank: 1219

Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 4.7 x 0.9

ISBN: 0091897459
Dewey Decimal Number: 781
EAN: 9780091897451
ASIN: 0091897459

Publication Date: April 7, 2005
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days

Customer Reviews:

Showing reviews 6-10 of 23

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A must for Northern musos in their '40's June 9, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

The rating is based on the fact that I have probably read no more than 6 books from cover-to-cover in my adult life (unless for work / study purposes)...but this I did! As other reviewers have said, it does help if you are music mad (check), play/have played in a band (check), know Wigan, Southport and Ormskirk very well (check)...and are 40-something (check!!). Having said that, there is something to delight everyone. My wife never reads autobiographies and was waiting for me to finish so she could continue her read. And now on to Pies and Prejudice for the summer hols... Cheers Stuart!!

2 out of 5 stars

Ruined by ego... June 4, 2007
1 out of 9 found this review helpful

The book is neatly divided into two parts. The first half is a charming and engaging recollection of the trials and tribulations of growing up. About half way through, it all goes pear shaped when the author lands a job as a critic with the NME. Thereafter each page is stuffed with gut wrenchingly self-obsessed tales of his fantastic new life and egocentric anecdotes about his brushes with rock celebs. It's clear that the author's new career has changed him for the worse.

4 out of 5 stars

Too Much Too Young May 18, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

Part memoir, part annotated CD catalogue Cider With Roadies is Stuart Maconie's therapeutic attempt to explain away his obsession with music. To achieve this with intelligence, humour and more than a few well-aimed jabs at the industry is no small achievement. At times the detail becomes a little too manic - naming all the members of Mud or the lyricist of 'Land Of Make Believe' by Bucks Fizz being just two of many examples - and none too convincing but Maconie's ability to conjure up time and place in his narrative more than make up for this. His description of the Wigan punk scene is both funny and accurately observed as is the part dealing with the various incarnations of his band - any one who has, as a teenager, naively decided to write pop history with a cheap electric guitar and a few like minded friends will squirm with embarrassment at the memory.
Where the book loses its dynamic, however, is when Maconie grows up and starts work for NME. As he describes it being a music journalist during the late eighties sounds like a mundane circuit of interviews, exotic photo shoots, name dropping and matey anecdotes. It takes effort to prevent the last eighty or so pages from plummeting into Michael Winner territory but somehow Maconie rescues it with that inimitable Northern humour and a definition of music journalism as "the daftest, most innocent, maybe the most honourable branch". More front than Wigan Pier, that Stuart Maconie!

4 out of 5 stars

Well worth a read May 15, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

If like me you enjoyed reading Stuart Maconies recent 'Pies & Prejudice' you could do worse than give `Cider with Roadies' a try.
In this earlier book he describes his life as a music lover using the same brand of wit and good humour that shone through in Pies and also in his many appearances on TV and radio.
The book is basically in two sections. The first describes how he first became aware of music when he was a child - playing the odd assortment of records owned by his parents - through to when he started going to gigs and also playing in a band. This to me is the stronger section because a lot of what he writes about strikes a chord with me, as it will to most readers in their forties. The second section concerns his stint as a writer for the NME and to me the book flags slightly here because at times it becomes too much of a list of performers he has interviewed and places he has visited.
All in all this is a book that is well worth tracking down.

4 out of 5 stars

Wittly and articullate September 12, 2006
14 out of 15 found this review helpful

I inherited this book from a mate while we were on a motorbike tour. He'd got half way through and chucked it over to me saying it was the biggest load of rubbish he's ever read - he'd not even got half way through it!

Maybe it's just as well that, "One man's meat is another mans' poison" because I thoroughly enjoyed reading of Maconies journey, as he takes us from his first Beatles influence to his life as a Top DJ: via INXS, The Smiths, work as Teacher at Skelmersdale college and journalist for NME.

Witty and articulate, Maconie's tale of his life as a "Muso" unfolds with great ease and at times I actually laughed out loud at some of his tales - 4 days with a "Napalm Death" in the tour van in France is priceless. Being a Scouser who loves music and lives in Wigan maybe I can identify with this book more than most but whatever, it's a nice easy read that flows very well.

There are a couple of inaccuracies in here. Stuart, if you can get from Edge Hill College in Ormskirk to Liverpool on a bus in twenty minutes I salute you, because you'll be the first person ever to achieved such a feat! Also if you drove through Limoges to get to Le mans in France let me tell you, you went one hell of a long way round.

Some of the tales in the book are obvioulsy "flowered up" for the sake of effect but then again aren't most autobiographies? A great little book, highly recommmended if you need a bit of light reading and a good laugh.