When I heard there was a book about noted English avant punk noisecapaders Swell Maps written by one of the group's own members you can bet that I really was on the get-go to obtain a copy of it for myself. After all, any pre-eighties rocknrollers who've been compared to a wide array of upper echelon acts from the Red Crayola to the Shadows of Knight with all Velvet points in-between is guaranteed to get this particular fanabla's remaining brain cell poppin' on all cylinders.
And can I help from sayin' that SWELL MAPS is the kinda book that really does have a whole lotta satin' goin' on, even if Map-ster Head's writing style is, howshallisay, rather Sahara-esque. But so what since the saga he unveils is one that I'm sure a good portion of you older readers can relate to, and I guess could reallyreallyREALLY relate to if you were one of those seventies rich kids I usedta hear about who had enough money to not only buy all the records that your personal sense of style could handle but had enough left over for a subscription (speedy air mail even!) to the NME and thus knew alla the pertinent facts back then which took me fortysome years to eventually discover!
It's got a turdload of information including (besides Head's arid style) old articles taken from various weaklies both at home and abroad, a discography which even includes all of those side projects that were difficult to locate, and best of all an EP with more of what I hope will be a deluge of vault finds to hit our spinners in the years to come. The music is surprisingly solid ranging from various sixties garage band refs with a tad of Syd here and there to those weirdo sound cutters that these guys have been cranking out since the early-seventies. If yu still have those old Systematic and Rough Trade catalogs stuffed withing the cracks of your fart-encrusted boudoir you're bound to gobble this one faster than Linda Lovelace on a horny German Shepherd!
hwo abot somthing new .
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