Stuart isn't just a keen student of modern music who has become an encyclopaedia of the line-up of the Whatsit band and what their albums were called and when released and which were the best tracks, although you feel he can probably keep up conversations like that for a long, long time. No. He is also comfortably rooted in time and place and wonderful at self-irony. He also has a wider cultural knowledge (note the title), having understood how art arises out of political contexts for his English degree, he applies the same insights to the history of pop/rock. He also taught in a community college in one of the dodgy areas of Liverpool - he taught scallies and single mums English Lit and Sociology. (I'm right there with you Stuart but I bet you were brilliant at it, unlike me.) Because he has had a life outside the world of the NME (a sharply-written music paper called the New Musical Express) and the BBC (where he works now as a presenter) he has an enviable everyman quality. We know in theory that all folks are the same, be they into Wham! and McFly or Kraftwerk and Chic, or Morrissey and Bloc Party, whether gay or straight or northern or southern, but for Stuart I think folks are really pretty much folks, even though he knows exactly how crazy they can be. He is brilliant on the radio, a true enthusiast, can cheerfully talk to anyone, loves a joke and pub banter.
I would recommend this book to anyone over 35 who has ever been a music fan and queued up excitedly for a gig. I especially recommend it to anyone the age of Stuart, who must have been born in 1960. If you were born in or around that year and you spent all, most, or much of your time listening to music, grab a copy and enjoy reading the story of your own life. I haven't been listening to music for a while and I have forgotten that it adds a thoughtful quality to life. I am surprised that I can live without it but I can.
The only down side to this book is that I found it addictive. I wanted it to finish before it did because the narrative gets lost at the end (it's a memoir) and goes all generalised (hotels. planes.), but I just had to finish it. He was great company.
(I even shared the student experiences by reading it to my son, and it cheered him up a lot. Yeah, it's grim being a student and living in a squalid mess. Even Stuart felt down at times.)
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