Kill Your Friends and Killing Yourself To Live

You might just have read the title of this post and think: what's wrong with him? I don't have any morbid obsessions, these are titles of books I bought last Friday while I was in London.

Kill Your Friends, by John Niven, is a great book. It tells the story of a year in the life of an A&R guy. The time is 1997, Britpop's height, and Steven Stelfox is an A&R guy at London Records. Half of this book is based on reality as John Niven was an A&R guy, and the other half is fiction - although there is probably less fiction and more truth in the book than Niven would admit. He mentions some acts that did exists at the time but seems to have been forgotten by now, he mentions the great Radiohead concert at Glastonbury 1997, and all the sex, drugs and rock & roll you can think of.

I started reading this book in TopShop while waiting for my girlfriend to shop and two days later I finished it. After reading it, I wished I spent my twenties as an A&R guy...

Killing Yourself To Live: 85% of a True Story, by Chuck Klosterman, is a funny story of Chuck crossing the USA from NY to Seattle to look for places where artists have died. It is a bid morbid, but his fascination comes from the fact that some of the dead artists still live on after they died (Elvis, 2Pac, Cobain, Morisson, Lennon, Hendrix, Joplin, Duane Allman, Buddy Holly, the list goes on). Intertwined with his dope-high ramblings, it makes for a funny reading.

Just the fact that he can relate all his relationships to a KISS member is pretty absurd but worth reading for. Again I finished this book in two days as well.

Now I need to get more books.