Nov 15, 2023
The Story: Ron Carter, jazz’s most prolific bassist: ‘Our band was a laboratory – and Miles Davis was head chemist’
The Writer: Garth Cartwright
(photo: Mike Vitelli)
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The Story: Ron Carter, jazz’s most prolific bassist: ‘Our band was a laboratory – and Miles Davis was head chemist’
The Writer: Garth Cartwright
(photo: Mike Vitelli)
For his new book, "Going for a Song", a A Chronicle Of The UK Record Shop, Garth Cartwright has travelled the length and breadth of the country, conducting more than 100 interviews with some of the icons of the record shop trade and the wider music industry, including Martin Mills (Beggars Banquet), Geoff Travis (Rough Trade), Andy Gray (Andy's Records), Ralph McTell, Chris Barber, The Specials and many more.
Featuring a foreword by the renowned comedian and writer, Stewart Lee. From the UK's first record shop, Garth traces the history through more than a century of unprecedented social, cultural and political change.
But does it include a mention for 'Ear Ere in Lancaster?
Available here: https://electronicsound.squarespace.com/shop/p/uk-record-shop-book
And there's very little in this world that rewards engagement quite like great American music. Sure, Pablo Picasso was no asshole, a great movie engages many senses, certain poems and novels resonate and many a life-enhancing invention, from combustion engines to instant noodles, has lead humanity forward. But American music, specifically the stuff made by the nation's most marginal citizens, celebrates the twentieth century's inclusive genius, the people's spirit, like nothing else.
New Zealand born, London based journalist Garth Cartwright from his book "More Miles Than Money: Journeys Through American Music." Despite this uplifting quote, so far this book has been BLEAK in a lot of ways, primarily because he's been looking for great American music in Haight-Ashbury (circa 2006), Burning Man, Las Vegas and Tucson, Arizona... gentrification, techno, gamblers and border patrols.
But I'm reading this in conjunction with "In Every Town," the all-ages music manifesto written about inclusive DIY spirit around the same time, which is anything but bleak. So... where is "great American music" now? I think it's just hiding in places Cartwright didn't think to look.