Bunch Of Fives: Steve Spithray

A new second edition of From Shrug to the Moon: The Robert Nichols Story has landed. Tracing the life and work of Teesside writer, fanzine editor and musician Robert Nichols. Known both as the long‑running editor of Boro fanzine Fly Me To The Moon and as frontman of post‑punk outfit Shrug, one of the first Western bands to perform in East Berlin, Nichols’ story spans football culture, local music history and a deep connection to Teesside.

Written by Steve Spithray, the book offers an in‑depth look at Nichols’ decades of work across the region, from his support of Middlesbrough FC to his involvement in the local arts scene, alongside reflections on archaeology, place and community. This expanded edition includes a previously removed bonus chapter featuring an extended Q&A in which Nichols discusses his favourite Teesside artists past and present, followed by a new interview bringing the story up to date. It also includes a set of previously unpublished photographs and a foreword by Maximo Park’s Paul Smith.

Here, North East author Steve Spithray drops his top five music books into the Bunch of Fives generator

I like music and I like books so what could be better than books about music? Like everyone else I like certain types of music more than others but I love reading books about music I don’t necessarily engage with and the juxtaposition of thought that creates. However, trying to narrow it down to five must-reads made me realise how many music books I’ve read over the years so (honourable mentions for David Byrne’s How Music Works, Beastie Boys Book and Lanegan’s Sing Backwords And Weep) here goes…

1.Hellfire: The Jerry Lee Lewis Story
Written by Nick Tosches and published by Penguin, Hellfire reads like a mid-century American novel on jumpers as it barrels from socially risqué entanglements through drug fuelled hedonism in its exploration of the very soul of rock and roll and its dangerous (and often dubious) fringes. Hands down the best music biography ever written in my opinion. The book opens with a drunk Jerry at the gates of Graceland brandishing a loaded gun yelling, “tell him the Killer’s here,” and at no point therein tries to paint our protagonist as anything other than the nefarious and offensive character he often was.

2. Acid Detroit
Acid Detroit is a concise and encyclopaedic trawl through the music history of the Motor City by Joe Molloy for the radical Repeater Books. Detroit’s musical heritage is arguably equal to New York’s and is forged from similar materials of economic collapse, municipal bankruptcy and urban decay. From The Stooges and MC5, to Derrick May and Ken Collier, to Eminem and J Dilla, Detroit music constantly pushes the boundaries and Acid Detroit gets to the nub of it by avoiding traditional non-fiction structuring (only loosely following a timeline) and preferring to focus on the influential movers and scene makers rather than the big names.

3. To Anyone Who Ever Asks: The Life, Music, And Mystery Of Connie Converse
Acclaimed by all who heard her sing, on the surface the Connie Converse story follows the classic hard luck musical genius narrative, until she disappeared in mysterious circumstances in 1974 never to be heard from again. Enigmatic, prosaic and very thorough, given the sketchy details of the singer’s life available previously, Howard Fishman’s deep dive into Connie’s complex and troubled persona and family life doesn’t answer the big questions about the singer but thrives on the mundanities and nuances of life on the edge of greatness.

4. Monolithic Undertow: In Search Of Sonic Oblivion
While working from home during lockdown I realised I couldn’t work well listening to traditional song-shaped music and sought something more, well, monolithic. Harry Sword’s engrossing Monolithic Undertow (another mint White Rabbit publication) seeks to map the drone continuum and heavy underground that became my soundtrack during those tedious times. This was the book that turned my ears towards the likes of La Monte Young and Terry Riley (while also helping me make sense of the music I used to hear in the hum of the hoover as a child) and all told in an esoteric but highly readable style.

5. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
Tom Wolfe’s breakout New Journalism non-fiction tells the story of Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters. Not strictly a music book but it does feature quite a bit of The Grateful Dead and is still the benchmark for what non-fiction can be creatively. You get so engrossed in the characters, partly due to Wolfe’s incredible turn of phrase and literary flow (lyrical, ergodic) as the tension ebbs and flows, which make a tragic ending genuinely heartbreaking. This is the book that first nudged me away from novels and I wouldn’t be writing what I’m writing now if I hadn’t read it multiple times…

You can purchase a copy of the second edition of From Shrug To The Moon: The Robert Nichols Story here.