Wow! eBook
Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock 'n' Roll Group
Author(s): Ian F. Svenonius (Author)
- Publisher: Akashic Books, Ltd.
- Publication Date: January 1, 2013
- Edition: Illustrated
- Language: English
- Print length: 200 pages
- ISBN-10: 9781617751301
- ISBN-13: 9781617751301
Book Description
Washington, DC-based rock ‘n’ roll antihero Ian F. Svenonius provides an unparalleled and exquisitely provocative how-to guide for rock bands.
“Like its author, Supernatural Strategies is part tongue-in-cheek, part deadly serious―a satire of rock’s consumerist origins but also a thoughtful treatise on what it means to devote yourself to a collective . . . Drawing from the wisdom of rock ‘n’ roll’s most famous ghosts, Svenonius’s advice ranges from hilarious to cryptic to surprisingly useful.” ―Pitchfork
Ian F. Svenonius’s experience as an iconic underground rock musician―playing in such highly influential and revolutionary outfits as The Make-Up and The Nation of Ulysses―gives him special insight on techniques for not only starting but also surviving a rock ‘n’ roll group. Therefore, he’s written an instructional guide, which doubles as a warning device, a philosophical text, an exercise in terror, an aerobics manual, and a coloring book.
This volume features essays (and black-and-white illustrations) on everything the would-be star should know to get started, such as Sex, Drugs, Sound, Group Photo, The Van, and Manufacturing Nostalgia. Supernatural Strategies will serve as an indispensable guide for a new generation just aching to boogie.
Editorial Reviews
Review
― Library Journal
“So much of the allure here is in watching Svenonius skirt absurdity. He’s always seemed delighted by the fact that the profound and the preposterous can sound awfully alike, a realization that puts him in line with an avant-garde tradition that stretches back before rock ‘n’ roll crystallized this fact . . . Svenonius has the spirit of a long-gone punk past, but his book has more to tell us about rock’s here-and-now than about its hereafter. Neither bourgeois nor prestigious,
Supernatural Strategies may be the rare book by a rock musician to retain any power or threat.”― Los Angeles Review of Books
“Svenonius has walked the walk . . . Even today―as the frontman of Chain & The Gang and the host of the online talk show Soft Focus―he remains cool, cryptic, and impeccably dressed, a mod magician with a trick always lurking up his tailored sleeve.”
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“If ‘write what you know’ is one of authorship’s prime dictates, then Ian F. Svenonius seems uniquely qualified to author a book entitled
Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock and Roll Group . . . Svenonius’s contrarian, anti-establishment rhetoric is his greatest gift . . . Strategies plays to these same strengths by allowing him to run roughshod riot over hallowed ground he’s already trod―and sometimes paved―more than a few times.”― Baltimore City Paper
“Svenonius hasn’t written a basic ‘How to Make It in the Music Business’ book. Rather, the writer, online talk show host and, most important, singer in a series of breathtaking rock ‘n’ roll bands (Nation of Ulysses, the Make-Up, Chain & the Gang), is drawing a line in the sand and doing so with what he hopes will finally define the undefinable.”
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About the Author
IAN F. SVENONIUS is the author of the underground bestsellers Against the Written Word, The Psychic Soviet, Censorship Now!!, and Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock ‘n’ Roll Group. He was also the host of VBS.tv’s Soft Focus, where he interviewed Mark E. Smith, Genesis P. Orridge, Chan Marshall, Ian MacKaye, and others. As a musician he has created more than twenty albums and countless singles in various rock ‘n’ roll combos (Escape-ism, Chain & the Gang, the Make-Up, the Nation of Ulysses, etc.). He lives in Los Angeles, CA.
