Sublime
An inspiration engine for ideas
XTC, ENGLISH SETTLEMENT This band has been largely forgotten, but their gorgeous instrumentation tempered by edgy lyrics and a pastoral snarl made them my personal Beatles. The lead singer, Andy Partridge, had a nervous breakdown and swore he would never tour again, so the band holed up in some tiny bucolic English town, and their music became less
... See moreRainn Wilson • The Bassoon King: Art, Idiocy, and Other Sordid Tales from the Band Room
Engressia, is memorably told in Phil Lapsley’s 2013 book, Exploding the Phone, and Joybubbles is the subject of a new documentary film.)
Andrew Leland • The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight
There were four in Joy Division – Curtis, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris – but Ian was their eyes and ears: it was he who propelled them into uncharted territory – songs like ‘Dead Souls’ which, cold as the grave, has the infinity of a Gustave Doré hell.
Deborah Curtis • Touching From a Distance: The only in-depth biographical account of the legendary lead singer of Joy Division.
In one of many Alwych brand notebooks, Brian Eno (pre-Roxy Music, pre-fame, and surviving on unemployment benefit) created an acrostic to express his creative relationship with them: Nothing On This Earth Betrays Our Own Karakter So
Roland Allen • The Notebook
Friends with Benefits (FWB) • In the Future of Fashion, Everyone Gets Paid
a voice you might describe as a human computer imitating the sounds of an excited dog, crossed with a dinging microwave.