{"title":"Mick Farren","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMick Farren was a journalist, writer, editor, and singer. Born on September 3rd, 1943 in Cheltenham, England, he made significant contributions to the music industry. Unfortunately, his life came to an untimely end on July 27th, 2013 when he collapsed during a gig at the Borderline club in London.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThroughout his career, Mick Farren was associated with various bands and artists such as \u003cem\u003eThe Deviants\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eLarry Wallis\u003c\/em\u003e, \u003cem\u003eThe Pink Fairies\u003c\/em\u003e, and many more. His versatile talents allowed him to excel not only as a musician but also as a prolific writer and editor.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eDespite his passing, Mick Farren's legacy lives on through his impactful work and undeniable influence on the music scene. His unique blend of journalism and musical prowess will forever be remembered by fans around the world.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"mona-the-carnivorous-circus","title":"Mona The Carnivorous Circus","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe adventurous singer, guitarist and music journalist Mick Farren launched his solo career after being sacked by his fellow Deviants, the protopunk band he fronted from 1967-69. Suffering from depression and other mental health issues, Farren teamed up with an all-star cast, including members of Quartermass and ex-Tyrannosauros Rex honcho Steve Peregrin Took for debut opus \u003ci\u003eMona The Carnivorous\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eCircus\u003c\/i\u003e, mixing hard rock, spoken word, spaced-out interludes, radio cut-ups and garage rock, rendering a work as compelling as it is hard to classify.Strange, delightful and a favourite of Julian Cope, this is an aural journey to savour.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Trading Places","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50390034612555,"sku":"2023137","price":26.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/5060672881074_43f95e9d_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726380387"},{"product_id":"two-riders-were-approaching-the-life-and-death-of-jimi-hendrix","title":"Two Riders Were Approaching : The Life and Death of Jimi Hendrix","description":"\u003cp\u003eJimmy was a down-at-heel guitarist in New York, relying on his latest lovers to support him while he tried to emulate his hero Bob Dylan. A black guy playing white rock music, he wanted to be all things to all people.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut when Jimmy arrived in England and became Jimi, the cream of swinging London fell under his spell. It wasn't that Jimi could play with his teeth, play with his guitar behind his back. It was that he could really\u003ci\u003eplay\u003c\/i\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJourneying through the purple haze of idealism and paranoia of the sixties, Jimi Hendrix was the man who made Eric Clapton consider quitting, to whom Bob Dylan deferred on his own song 'All Along the Watchtower', who forced Miles Davis to reconsider his buttoned-down ways - and whose 'Star Spangled Banner' defined Woodstock.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnd when his star, which had burned so brightly, was extinguished far too young, his legend lived on in the music - and the intrigue surrounding his death.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEschewing the traditional rock-biography format,\u003ci\u003eTwo Riders Were Approaching \u003c\/i\u003eis a fittingly psychedelic and kaleidoscopic exploration of the life and death of Jimi Hendrix - and a journey into the dark heart of the sixties. While the groupies lined up, the drugs got increasingly heavy and the dream of the sixties burned in the fire and blood of the Vietnam War, the assassination of Martin Luther King and the election of President Richard Nixon.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAcclaimed writer Mick Wall, author of\u003ci\u003eWhen Giants Walked the Earth\u003c\/i\u003e, has drawn upon his own interviews and extensive research to produce an inimitable, novelistic telling of this tale - the definitive portrait of the Guitar God at whose altar other guitar gods worship.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eJimi Hendrix's is a story that has been told many times before - but never quite like this.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Orion Books","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50416754327883,"sku":"1101717","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/702cb19a-c9d8-478f-8680-3f47b026f7e7_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726709393"},{"product_id":"vampires-stole-my-lunch-money","title":"Vampires Stole My Lunch Money","description":"\u003cp\u003eUnavailable on vinyl for quite some time - \u003ci\u003eVampires Stole My Lunch Money - \u003c\/i\u003eis regarded as one of the best albums by Mick Farren (The Deviants). \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs powerful as rock gets this punk influenced album also includes R\u0026amp;B jams and features an impressive roster of musicians: Wilko Johnson (Dr Feelgood), Chrissie Hynde (The Pretenders), Sonja Kristina (Curved Air) and Andy Colquhoun (the Warsaw Pakt).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIncludes liner notes by Mike Stax (Ugly Things Magazine).\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAfter three albums of raw, rabble-rousing psychedelic street punk with The Deviants, and an esoteric solo album (1970’s Mona – The Carnivorous Circus), Mick Farren put his musical activities on hold at the dawn of the 1970s, and focused instead on his writing. By 1976 Farren was making his mark as a staff writer at the New Musical Express, where he was instrumental in chronicling, and to some extent nurturing, the nascent punk rock movement as it jerked awkwardly to life in the streets and pubs of London. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFarren felt a natural affinity with the new youth fashion line of pimple-faced punk aspirants, full of piss, vinegar and amphetamines, ranting about anarchy and boredom over a simplistic rock ‘n’ roll backbeat. Inevitably, it wasn’t long before Mick was off the sidelines and back in\u003cbr\u003ethe musical fray. Farren got a call from Logo Records who had just acquired the Transatlantic catalogue and were re-releasing The Deviants’ third album. Mick suggested they also release a new solo album, and to his surprise, after some initial hesitation, they agreed.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAndy Colquhoun, the Warsaw Pakt’s lead guitarist, soon became his primary musical foil —in fact, some of the songs on this album were originally intended for the Warsaw Pakt. Also, Farren put a band together, including guest musicians: Wilko Johnson of Dr Feelgood, Chrissie Hynde who was still in the process of forming the Pretenders, Sonja Kristina, the lead singer of Curved Air, and Will Stallibrass who’d played with Graham Parker, Lightnin’ Slim and Chilli Willi \u0026amp; the Red Hot Peppers, to name a few. Due to the limited\u003cbr\u003ebudget, they ended up spending most of their time working on a half-dozen of their favourite tracks, while the rest were “banged down as little more than jamming, art-school R\u0026amp;B, with only a thin coat of metal-flake.”\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn Trouser Press, Ira A. Robbins called it “Farren’s solo masterwork... a harrowingly honest collection of songs about drinking, dissolution, depression and desperation.”\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Munster","offers":[{"title":"Black | LP","offer_id":50426802045259,"sku":"1137132","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/6bf74f91-22c0-4bf8-bde5-811747fa2496_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726817766"},{"product_id":"black-sabbath-symptom-of-the-universe","title":"Black Sabbath: Symptom of the Universe","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe final word on the only name synonymous with heavy metal - Black Sabbath.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWay back in the mists of time, in the days when rock giants walked the earth, the name Ozzy Osbourne was synonymous with the subversive and dark. Back then, Ozzy was the singer in Black Sabbath, and they meant business. A four-piece formed from the ashes of two locally well-known groups called The Rare Breed (Ozzy and bassist Geezer Butler) and Mythology (guitarist Tony Iommi and drummer Bill Ward), all four founding members of the original Black Sabbath grew up within half-a-mile of each other.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThis biography tells the story of how they made that dream come true - and how it then turned into a nightmare for all of them. How at the height of their fame, Sabbath discovered they had been so badly ripped off by their managers they did not even own their own songs. How they looked for salvation from Don Arden - an even more notorious gangster figure, who resurrected their career but still left them indebted to him, financially and personally. And how it finally came to a head when in 1979 they sacked Ozzy: 'For being too out of control - even for us,' as Bill Ward put it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe next 15 years would see a war break out between the two camps: the post-Ozzy Sabbath and Ozzy himself, whose solo career overshadowed Sabbath to the point where, when he offered them the chance to reform around him again, it was entirely on his terms. Or rather, that of his wife and manager, daughter of Don Arden - Sharon Osbourne.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Orion Books","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50506886185291,"sku":"1010974","price":5.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/bad0b73a-cd95-4d5d-89f9-b2b2c4ea5f15_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727832048"},{"product_id":"last-of-the-giants-the-true-story-of-guns-n-roses","title":"Last of the Giants: The True Story of Guns N' Roses","description":"\u003cp\u003eMany millions of words have already been written about Guns N' Roses, the old line-up, the new line-up. But none of them have ever really gotten to the truth. Which is this: Guns N' Roses has always been a band out of time, the Last of the Giants. They are what every rock band since the Rolling Stones has tried and nearly always failed to be: dangerous. At a time when smiling, MTV-friendly, safe-sex, just-say-no Bon Jovi was the biggest band in the world, here was a band that seemed to have leapt straight out of the coke-smothered pages of the original, golden-age, late-sixties rock scene.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Live like a suicide', the band used to say when they all lived together in the Hell House, their notorious LA home. And this is where Mick Wall first met them, and became part of their inner circle, before famously being denounced by name by Axl Rose in the song 'Get in the Ring'.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBut this book isn't about settling old scores. Written with the clear head that 25 years later brings you, this is a celebration of Guns N' Roses the band, and of Axl Rose the frontman who really is that thing we so desperately want him to be: the last of the truly extraordinary, all-time great, no apologies, no explanations, no giving-a-shit rock stars. The last of his kind.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Trapeze","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50507158028619,"sku":"1025560","price":5.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/f258eedf-2c6e-4a63-8dc7-02fe05a8bc6b_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727839865"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/collections\/test_4ec4436a_thumbnail_4096_e4340ba5-3b0e-410e-b4ef-0fa06bc96cf7.jpg?v=1725622805","url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/mick-farren.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}