{"title":"Will Sergeant","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"toy-piano-mantra-ghosts-of-the-karelia-forest","title":"Toy Piano Mantra \/ Ghosts of the Karelia Forest","description":"\u003cp\u003eRepress. A beautiful pair of instrumental gems from two of label head Dom’s musical heroes; Will Sergeant and Paul Simpson. Released as a limited 7” vinyl only release. Taking some rare time out from their respective book writing (Will with the second instalment of his bestselling “Bunnyman”, Paul with “Revolutionary Spirit: a post punk exorcism” -also being made as a film) to release a split 45 here, both tracks are wonderful.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWills' “Toy Piano Mantra” is a beautifully meandering, slow building, multi layered piece - more melodic than some of his previous more experimental solo work; of its back story and creation, Will says: “I’m not really one for acoustic guitars, I have played them on EATB records, but the electric guitar is my weapon of choice. So I set myself a little task -for no other reason than it being a bit of fun- and thought “Why don’t I make a collection of acoustic tunes, purely to see if I could?”. All my acoustic guitars are very cheap, which never stopped me using them. I had bought a Chinese pedal harmonium in London in the ’80s, and scrounged the use of a good ukelele, my Auto Harp was an obvious component, then I remembered the toy piano I had bought in a pop up flea market in a vacant New York lot, back when New York still had vacant lots. Deliberately deciding against having any tunes ready, everything was set up and with the help of Andrea my engineer and pro tools wizard, we kept the good bits and expanded with these instruments until I felt it was finished. It was all off the top of my head and my fingers created music like some automatic drawing that Austin Osman Spare might have conjured up on one dark and ritualistic night. I added the toy piano and christened it “The Toy Piano Mantra”.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePaul’s side features the previously unreleased “Ghosts of the Karelia Forest” recorded in 2006, a beautifully simple piano piece which again slowly builds, and distorts with added moog etc. Paul says of the piece: “The higher harmonics of the tuned wine glasses used on this piece, sent the VU meters on the mixing desk at The Gossamer Dome studio into the red, but Producer Henry Priestman and I both liked what that distortion added to the atmosphere of the piece, so chose not to correct it. ….I await its use in a disturbing art house movie”.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Feral Child","offers":[{"title":"Clear 7\"","offer_id":50424178213195,"sku":"2022811","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/86dd4403-d586-699e-820a-b38d11f0d994_fbd0a2a7_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726774552"},{"product_id":"echoes-a-memoir-continued","title":"Echoes: A memoir continued . . .","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe follow-up memoir to Sunday Times bestseller, Bunnyman, from legendary guitarist Will Sergeant.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eScenic Wye Valley isn't the typical place for a rock story to begin, but when Echo \u0026amp; the Bunnymen hit the studio to record their ground-breaking debut album, Crocodiles, it was anything but ordinary. The album was the making of the band - cultivating a cult following which would soon evolve into staggering mainstream success. Their lives would never be the same again.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn Echoes, legendary guitarist and founding member of Echo \u0026amp; the Bunnymen, Will Sergeant, recounts the band's whirlwind rise to stardom with his trademark wryness and intelligence. Sharing never-before-told anecdotes - including the heady Rockfield Studio sessions and touring across the US, playing sold-out shows at Whisky a Go Go and experiencing the iconic New York club scene from dusk 'til dawn - and accompanied by snapshots of the cultural, social and political scene at the time, this is a memoir to remember.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Little Brown Books","offers":[{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":50442333651275,"sku":"2114941","price":22.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50442334732619,"sku":"2209479","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/Will_Sergeant_67793351_thumbnail_4096.png?v=1726996418"},{"product_id":"bunnyman","title":"Bunnyman","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ca href=\"http:\/\/blog.roughtrade.com\/uk-books-of-the-year-2021\"\u003eRough Trade Books of the Year #12\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe long-awaited memoir from Will Sergeant, guitarist and founder member of the influential band Echo and the Bunnymen\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGrowing up in Liverpool in the 1960s and '70s, when skinheads, football violence and fear of just about everything was the natural order of things, a young Will Sergeant found the emerging punk scene provided a shimmer of hope amongst a crumbling city still reeling from the destruction of the Second World War, with the shadow of Thatcher and all she would wreak creeping up.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFrom school-day horrors and mud flinging fun to nights at Liverpool's punk club, Eric's, where he saw amongst others the Fall, Joy Division, the Cure, Iggy Pop, Buzzcocks, The Dammed, and thousands of other musicians and bands; Sergeant was fuelled by and thrived on music, ignited by the excitement of punk. It was this devotion that led to the birth of the Bunnymen, to the days when he and Ian McCulloch would muck around with reel-to-reel recordings of song ideas in the front room of his dad’s council house, and to finding a community - friends, enemies and many in between - with those who would become post-punk royalty from the likes of Dead or Alive, Frankie Goes to Hollywood and the Teardrop Explodes to name a few.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWith the lasting echoes of the pervasive Merseybeat scene to compete against and with the post-industrial bands from the ever-rivalrous Manchester and the Factory label, Echo and the Bunnymen had its competition cut out, but still due to talent, determination and the salvation of music, they became iconic. By turns wry and profound, \u003ci\u003eBunnyman\u003c\/i\u003e reveals what it was really like to be part of one of the most influential and important British bands of the 1980s, a band which is still informing and inspiring the popular culture \u003ci\u003eand\u003c\/i\u003e subculture.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"little brown","offers":[{"title":"Hardback - 1118392","offer_id":50447362949451,"sku":"1118392","price":18.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"Hardback","offer_id":50447364424011,"sku":"1117760","price":20.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":50447365079371,"sku":"1138721","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/hbg-title-9781472135001-50_b2ff9cd9_thumbnail_4096.webp?v=1727076627"}],"url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/fr\/collections\/will-sergeant.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}