[books]
How Not To Make it in the Pop World (Diary of an almost has been)
author: John Barrow, fromTrafford Publishing
Review by Kent Manthie
photos from John Barrow’s myspace at http://www.myspace.com/johnbarrow
A sure sign of a real bon vivant is the amount of orgies he’s been to and the number of times he’s been married; unless he’s gay, of course, then the marriages don’t necessarily count (like the ex-NJ Governor, who came out of the closet, got a divorce & left his wife for another man – ooh, that’s got to hurt!) But anyway, there you have it.
In keeping with that debauchery-with-pickles way of life, there is a new book just out that gives an up-close-&-personal view of the exploits of John Barrow, a self-taught sax player who jammed with a panoply of new-wave bands in the 70s and 80s. Some of the bands you may have heard of: Culture Club, Fun Boy Three, Bananarama and a few you may not have heard of: Black Gorilla, The Wendys or Crazyhead.
There are two quite different kinds of pop stars – the kind who write and create and play music because they love music, they live for the music and have always been entranced by music their whole lives and they couldn’t think of doing anything else. Then there are those who have always been able to take or leave music, like movies or TV or paintings, just another form of expression; these types are inspired to join a pop band and they may or may not know how to play or read music; if they’re lucky, they can play by ear or learn along the way – they want to be in a rock band because they are in love with the idea of being famous, getting chicks and all that money. That is the draw for many who make up the sordid world of pop music and the attendant corporate, major-label soul-killing machines.
John Barrow belongs to the latter category of musicians, but I don’t mean that in a judgmental sort of way After discovering that he wanted to be in a pop band as a young man in England in the late 60s, early 70s, Barrow somehow decided on a sax as his instrument of choice, bought one and then taught himself to play it, getting a few tips and pointers along the way from some cohorts on the circuits. But I don’t fault Barrow for wanting to be famous, that’s a noble aspiration. He was enamored by the stage, the lights, the roaring crowds and the electric excitement that came with all that.
In “How Not to Make It in the Pop World”, Barrow recounts the days of youth, when he was just getting started in the pop business, still working a day job, making time at night and on weekends to rehearse, practice and play gigs. The book is narrated in a heavy-accented English, I can hear him speaking in my head, the way he’d sound telling all this, since it’s written in the kind of stilted English that working class Brits speak, the only thing he didn’t do was leave out the ‘H’s, which is not a bad thing: the writing style gives the story a British flavor, with lots of English slang words.
It’s a good story – a middle-class Briton who falls in love with the idea of being a pop star does something about it – he picks up a saxophone, learns how to play it, then tries out for different bands and eventually gets hooked up with smaller local outfits and through time, with patience, perseverance and ambition, Barrow keeps climbing up, up, up the ladder, playing in bigger and bigger bands, getting gigs playing his horn on some records, doing studio sessions and all the while, in the beginning, he kept his day job because he needed the money! It sounded like a lot of work, though, having to keep a 9-5 job going, practicing at night, networking, playing seedy clubs on the weekends and all the while focusing on the big picture of making it in show-biz. The different vignettes are vicariously inspiring, it’s like going back through your old scrapbook, thinking about the good old days, thinking about the crazy times, the good times the unbelievable, stranger-than-fiction times and you get this wistful feeling about you while reading John Barrow’s account of his days in the rock & roll game.
There is a photo section in the middle part of the book; photos of Barrow in all his different incarnations, from the early days to the new-wave hairdos and funny-looking outfits, of which Barrow’s were usually the tamest, being a sort of Bill Wyman type of figure, a nonchalant, unimposing figure, tall, dark and lanky, or at least dark and lanky, in Barrow’s case.
All in all, “How Not…” is an eye-opening look at the ups and downs, the swinging times as well as the crazy, messed-up times and other relative downers. It can give that up & comer who wants to be famous and pretty a snapshot of what one person experienced in his struggle to make it in the pop world. For more information on the publisher, check out: http://www.trafford.com or http://www.myspace.com/johnbarrow – KM.
All photos were borrowed unaltered from John Barrow’s myspace at http://www.myspace.com/johnbarrow -Ed.