Description

The Sunday Times’ Music Book of the Year 2017

Allan Jones launched Uncut magazine in 1997 and for 15 years wrote a popular monthly column called Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before, based on his experiences as a music journalist in the 70s and 80s, a gilded time for the music press.

By turns hilarious, cautionary, poignant and powerful, the Stop Me… stories collected here include encounters with some of rock’s most iconic stars, including David Bowie, Lou Reed, Leonard Cohen, Van Morrison, Neil Young, Elvis Costello, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Smiths, R.E.M. and Pearl Jam. From backstage brawls and drug blow-outs, to riots, superstar punch-ups, hotel room confessionals and tour bus lunacy, these are stories from the madness of a music scene now long gone.

Publisher Review

This is a paean to a lost age of wild rock’n’roll and decadent rock’n’roll journalism — Louis Wise * Sunday Times – Music Book of the Year 2017 * Allan Jones’s wildly entertaining account of observing the excesses and eccentricities of rock stars at close quarters throughout the boom years of the 1970s and 80s, and barely hanging on to his health and sanity in the process. — Richard Wise * The Guardian * Allan Jones’ collection of stories lovingly evoke the hell and hedonism of music journalism at the peak of rock’n’roll’s excess — Dylan Jones * GQ Magazine * Encounters of the Crazy Kind — Victoria Segal * The Sunday Times *