The book in which I was reading about Patti Smith is The Long-Player Goodbye” by Travis Elborough – the the sub-title “The album from vinyl to iPod and back again”.  I finished it this week, and the reading of it got a bit spooky at times.A lot of the reading was done in small bursts, often accompanied by the sonuds of Planet Rock on the DAB radio.   At one point a track by Yes came on the radio just before I got to a point where the book started talking about Yes.  The next time I was reading it the same thing happened: a Roger Waters track was on the radio just as I came to mentions of Pink Floyd.   Subsequently a Talking Heads track was played just as I got to a section about the New York scene at CBGBs.

That was spooky.  Planet Rock does not often play stuff like Talking Heads.  I also spent some time reading about the Beach Boys and then saw that thre were two Denis Wilson concerts back-to-back on Sky Arts.

Strange book though.  From a very quick glance at the back in a shop, it sounded like the sort of thing I would enjoy.  When I started to read it I found it was not at all what I expected, but I enjoyed it anyway for totally different reasons.

I was expecting more discussion, towards the end probably, of the paradigm shift towards individual tracks instead of pre-sequenced albums.  That was touched on but not at the length I anticipated.  Just as well really.  That whole piece of commentary has been done to death.

What I did get was a history of the LP, which is heavily tilted towards the earlier days when the LP was struggling to oust the 78 as a format.  Earlier chapters were focussed on jazz, classical, Frank Sinatra and spoken word records.  In fact the chapter where it reaches the 80s and the Beatles is not reached until page 167.    I thought I would find that dull, but the stories about the early days were quite rivetting, even where I have no interest in the contents of the records being talked about.

When it got to the era where the names and records would actually mean something to me it was, for some reason, less interesting and seemd to hurtle through the 70s and 80s at top speed.

Lots of good footnotes though.  I like a good footnote.  Also various small diversions into personal reminiscense which cause the same thought to enter my mind as when I am watching those “I Love The 70s”-type shows – how do people remember this stuff?

How is it that others can remember what CD was being played in the local Rumbelows to demonstrate the new-fangled CD players, or remember the most obscure details of children’s TV?

The flip-side of that is that things I would not have ever recalled myself are prompted back to memory by this sort of thing.  If the first half of the book was all new information about the move from shellac to vinyl, the second half was full of oh-yes-I-remember-that-now moments.

One last example of synchronicity about this book.  As I was typing this I got an e-mail from an old friend from the BBS days.  It must be two or three years since we last met up or had any sort of contact, and he wrote having been prompted by thoughts of vinyl records…