books
The Cracked
Australian Dream
RIO DE JANEIRO
Mario Testino (Taschen)
EVENTUALLY I came to the place
Mario Testino is one of those impossibly gifted photographers who spends his life jetting around the world
taking pictures of impossibly beautiful people in impossibly beautiful places. His book of photos of Rio De
where Rosie said she lived, the
Janeiro is relatively free of celebrity, with only Barzilian model Gisele Bundchen making an appearance, and Soldier Settlement estate, looming
contains shots of his Rio and his friends. It’s so effortlessly striking, and compiled in such a rag-tag fashion,
up at me like a nightmarish vision
that it feels like Testino chucked his camera at the workie in Taschen and told them to make a book. Fitting,
of deprivation. I drove slowly along
because the subjects of his lens are carefree and nubile, reeling off the pages, crowding Testino’s lens, and
projecting the kind of natural beauty that he is so famous for capturing. It’s a book that communicates a love
ragged streets named after WWI
affair with this cosmopolitan city that Testino has expressed so much adoration for. BEN BRYANT
battles, The Somme, Armentieres,
until I came to Lone Pine.
Here I stopped the car and gazed at
the desolation spread out in every
direction. Front yards like dustbowls,
THE VELVET UNDERGROUND: AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE plastic bags hanging from telegraph
Jim Derogatis (Voyager Press)
poles, broken and sagging fences
Counterculture heroes The Velvet Underground are, thanks to their association with Warhol, New York hipster
like fallen soldiers in a godforsaken
background and songs with titles like Heroin and Venus In Furs, one of the most mythologised bands of all time
– a fact that can make writing about them a risky business. With its velvet cover, striking photography, gushing
losing battle. Gangs of kids and
60s reviews, and fun memoir from Andy Warhol, An Illustrated History seems intent on sealing the reputation
packs of dogs roaming weed-infested
of one of the most influential bands of all time, at times focusing a little too much on their image. Fortunately, streets, mangy cats slinking here
DeRogatis’ criticism and revaluation of the importance of The Velvet Underground is lucid and well-informed,
and there, sheets of newspaper
shedding light on memorable moments in their history as well as successfully joining the dots between their
whirling around burnt-out cars and
experimental roots, Warhol’s brief but extensive influence on the band, and their subsequent induction into the
rock hall of fame. BEN BRYANT
dilapidated townhouses.
Then I was outside number 28
– Rosie’s house and there it was in
front of me, the cracked Australian
SHINDIG! ANNUAL NO.2 COLORS: EXTRAORDINARY
dream in all its ruined beauty. A
Ed. Jon ‘Mojo’ Mills (Volcano) RECORDS
crumbling two-storey shack that
Shindig! is a British magazine dedicated Alessandro Bennedetti (Taschen) looked like it had been built by Rosie
to rattly, wiggy garage rock and psyche- They say ‘extraordinary’, but this doorstop
herself, walls filled with newspaper
delia, most frequently from the 1960s tome is almost entirely unconcerned about
and a rusted carport, even a busted
– the stuff below the stuff that Mojo what the hundreds of slabs o’wax pictured
fills its pages with most months. Within in here sound like. It is a showcase for
window frame creaking ominously in
this remit it has blossomed into quite a interestingly coloured vinyl and picture the wind.
success, which in the ‘current climate’ is discs from the collections of Benedetti and
Shit. I was well acquainted with
to say it hasn’t closed. This is the second Peter Bastine; it looks great and guests
poverty, having been poor all my life,
compendium of old articles from its back can browse it while waiting for you to pay
issues and has some great, lovingly written your crack dealer. Beyond that, who knows
but I’d never seen anything like this;
and researched overviews of Moby Grape what it might be for, other than a source
hopelessness hanging in the air like
and The West Coast Pop Art Experimental of amusement that the band Stikky are not a velvet death shroud, while just
Band among several others. NG only in a Taschen book, but mislabelled. NG
around the corner sunny surfer girls
and boys caught glittering Pacific
CLOSET READING CURSE OF THE POGO STICK
Ocean waves without a damn care in
Phil Norman (Gibson Square) Colin Cotterill (Quercus) the world.
Pretty sure any book that features the Curse Of The Pogo Stick: at first I thought
If it wasn’t quite third world poverty,
sentence “Seven of the tales revolve this was a dreadful title and I shook my
it was close and a million miles away
around Kenny Lynch” is going to have head disparagingly. But on completion of
basically universal appeal, and here is this novel I had to retract these thoughts.
from what the faceless politicians
that tome. Norman prefaces his history The title is a reminder of how Cotterill has
boast of as a cosmopolitan and
of ‘toilet books’ – novelty, low-humoured, managed to inject wit into the politically prosperous, global Sydney. More
throwaway or hastily cashed-in – with an and socially turbulent world of 1970s Laos
fucking lies by the powers that be,
unnecessary degree of self-deprecation, through the adventures of the protagonist
but aside from the beaches and
but it’s actually great and fascinating. Dr Siri, Laos’ national coroner, and his
Stretching from bawdy jokebooks written close group of friends. Expect a shaman
sunshine, Sydney was like any
by Elizabethan court jesters to the satirical imposter, an aggressive ‘Lizard’ and an other city where the rich got rich
tongue of Swift to 1985’s seminal Tarbuck explosive corpse... AB
and the poor stayed poor, just like
On Showbiz, it will jazz up any discerning
everywhere else.
idler’s festive sock. NG
PRIVATE EYE ANNUAL 2009
Ed. Ian Hislop (Private Eye)
LEGENDS OF SURFING Nothing gets my thirst for satire going
Duke Boyd (Voyager Press) like getting a good impotent rage on,
A canon of the makers and shapers of surf so in a year dominated by the greed of
culture, Legends Of Surfing is a book for bankers and MPs, this year’s Private Eye
absolute beginners to the legacy of the Ha- Annual is more welcome than ever. A noble
waiian sport of kings. Duke Boyd’s writing addition to any stocking, Private Eye is
can be basic to the point of condescension, without question the finest bog read in
meaning there isn’t an awful lot here for the world, thanks to the joyous harmony
seasoned enthusiasts, who may become of cathartic laughter and defecation. And
frustrated by the fragmented passages and nothing will make you feel better about the
300-word resumes for legends like Greg electile dysfunction of Gordon Brown. BB
Noll. As an introduction to surf culture it’s
worth a look. BB
Excerpt from Last Days of
the Cross, Joseph Ridgwell,
published by Grievous Jones
BUZZ 58
december2009.indd 58 27/11/09 17:39:56
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