Cover of Showbusiness: Diary of a Rock 'n' Roll Nobody

Showbusiness: Diary of a Rock 'n' Roll Nobody

In his first book, Mark Radcliffe recalls his less-than-glittering rock career in a succession of bands which all ended in ignominy and frustration. Combining his trademark humor with an acute eye for the ridiculous, Mark admits his part in bands like The Berlin Airlift, the life-changing punk revolution in Bob Sleigh and The Crestas, and even a flirtation with thirty-something pub rock. Interwoven with the musical disasters is the appealing rites-of-passage story of a middle-class grammar school boy who finally leaves Bolton for university. Splattered with memorable episodes and Viz-like characters, Showbusiness retraces the steps that should have led Mark to headlining Wembley Arena, but which took him to Radio 1 instead.

Subject
biography
Genre
humor
Themes
music
Audience
adult
Length
medium · 232 pages

Click a tag to see books like this one that share it.

Read it? Sign in to help tag it.

Liked Showbusiness: Diary of a Rock 'n' Roll Nobody? Here’s where I’d start.

These suit anyone who liked Showbusiness: Diary of a Rock 'n' Roll Nobody. Sign in and mark a few books for picks shaped around your own taste.

  1. Blink-182: Tales from Beneath Your Mom Shares music, biography, nonfiction
  2. The Stone Roses: And the Resurrection of British Pop Shares music, biography, nonfiction
  3. The Sound of Laughter Shares biography, nonfiction, humor
  4. Grumpy Old Rock Star: and Other Wondrous Stories Shares music, biography, nonfiction

“People who read Showbusiness: Diary of a Rock 'n' Roll Nobody tend to reach for these next.”

  1. 45
  2. The Manual: How to Have a Number One the Easy Way
  3. Obsessive Compulsive Cycling Disorder
  4. The Fallen: Searching for the Missing Members of The Fall

“If you want more of the same (biography about music), start with these.”

  1. Cider With Roadies
  2. Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die: Musings from the Road
  3. Wild Child: Life with Jim Morrison
  4. Straight

“If it was the music that hooked you, try one of these.”

  1. Lemmy: The Definitive Biography
  2. Pulsating to the Backbeat: Behind the Ramones
  3. Blind But Now I See: The Biography of Music Legend Doc Watson
  4. Kate Bush: The Biography

“These start from a similar idea, even if they go somewhere else with it.”

  1. Dance of Days: Two Decades of Punk in the Nation's Capital
  2. Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981-1991
  3. Adrenalized: Life, Def Leppard, and Beyond
  4. Never Enough: The Story of the Cure