(A five of five star read.)
*****

What a terrific read! Just as I’d have thought a book by Michael M would be – full of self deprecating humour and sarcasm. But also with a touch of personal introspection.

‘You’re Doing It Wrong‘ is a brilliant insight to the life of a gigging band. In my younger years, I always imagined this to be a glamorous, easy lifestyle. It was only when my own two sons followed that path, and I spent about seven or eight years writing for a national music magazine (Artrocker) that I realised just how tough and frankly, boring it can be.

My time writing for the magazine coincided with Michael’s band (We Are The Physics) at the height of their fame. In fact I must have seen them play about ten times or more, and ran interview pieces with them several times. (I cringe at some of the inane questions I asked in the early ones! 😀 )

Anyway – the book kinda makes out the band sort of ‘fluked it’ in the business. Far from it – they were well deserving of more attention than they received. You could tell their musical influences, but they had a unique sound. And personalities. Their shows were fast, loud and fun; they toured across the UK and across Europe and into Asia, but for whatever reasons that ‘big break’ didn’t come.

What would they have made of it, had it presented itself? Were they cut out for this lifestyle?

Maybe the answer lies in page 369. All I’m saying is I think Michael, in that one page, sums up why anyone should form a band. There’s no fear of words in his honesty and the sentiment of this page applies to all our lives in general.

It was only towards the end of the book I could appreciate why Michael M and We Are The Physics considered they were perhaps ‘doing it wrong.

But for me, and a great many other fans of the band, they most certainly did it right.