Revolutionary Spirit: A Post-Punk Exorcism

Revolutionary Spirit: A Post-Punk Exorcism - Paperback

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Revolutionary Spirit: A Post-Punk Exorcism
  • Revolutionary Spirit: A Post-Punk Exorcism
Revolutionary Spirit: A Post-Punk Exorcism - Paperback

Revolutionary Spirit: A Post-Punk Exorcism - Paperback

by Paul Simpson
$24.95
$24.95

Book Overview

Part memoir, part social history, Revolutionary Spirit is the poignant, often hilarious story of a cult Liverpool musician's scenic route to fame and artistic validation, and marks the arrival of an original literary voice.

If Morrissey was the Oscar Wilde of the 1980s indie scene, Simpson was its William Blake; a self-destructive genius so lost in mystical visions of a new arcadia that he couldn't meet the rent.

Simpson's career begins alongside fellow Liverpool luminaries Ian McCulloch, Bill Drummond, Will Sergeant, Pete Wylie, Pete Burns, and Holly Johnson at the infamous Eric's club, where, in 1976, he finds himself at the birth of the city's second great musical explosion. He co-founds and christens the neo-psychedelic pop group The Teardrop Explodes with Julian Cope but walks out of the band just as they are about to break big and goes to work in a tearoom instead. He then forms The Wild Swans, the indie-band of choice for literary-minded teens in the early 1980s, and Care with Ian Broudie of The Lightning Seeds, sharing a flat with a seventeen-year-old Courtney Love along the way.

Marriage, fatherhood, tropical illness, and divorce follow, interspersed with artistic collaborations with Bill Drummond and members of The Brian Jonestown Massacre, among others. Following an onstage reunion with Cope at the Royal Festival Hall, Simpson discovers that seven thousand miles away, in the Philippines, he is considered a musical god. Presidential suites, armed-guards, police escorts--you couldn't make it up, and, incredibly, he doesn't need to.

Revolutionary Spirit is the story of a musician driven by an unerring belief that artistic integrity will bring its own rewards. It concludes with an exorcism of sorts as Simpson finally rids himself of the debilitating demon of psychological depression that has, from the age of nine, run like malware in the background of his life.
ISBN9781911036838
Author Paul Simpson
PublisherJawbone Press
GenreBiography
FormatPaperback
PublishedJanuary 2024
LanguageENG- English
Pages288
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

Biography & Autobiography Music Nonfiction

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More by Paul Simpson

Revolutionary Spirit: A Post-Punk Exorcism

Revolutionary Spirit: A Post-Punk Exorcism - Paperback

Revolutionary Spirit: A Post-Punk Exorcism - Paperback

By Paul Simpson

About Paul Simpson

Paul Simpson is Lecturer in Applied Health and Social Care at Edge Hill University, United Kingdom. He is also Principal Investigator in and founder member of the OPUS Research Group (Older People's Understandings of Sexuality) based at Edge Hill University and the Universities of Manchester, Bradford and Queensland, Australia. Previously, he lectured in Sociology at the University of Manchester, United Kingdom, for three years.

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