At the time of writing, I expect to take delivery of 200 copies – the complete first print run – of my new book Echoes From Then: Glimpses of John McLaughlin 1959–75. (See previous update for content details.) Copies will be available exclusively from Amazon (UK) for £19.95 + P&P and from www.marketsquaremusic.com for £14.95 + P&P.Unlike previous books this one is self-published. The content is
Unlike previous books this one is self-published. The content is niche so it was never going to float any publisher’s boat… so I didn’t bother sounding any out. The work on the book has been largely self-funded, but I’m tremendously grateful to over 50 pledgers to my Kickstarter campaign, which funded the print run. It was a surprisingly painless process – thank you all!
I’m a huge admirer of the Jawbone Press presentational style so I’ve opted to get as close to that as possible, with Jawbone’s own Tom Seabrook on typesetting and Mark Case on design – both of whom delivered the goods. Mark, in particular, put in a Herculean effort in making sense of a very substantial amount of visual content. In addition to 16 glossy pic pages (8 B&W, 8 colour) there are roughly 80 pages of period adverts and news items relating to John McLaughlin’s musical path through ‘60s Britain – under most people’s radar, but still detectable in the small print… I hope the inclusion of such ephemera will help to bring the era alive.
I anticipate reviews in at least three national magazines, and if there appears to be genuine demand I will certainly commission another print run. However, while the book isn’t a ‘phony’ limited edition I can’t have £1000+ tied up in new print runs on an ongoing basis, so there will be only be as many copies in existence to meet what I judge to be the relatively immediate demand. In short, get a copy quickly if you want one.
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In other news… the new Record Collector (issue 471, Led Zeppelin on the cover) includes, at last, my feature on the great Mike Westbrook, focused mostly on his 1967–76 output and with interview comments from Mike.
I provided some information content to the excellent Mick Houghton’s 7CD Pentangle box set project The Albums (Cherry Red), out later this month. Mick and John Reed have lovingly curated the set, with new remastering, bonus content and a superb booklet.
I was thrilled with a couple of recent reviews of the expanded remaster of my album Titanium Flag (Market Square), from Chris Roberts in Prog and Colin Irwin in Mojo. Oz Hardwick had earlier written a similarly generous review for RnR (formerly Rock’n’Reel, R2, etc.) The Prog review is one of their online samples this month: http://teamrock.com/prog
There’s probably other stuff going on, but I can’t bring it to mind right now – save this: look out for the debut release by NI blues trio The Hardchargers in mid-November. The album is mixed, mastered and designed and is but a Pledge Music campaign away from being manufactured…