Summer 1995, that cusp year between trying to stay in Virginia and hang onto to college and college friends and going back to New York to put on my big boy pants and start the career I am still in 23 years later. The first Del Amitri show year in DC was at the 9:30 Club. My memories of that show are limited. I thought I remembered more about that first show. I remember paying a guy to "watch" our car when we parked, I remember the t-shirt I bought, and I clearly remember Justin doing an extended version of "Last to Know" where he climbed on top of some table or a different part of the stage where he got very close to the crowd. I remember it was the first time I was in a room full of people who loved Del Amitri as much as I did. But there is a lot about that show I don't remember. I always thought that show was during the winter, but according to the new biography/history of Del Amitri These Are Such Perfect Days: The del Amitri Story by Charles Rawlings-Way it was during the Spring: April 1995.
1995 was before cellphone cameras. When I try to remember these concerts, it is like the Toad the Wet Sprocket lyric "don't even have pictures, just memories to hold, that grow greater each season, as we slowly get old." These Are Such Perfect Days provides in the 4th appendix a "Dell Amitri: Gig List." As weird as this may sound, this was one of the most powerful parts of this detailed history for me personally. The April show at the 9:30 Club, the August 12 show at the Bayou, and that last time July 31, 1997 at the Supper Club in New York City. Three nights that are of mythic proportions in my canon, the three nights I got to see Del Amitri. Seeing those dates and the names of the clubs flooded my memories of bits and pieces and fragments of those three nights.
I have been to many concerts in my 46 years, but one of the biggest changes is how easy it is to document and relive these concerts thanks to social media: either my own or others. I can go to Youtube and listen to Lord Huron crush my favorite part of "The Stranger" from that show at the Van Buren. I can also go back to the very first time I saw Mumford and Son, in a tiny club for 10$ with only about 200 people. I can watch that footage anytime of a band on the cusp to becoming one of the biggest bands in the world. Unfortunately, I can't do that for those Del Amitri shows from 1995 and 1997. Seeing those shows in the 4th appendix of the book were about as close to those shows I have been in over 20 years.
I could never remember the name of that club. I remember Justin telling the crowd how they usually play the 9:30 Club. I remember where I was in the Summer of 1995: Working at the Holocaust Museum in DC. I remember the opening song that night: Stone Cold Sober, one of my all time favorites. I remember going crazy when I heard those first lines:
EVERYBODY IN THE FUN HOUSE....SAYS THEY WANT OUT
I remember being so excited and singing along, that the girl standing in line turned around and "shushed" me. But I could never remember the name of the club. Non of my criticisms of this new history of the Scottish band Del Amitri can outweigh the gift of learning the name of that club again.
To know me is to know Del Amitri. To understand so much of who I am or who I was in my late teens, college years, early adulthood is to understand the music and lyrics of Del Amitri. Pete Townshend is the music of my elementary and middle school years, Lord Huron and Mumford and Sons are certainly the music of my middle age and my years now living in the desert Southwest, but Del Amitri is the sound track of my life from senior year at JFK high school on Long Island, my Mary Washington years in college, and the single years of my early adulthood. August 12, 1995 at the Bayou was in the heart of those Del Amitri years.
I know exactly where I was and what I was doing in the Summer of 1995. I was living in Fredericksburg, Virginia. I was in that listless in between college and a career stage. I have been teaching for 23 years now, but in 1995 that career choice was in jeopardy. I was unable to find a teaching job in both New York and Virginia. I bounced between two states, retail jobs and substitute teaching gigs and eventually found myself back in Fredericksburg commuting either by rail or car into DC to work at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Though I could never remember the name of the club, other than it was in Georgetown, I never forgot getting shushed, nor did I ever forget the aftermath of that show. I must have seen an ad for the show in either the Washington Post or more likely City Paper. At the end of the book, Rawlings-Way asks the question almost all Del Amitri fans ask "why the hell wasn't this band more successful." This section of the book "A Little Luck" in my opinion is where this book shines brightest. Del Amitri, at least in the US, is known as a one hit wonder for "Roll to Me." The majority of people who may know anything about Del Amitri in the US will remember that song or perhaps the strange video of the song. They have probably heard Del Amitri music playing in the background at various retail shops and fast food restaurants, not knowing the song or the band. It is quite strange to be sitting in a burger king hearing some of the most important songs in my life playing in the background. When the internet was new and VH1 played more adult alternative music they had a message board. This mid 1990's VH1 message board titled something like "Del Amitri: The Best Band You Never Heard of." Quite accurate, here in the states.
I can't tell you how much time I spent from the time of Waking Hours to the release of Twisted trying to get people to listen to Del Amitri. So trying to get people to go to that show in August in Georgetown was typical. Trying to tell people how they got to see this band they never heard of. So, I remember working at the museum trying to convince my co-workers that this awesome band was playing in Georgetown and we had to go. There was actually a tour guide at the museum that summer, who one day in the elevator started singing Del Amitri, and he was the first Del Amitri fan I had ever met besides myself. That is being a Del Amitri fan in the states in a nutshell. That rare occasion when you actually meet someone else who loves Del Amitri. At that point I had been listening to Del Amitri since 1989 and 1995 was the first time I actually met a Del Amitri fan. The next time I would meet a Del Amitri fan would be around 2012. Ironically, the tour guide couldn't go to the concert at the last minute. But, I actually did convince several people to go to the show and check out them out after work on a hot and muggy August night in Washington DC. I also remember that summer had a record number of days of 95 degree heat with over 90% humidity.
As if seeing Del Amitri live in their prime was not memorable enough the aftermath of this show adds to the mythology. The plan was simple, see the show, and then we would crash at the apartment of one of my co-workers who went to the show with us, and then go to work at the museum the next morning. I don't drink at concerts. I love the music too much to waste it being impaired. I never drink at concerts, and this show at the Bayou was no different. Unfortunately, that did not stop my co-workers. One or two of my co-workers got so drunk during that show, they simply disappeared. In fact, one co-worker in particular did not show up for work for several days after the show. The guy whose apartment we were supposed to crash in got so drunk and passed out in my car and we could not wake him up to tell us where he lived. We tried driving around DC for a bit until he woke up, but he didn't. I ended up having to drive back 50 miles to Fredericksburg that night. I remember when he woke up on the floor in apartment the next morning, he asked where we were. I told him Fredericksburg and he thought I was joking! I remember we all showed up late to work at the museum that day. This was the first or second year the museum was open and people used to line up early for tickets, it used to be packed. I remember the museum manager pulling me into his office that day making me promise not to take any more co-workers to concerts! All this I could remember, but until reading These Perfect Days I could never remember the club was called "The Bayou."
The appendix of gigs is just one of four appendixes in the book that are filled will a treasure of information Del Amitri fans will love. There is also information about where the ever changing band personal are today, a discography, and a great listing of songs by subject. This kind of information is a great example of both the strengths and weaknesses of this book. Information Del Amitri fans will love, and the general public could probably care less about.
Let me stop here and give two disclaimers as I review this book. First the book I just finished prior to reading this was the second volume of James Kaplan's massive biography of Frank Sinatra. Kaplan's biography of Sinatra was two volumes and close to 2000 pages. It was one of the most detailed and interesting biographies I have ever read. It basically took me two years to read the 2000 pages. The books were not just a biography of Sinatra they were a history of America, American music, hollywood, movies, politics, organized crime from before WWII until the early 1990s. Reading and trying to review another music book, another musical biography immediately after the two Kaplan books is unfair. Those two volumes are the gold standard for an entertainment biography and you will be hard pressed to find something to match them, regardless of whether you actually like Frank Sinatra, because those books were so much more than books about the Chairman. Did I mention that during the 1997 Supper Club show, Justin started playing New York, New York and then halfway through stopped and said the song sucked. It is like trying to read any epic fantasy novels after reading the first three Game of Thrones books. Those first three Game of Thrones books are so good, they have basically ruined all other epic fantasy books for me. I can say the same about Kaplan's Sinatra books. It will be difficult for me to read any biography, but especially a biography of an entertainer or musician after reading those books.
The other problem with reviewing this book is personal. Deeply personal. A few years ago, I finally saw the Elvis of my people, Neil Diamond. It was a religious event for me, Neil Diamond has been a guilty pleasure of mine for years. It was in a large arena and Neil played for over two hours and 10,000 people sang along to EVERY SONG! I can use Who concerts as similar examples, three hour shows, multiple dates and sellouts, 15,000 people singing along to 50 years of giant hits. The second time I saw Mumford and Sons was at the Railroad Rival tour in Tempe Arizona. The previous show I had seen Mumford had like 200 people, that Tempe show had 12,000. There was a time for me Mumford was like the new Del Amitri. There were a few months when their record first came out that I kept trying to get people to listen and I kept telling people how awesome this new band was. Nobody knew who I was talking about. The first show was in a small club, with a hardcore group of fans and it reminded me of seeing Del Amitri that first time at 9:30 Club. However, that all changed quickly. In just a few months, Mumford and Sons was one of the biggest bands on the planet. The Tempe show was less than a year from that first show and the crowd went from 200 to 12,000. I remember driving home from Tempe that night and a car full of ASU girls pulled up next to us and they were all singing "The Cave." It was at that moment I knew Mumford would be huge. There was never was that moment for Del Amitri. The closest it ever came to a moment like that was when "Roll to Me" was a hit. I remember friends from college, who had heard me either talking about Del Amitri or playing Del Amitri in the dorm room endlessly and endlessly trying to convince them that Del Amitri was the best band ever, called me when they saw the video on MTV and VH1. There was that band I had been talking about and they had a huge hit on MTV. That was the closest Del Amitri became an "I told you so band" for me to my friends. There was the tour guide at the Holocaust museum, the VH1 message board, Allison's early version of delamitri.com, and my co-worker in 2012 and that was it in terms of me being able to share my love of Del Amitri with other people. My wife things they are boring and my kid would rather listen to Imagine Dragons. What I am trying to say is this. Del Amitri has always been a very personal thing for me. It is something that I love so much that very few people know about. I can share my love of The Who with 15,000 fans for 4 nights in a row at the Garden, I have never really had that opportunity with Del Amitri. Del Amitri is so personal to me, it is like a little secret between me and my radio in the car, in the dorm room, or laying in bed. This book was clearly written by a fan of Del Amitri. This book was written by someone who not only likes Del Amitri as much as I do, something I didn't believe exists, it was written by someone who knows more about Del Amitri than me. How can someone know more about Del Amitri than me? In short, I am jealous. This is a book I have written in my head 1000 times. The chapter on why Del Amitri was not a bigger band is a chapter I have written in my head and debated in my head 1000s of times. This book is like seeing someone walking down the street who has the life you want. I am simply not used to sharing Del Amitri with other people. My love of Lord Huron, the Who, Neil Diamond, and Mumford and Sons is shared by hundreds of thousands. However, Del Amitri is my band. I am very ethnocentric about Del Amitri. After years of trying, I am simply not used to sharing Del Amitri with others.
Del Amitri is so personal for me, it is hard for me to be objective about Del Amitri. I unfortunately found that to be one major issue I had with the book. The author clearly loves Del Amitri and the book in my opinion needs to be more critical. In the author's defense, I probably would have done the same thing. There is a bit too much fanboy in the book, and after reading the Sinatra biography which humanized Sinatra showing all his sides: the good, the bad, the ugly. When you read the Kaplan books you see what a musical genius Sinatra was, and at the same time you see things that show he could be a pretty shitty person who hung out with some very questionable characters. With the exception of some stories about dealing with some band personal issues, there was too much hagiography here. Writing a book about how awesome Del Amitri is preaching to the choir. I would have liked the book to be more objective. When you read this book you learn how awesome Del Amitri is. But I already knew that, and everybody who is going to read this book knows that.
This book is clearly written by a Del Amitri fan for Del Amitri fans. It is very inside. I don't think I could give this book to a non Del Amitri fan. I am not a fan of Frank Sinatra's music or his movies. Yet I could not put down 2000 pages about his life, because it was so interesting. 2000 pages of saying how great Sinatra is not very interesting to someone like me that is not a fan of his music. I love Del Amitri, I know how great they are, you don't need to tell me that. Other people need to know how great Del Amitri is, but I don't think someone who has never heard of the band outside of "Roll to Me" is going to pick up this book, read it, and go stream Change Everything.
As a fan, I devoured this book. I read it in just a couple of days, it was a book about my favorite band of all time, that talked about how awesome they are. Of course, I loved that, but could I give this book to my roommate from college back in 1990 who had to listen to me play Waking Hours on tape endlessly to read? I don't think the book would hold his interest past one or two chapters. It is very inside baseball. It is very niche. But, maybe that was the purpose of the book and the intended audience for it. If so the book is a homerun. So as a fan, of course I loved this book, but I don't think it will appeal to people who don't already love Del Amitri already. Del Amitri fans wish more people would listen to Del Amitri, would listen to the lyrics of Justin Currie and realize just how awesome this band it. There is a part of being a Del Amitri fan that wishes the band reached the level of fan they deserved. However, I don't think this book will do that. This book is more about preaching to the choir than it is about objectively telling the story of Del Amitri and their music.
I feel the book got better as it moved along chronologically. I felt the author did a better job starting around Chapter 7 discussing the issues that resulted from the failure to capitalize on the success of Twisted and the disappointing sales associated with Some Other Sucker's Parade. The story of Big Country is similar in some ways to Del Amitri. Scottish band, amazing success in the UK, none as a one hit wonder in the US, should have been a bigger band, hurt by bad luck and industry mistakes. I would have liked more about the Scottish music scene in the 1980s that Del Amitri and Big Country evolved during. The book has an origins story, but I would have liked it in the bigger context. I have always heard that Del Amitri's first tour of the states was quite the story, the book mentions it is quite the story but the actual chapter about it is kinda of a let down. I would have liked to know more. Here is another issue with the book and the discussion of the 1986 tour is a good example. The book relies heavily on primary sources. Primary sources are awesome in many ways. The book used great material from Justin, Iain and other members of the band. This really added to the book and gave some great insight into the band and the music. However, primary sources have challenges as well. Primary sources are biased, primary sources also suffer from what the subject remembers, doesn't remember, or perhaps chooses not to remember. I felt the book needed more secondary sources to balance the primary sources. I felt it needed more objective and maybe more critical secondary sources to compliment or supplement the primary sources. Again, while Justin, Iain and other band members provided excellent context and behind the scenes information, but too many of the other primary sources used and people interviewed just seemed about how great Del Amitri is. I know this already! Del Amitri had a very memorable tour in 1986, the chapter and the people quoted kept saying how memorable the tour was, but I never felt I learned why it was so memorable.
Another issue I had with the book, and this is a problem I have had with many music biographies or autobiographies is that I would have liked to know more about the songs and the song meanings. Rawlings-Way did a great job focusing in on focusing in on one or two songs per record: like "Stone Cold Sober" on Waking Hours or "Be My Downfall" on Change Everything. Recently, I had the same issue with the Pete Townshend and Bruce Springsteen books too. So many good songs, I wanna know the stories behind them, the meanings. Justin Currie writes some of the most amazing lyrics in music, I would have loved more analysis or discussion of them. I felt the book missed an opportunity to go deep into the lyrics and the music. I would have loved more from Justin about what these songs were about and how they were written. On the tracks Rawlings-Way does this he does it very well, I just wanted more.
Speaking of the music, something that the book did a great job discussing were the Del Amitri b-sides. Some of my favorite Del Amitri songs are b-sides. Waking Hours, Change Everything, and Twisted are three records that are as close to perfect as I have in my music collection. But for each of these records there are b-sides that I wondered how could this song not be on the record. The book did a good job discussing how, when, and why b-sides were recorded and released when they were. Did I mention how much I love Learn to Cry?
I don't want to make it sound like I don't like this book. I am glad this book was written and I enjoyed every minute I spent reading it. The intro was awesome, and hit very close to home. There were some things I did not know about Del Amitri, that I know now thanks to this book. In never knew the band was big in Chicago and Australia. To be honest I never really knew much about the first record aside from the song "Hammering Heart," nor did I know what happened leading up to the release of the final studio record "Can You Do Me Good." The book filled in many gaps that I had living in the states and following a band in the pre-social media days. Also, I never knew about the reasons for the many personal changes in the band. The face of the band was always Justin and Iain. Learning about all the various other members of the band was quite interesting and perhaps how some of these past members were treated is the only subject in the book that is really critical of the band and Justin. The book also did a good job showing the missed opportunities between Twisted and Some Other Sucker's Parade. I never thought about it in those terms and while I actually liked that album a lot, it is not on the level of the prior three records. Can You Do Me Good? was a record that even as a fan, I did not like when it came out. However, years later it is a record I appreciate more and more. But learning some of the background to that record, the different producers, and what was happening to their record company and contract as well in the context of the disappointing sales of the prior record, it makes more sense. This is stuff I never knew about.
Where the book really shines is in the discussion of Del Amitri's dealings with various producers, the record company and the changing face of music in the time period Del Amitri was active. Del Amitri's sound is in between formats. It was not hard rock, it was not pop, it was not grunge, it was not alternative. Streaming, satellite radio, YouTube did not exist yet. There was no real outlet to play Del Amitri music. You could argue Waking Hours was Americana or alt-folk before those genres existed. The use of banjo on Waking Hours is Avett, Lumineers, or Mumford-esq 20 years too early. Del Amitri put out their best music at a time where record companies, the record industry, the internet were changing so fast and unfortunately in many ways they fell through the cracks. Rawlings-Way's writing is at his strongest and most reflective when he looks at the issue of how all these issues in many ways made it difficult for Del Amitri to succeed. Del Amitri was a band that had a sound that was hard to put into a neat box, during a time period both the music and the music industry were constantly changing. I often wonder, if Del Amitri would have been more or less popular in the music industry of today. The author talks about Del Amitri's lack of internet presence in the late 1990s, during the exact time it should have been strongest. Again, this is something I was quite aware of as a fan, but never really thought about in the larger context. It is an excellent point and another great "what if." The book makes it clear that there were a number of questionable decisions by the record company that contribute to the "what if's" and the whole question of why isn't Del Amitri a much bigger band. Maybe releasing music right after the magazine cover, better music videos, having an internet site, or returning to Australia might have changed the history of Del Amitri. But it is a paradox for me. Part of me wishes Del Amitri was a bigger band that filled giant arenas where 10,000 people sang along to "Hatful of Rain" and the selfish side of me wants to keep Del Amitri the band all to myself.
I read a lot of history books and I read even more book reviews. I really despise the New York Times and Washington Post because often they review the SUBJECT of the book more than the actual book. If there is a wonderfully written biography of someone they do not like, they will spend more time in the review bashing the person then they will discussing whether or not the book is good or not. In the reverse, if the subject of the book is someone they agree with they will spend the majority of the time praising the subject and not really saying whether or not it is a good book. When I read a book review, I want to know if the book is good. There are people I don't like that have had great books written about them, and there are people that I respect and admire that have had shitty books written about them. Pete Townshend has been one of my rock gods since I was 10, yet I did not like his book. I love Pete Townshend, but did not like his book. I am not a fan of Frank Sinatra's music, but I loved the two Kaplan books about him. So in reviewing These Are Such Perfect Days: The del Amitri I am trying hard to review the actual book and not the band. It is not easy to do. I really think there are two ways to look at this book: As Del Amitri fans or as general reader. There is a lot of inside baseball in this book that as I lifelong Del Amitri fan I really enjoyed reading and I know other fans will enjoy reading. There is a lot of great primary source information and insights from both Justin and Iain. However, the book is too much hagiography. While the book is highly critical of certain aspects of the music industry, the majority of the writing is page after page about how awesome Del Amitri is. The book does not look at the band or the music objectively or critically enough. This is a book about how Del Amitri is one of the best bands that ever existed and how talented Justin Currie and Iain Harvie are. It is exactly the book I would have written.
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