Two mates, two books with Stranglers-evoking titles, out at the same time.
One is about the Stranglers. The other is not about the Stranglers at all.
Both published by Zero.
Only met Phil Knight the once in real life but he's a good upstanding blog neighbour, whose bracing opinions always make me stop and think. This is my blurb for Strangled:
“In Strangled, one
of the most brilliantly unusual brains to emerge from the blogosphere lovingly
dissects one of the most brilliantly unorthodox bands to emerge from punk. Using their savagely under-celebrated songs
as a dark prism for the decline of the West, Phil Knight constructs a gripping
entertainment for the mind that will convince even anti-fans that The
Stranglers were the crucial band of
their era”
More info about the book here.
Carl Neville is a very good mate both in real life and in and around this blog parish. In addition to No More Heroes? he also has a novel - Resolution Way - forthcoming on Repeater, which is the publishing successor to Zero.
This is Owen Hatherley's No More Heroes? blurb:
- "Austrian strongmen have often had a malign influence on 20th century history. Holding out for a Hero makes a bold claim - that the true, rippling-muscled embodiment of the 'Austrian school' neoliberal economists was the Styrian bodybuilder and rightwing activist Arnold Schwarzenegger. It follows his influence through a landscape populated by monster trucks, closing car factories, apocalyptic visions and heartland dreams. A bizarre, exhilarating and mordant secret history of the 1980s"
(That's one their "Atmosphere", isn't it? )