Mark Radcliffe

Standing at the crossroads – the Mississippi crossroads of Robert Johnson and the devil’s infamous meeting – Mark Radcliffe found himself facing his own personal juncture. Aged sixty, he had just mourned the death of his father, only to be diagnosed with mouth and throat cancer. Together these events led Radcliffe to think about pivotal tracks in music and how the musicians who wrote and performed them had reached the crossroads that led to such epoch-changing music. Crossroads is a warm, intimate account of music and its power to transform our lives, as Radcliffe takes a personal journey through these key tracks.

In Search of the Moments that Changed Music

Crossroads

'Mark Radcliffe: the world of rock salutes you' Melody Maker Mark Radcliffe recalls his less-than-glittering rock career in a succession of bands which all ended in ignominy and frustration. 'Lancashire's answer to Nick Hornby. If Mark Radcliffe ever gets bored with DJing, there's a highly promising career as a writer waiting for him.' Mirror Combining his trademark humour with an acute eye for the ridiculous, Mark admits his part in bands like The Berlin Airlift (hastily named during a history lesson), the life-changing punk revolution in Bob Sleigh and The Crestas and even a flirtation with thirty-something pub rock. 'Hilarious. One of the funniest books I've read all year.' U Magazine Interwoven with the musical disasters is the appealing rites-of-passage story of a middle-class grammar school boy who finally leaves Bolton for university. Splattered with memorable episodes and Viz-like characters, Showbusiness retraces the steps that should have led Mark to headlining Wembley Arena, but which took him to Radio 1 instead.

Showbusiness - The Diary of a Rock 'n' Roll Nobody

Approaching 50, Mark Radcliffe decided to write about his life, most importantly, his time in music. But crucially, he only wanted to write about the most interesting days and not the dull ones in between. With predictable good taste, Mark takes his title from the Kinks' song and has written an entertaining, funny book worthy of such a pedigree. Mark's family life is covered by 'The Day My Mother Hit Me With a Golf Club' , his school life by 'The Day I Ruined a Perfectly Good Suit' and 'The Day I Got My First Guitar'; through his epiphany of the power of music in 'The Day I Met the Band Who Changed My Life' and his star struck meeting with childhood hero, David Bowie. Many other stars are covered too, for example in 'The Day I Went to Kate Bush's House for Cheese Flan', and 'The Day Mick Jagger Was Taller Than Me'. He's very funny when recounting his days working at the BBC in '80s and '90s (how, when bored, he and colleagues invented a fictional department), winning Stars in Their Eyes as Shane MacGowan and so on. Yet, among the laughter are more sober days, such as the one when he learned John Peel had died. A cracking read and a potted history of both one man's life and his love affair with music, THANK YOU FOR THE DAYS is a uniquely entertaining memoir that will appeal not just to music fans but to connoisseurs of British popular culture.

A Boy's Own Adventures in Radio and Beyond

Thank You for the Days

Having been sacked from his university teaching job, Ed has returned to his home town to pick up the threads of his old life with his friends and ex-girlfriend, Jeannie, in the Northern Sky folk music club. His dream is to play with them again, making music like his hero Nick Drake - and maybe even a little money. But know-it-all Matt O'Malley is now running the club and has ambitious plans for them that involve contracts and record deals. Can Ed get in on the act, or does O'Malley have a hidden agenda involving the less talented but more photogenic Lane Fox? And can Ed win Jeannie back - or will his legendary temper prevent him from getting anything right? This is a funny and touching novel, written with real Northern soul by one of the country's most popular and knowledgeable commentators on music. It will appeal to anyone who loves music, anyone who's ever been young and ambitious, and anyone who's ever fallen out with someone over the one thing that unites them.

Northern Sky

*Includes iTunes Festival: Studio Session with Mark Radcliffe discussing his new book, Reelin' In the Years, with Edith Bowman. Mark read four chapters from the book, and talked about his life in music. When Mark Radcliffe was born in the late 1950s, Britain was trying to find its own version of the dangerously sexy Elvis … we gave the world Cliff Richard but by the time Mark was old enough to recognise pop songs on the radio, the UK was exploding into the world's most exciting place to be for a young music fan. In this, his eagerly awaited new book, Mark Radcliffe takes a record from each year of his life, using the song as a starting point from which to reach out and pull together a wonderfully entertaining catalogue of memories and asides about British culture. And, as one would expect from this unique and popular broadcaster, the tunes he lists are not the usual suspects. From The Kinks' 'See My Friends', through Slade's 'Coz I Luv You' to Kraftwerk's 'Europe Endless' and Joy Division's 'Atmosphere', Mark's selections bring forth a diverse collision of styles from eras uniquely defined by their musical genres and fashions. Bringing his choices right up to the present day, we see the inclusion of artists such as Richard Hawley, Elbow and Fleet Foxes. Mark's hugely entertaining and affectionate trawl through his favourite music of the past 50 years is guaranteed to surprise and delight his many fans.

The Soundtrack of a Northern Life

Reelin' in the Years

Mick Middles

There has never been an artist quite like Chris Sievey or his 'fantastic' comedic alter ego, Frank Sidebottom. Whether pushing for chart action while fronting his former band The Freshies or allowing the bombastic Sidebottom to wreak anarchy and chaos on television, radio or with the Oh Blimey Big Band, Sievey's mischievous muse seemed to obey no boundaries. Yet it was only after Chris's untimely demise in 2010 that the extent of his infl uence became fully apparent. The emergence of Jon Ronson's film, "Frank", Steve Sullivan's exhaustive documentary "Being Frank: The Chris Sievey Story" and the bizarre erection of the Frank Sidebottom statue in his native Timperley last October -- before 2,000 devotees -- all combined to make this the most extraordinary stories of recent decades. Yet Chris found difficulty in being Frank. The people whose careers he helped begin or inspire: Chris Evans, Mark Radcliffe, Caroline Aherne, Steve Coogan, Jon Ronson to name a few -- all went on to a achieve a degree of fame and fortune that Chris never managed. That said, Frank was so successful, compared to his other projects, that Chris often seemed estranged from his own comic creation In this unorthodox biography, legendary journalist Mick Middles draws on his thirty year friendship with Sievey to gain further insight into this most charismatic of artists. Family members, fellow musicians, fans and acquaintances help trace Chris's career from Timperley to Hollywood.

Mark Radcliffe

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