Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock \'n\' Roll Group

Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock \'n\' Roll Group

Contributor(s): Svenonius, Ian F (Author)

from the publisher:
This volume features essays (and black-and-white illustrations) on everything the would-be star should know to get started, such as Sex, Drugs, Sound, Group Photo, The Van, and Manufacturing Nostalgia. Supernatural Strategies will serve as an indispensable guide for a new generation just aching to boogie.

Review Quotes:

"Because living musicians fear competition too much to share secrets of success, this manual, we're told, was transcribed during a séance where dead rock stars lectured on profound rock & roll truths. Mary Wells, spelling in spaghetti, and Buddy Holly, scrawling in salt, warned of cruel, social-engineering overlords that both control and fear rock revolutionaries. But the greatest prank the book pulls is camouflaging, beneath astrological and geopolitical inanity, the author's passionately conveyed truths about integrity, artistry, repression, perseverance and the cruelties and joys of the music industry. It seems that even when utilizing a stone-faced, pummeling, punch line-free tone, truths are still best told in jest. And it also seems rock & roll will never die, or if it does, it will still be accessible through spiritualism."
--Time Out Chicago

"Obviously Svenonius's discussion of rock music is far from supernatural. If anything, it debunks the notion that musicians are untouchable, mystical beings by showing just how much planning, how much strategy goes into making a successful group. And while there is a cynicism that pervades this book, Svenonius is nevertheless coming to the topic as a rock 'n' roll fan, a practitioner, and someone who believes truly in the art form."--
Bomblog

"The phenomenon is explained in Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock 'n' Roll Group, a new book by Washington musician, author and general punk provocateur Ian Svenonius. His how-to guide for forming a band is plenty tongue-in-cheek--the advice is presented through the words of dead rock stars contacted via seance--but he hits on some significant truths."
--Washington Post

Biographical Note:

Ian F. Svenonius: Ian F. Svenonius is the author of the underground best seller The Psychic Soviet (Drag City Press 2007). He was also the host of VBS.tv's Soft Focus, a different breed of chat show, where he spoke to people such as Mark E Smith, Genesis P Orridge, Chan Marshall, and Ian Mackaye. As a musician he has created 18 albums and countless singles in various rock 'n' roll combos (Chain & the Gang, Weird War, Make Up, Nation of Ulysses, et al).