Reviews for A Collector's History of English Pottery

The average rating for A Collector's History of English Pottery based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-07-23 00:00:00 J L Chavez Jr. Without fail, the tale of every old-school punk scene follows the same story arc: 1) A new generation of puberty-afflicted musical misfits, finally fed up with the prog, corporate rock, and boogie-enamored dinosaurs in control of their local FM crotch-rock mothership and local bars - inspired by the Stooges, MC5, Ramones, and British glam – chop off their hair, pick up pawn-shop guitars, and start bashing out three chords of kiloton cretin teenage bop, singers spitting defiance and discontent because they mean it maaaaaaaannnnn, fully convinced that if someone would just give them a chance, they could change the world, if not the music biz, 2) Fans, sycophants, miscellaneous hangers-on, groupies, and the slightly tetched begin to congeal in dive bars all over town like some sort of retroactive ginger ale/saliva/beer/puke liquid mix that has been festering in the sun for two days, all for one, one for all, and every man for himself, fiercely provincial and insular, drinking fountains of liquor and waiting around for Western civilization to slip into anarchy, 3) Unity soon gives way to petty jealousies, rivalries, head games, turf wars, and competition for gigs and pie-in-the-sky record contracts, threatening to bring the whole house of cards down, 4) The kids from the suburbs finally catch on, latch on, and carry on, exhibiting all the charm of winged roaches and behaving just like those crazy punk rockers they’ve read about in Creem and seen on TV, fighting, fucking, and drinking everything in sight, turning a once exclusive club into a giant Tupperware party for assholes, 5) Smack, needle, spoon, rinse, repeat. 6) The end… It was no different in Toronto, maybe even worse as far as the drugs, drinking, and violence go, the kids north of the border definitely NOT alright, the three-headed hydra of local punk - The Viletones, Teenage Head, and The Diodes – playing to packed houses rumbling with all the momentum of a beautifully-orchestrated riot and the Who “stampede” show in Cincinnati. It’s one of life’s great imponderables why the beer wasn’t served in plastic cups instead of glass bottles. Yeah, so I went to a hockey game last night, eh, and a punk rock show broke out. Full disclosure: I’m an easy mark when it comes to oral histories. If I came across one about the potato famine, I’d probably read it. The amount of interview material crammed into this one is staggering. Great book but it should come with a warning: Stow your valuables in the overhead rack, stick your head between your knees, and kiss your ass goodbye.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-05-03 00:00:00 Tim Miller I stumbled across this book quite by accident, while looking for something complete different. I saw it and thought "Wow! I was totally on the periphery of Toronto's punk scene back then. I recognize some of these names, the bands and the music. I went to Lee's Hideaway, I wore safety pins and army jackets, I hung out in a gay punk-n-porn shop on the strip called Queen of Hearts (I remember looking at Tom of Finland t-shirts when a high school teacher come out of 'the back room' and said hi. He signed my year book that year with 'To the Queen Of Hearts'). Good times! Let me relive my wild youth!" So I read the book. Well, I started to read the book, then I started to skim the book. Then I just stopped reading the book. So many of the musician I thought were awesome, smart, angry radicals in the late 70s and early 80s... were actually f*cking jerks. Those biting, angry lyrics about topical news were, I see now, not important social commentary supporting the oppressed and downtrodden, but sexist, racist, homophobic bile. Not all, of course, but enough. Henry Rollins once said "Half of life is f*cking up, the other half is dealing with it.” I get the sense that many of the people in this book are ignoring the other half.