Storytelling

I've just read a book about Belle and Sebastian, Just a Modern Rock Story, by a music journalist called Paul Whitlaw.

It's way too long for what it contains, and the style in which it is written is strictly for fans only. If you are not one, you will probably find that it irritates you no end. I guess it is strictly written from an admirer's perspective and the story of the band and its members are strictly narrated as a "rock story", and not situated within some bigger context. As a consequence you find too many fancy adjectives describing the band members and their music, and not much substance on their significance and the circumstances that aided their rise to fame. There was very little which the book tells you that you, as a fan, do not know already. Unless you count the following:

- The "curiously ageless" Stuart Murdoch is the same age as me!
- He is also colour-blind and suffered from M.E. for many years!
- Richard refused to be any part of the book!
- Stevie is Stuart's biggest fan!
- The author hates Isobel and portrays her in a kind of Yoko Ono role!


That's about all the juicy gory details I did not know prior to reading this book.