Bunnyman: a review

 

I don’t often write about music books written by men, because there are plenty of other people to do it, and I’d rather promote women’s history of pop. But I’m going to make an exception for Echo and the Bunnymen guitarist Will Sergeant’s memoir Bunnyman, because I Was There.

Not, like Will, growing up in a council flat, closer to Kirkby than Liverpool. Not going to a comprehensive school that decided who was thick. Not getting a dead-end job in 1970s Liverpool. But I was at Eric’s, the punk-era music club that grew Echo and the Bunnymen, and many more post-punk Scouse stars. I remember it as a golden era, and Will’s book confirms it.

Books that defined my generation. Or not.

My generation.

Douglas Copeland is getting a lot of publicity at the moment. His novel Generation X is 30 years old. Cue lots of nonsense about generation theory. Again.

The Guardian Review carried a piece called The books that defined a generation. There are two things wrong with this concept. 1. Generation theory is nonsense. 2. Generations don’t define themselves by books.