Showing posts with label Sparks-Tastic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sparks-Tastic. Show all posts
Wednesday, 7 August 2013
Friday, 19 July 2013
Once there is an illustration of one's self, I feel I made the big time. Illustration by Amy Hagemeier http://akhhka.blogspot.com/ for L.A. Record, which by the way has a fantastic interview with yours truly regarding "Sparks-Tastic" and other subject matters.
Thursday, 4 July 2013
Los Angeles Review of Books did a focus on "In The Words Of Sparks... Selected Lyrics" With three lyrics plus a short introduction by yours truly for this specific great website.
read it here: http://lareviewofbooks.org/
Friday, 28 June 2013
 |
| Painting by Lun*na Menoh |
Thank you Colin and the Los Angeles Review of Books:
http://lareviewofbooks.org/
Sunday, 16 June 2013
Monday, 10 June 2013
Wednesday, 29 May 2013
A review from City Lights from Garrett Caples:
When I last wrote I was previewing Tosh Berman’s upcoming appearance at City Lights in support of his brand-new memoir, Sparks-Tastic: Twenty-One Nights with Sparks in London (A Barnacle Book, 2013). Given the exigencies of scheduling—copies wouldn’t arrive from the printer until the night of the reading—I didn’t have the chance to read the book beforehand, so I took the opportunity to quiz Tosh on its contents based on my own recently acquired knowledge of the band, combined with the experience of having caught the opening night of the US leg of their Two Hands, One Mouth tour only a week or so earlier. Anyway, Tosh gave his reading and killed it, and I longed to read the entire thing by the end. And I did and holy shit, is this a great book! Berman has done an enviable thing. In the casual guise of a pop cultural meditation—a memoir about attending Sparks’ recreation of their entire catalog, album by album, including bonus tracks as encores, over the course of 21 nights in London in 2008, culminating in the debut of their new album, Exotic Creatures of the Deep—he has written one of those great French memoirs of desire like Breton’s Nadja (1928), and the fact that the object of desire in this case is a pop group in no way diminishes or trivializes Sparks-Tastic as an example of such writing. Certainly I can relate to the intense adolescent identification with one’s favorite music, and the fact that Sparks continually evolves made the group something that carried over into Berman’s adulthood. Because they all live in L.A., Tosh eventually meets both Ron and Russell Mael of Sparks separately, by chance, and becomes their friend. Thus Sparks’ decision to spend the better part of a month in London playing their entire corpus triggers something like a mid-life crisis in Berman; he can’t afford to, but he must go, and he vows to write a book about the experience to give this irrational decision just the slightest sheen of rationality. But too this adds the burden of expectation in order to court the fear of failure, and in this he confronts the essential creative/psychological demon of his existence: being the son of a famous artist, Wallace Berman. Tosh negotiates all this with a light touch, and there’s a passage concerning his failed attempt to learn the hairdressing trade at his worried father’s insistence that’s both poignant and hysterical, and has little overt relation to Sparks; yet Sparks provide a constant parallel across the length of his life, even as other choice bands (The Doors, Them, The NY Dolls) make fleeting cameos.
Only Sparks could have provoked the crisis in him that results in this book.
In honor of Berman’s achievement, I conducted a second interview, where I probe some of his biases about the Sparks oeuvre as revealed by Sparks-Tastic and air some of my own ongoing obsessions with the group.
And you can read the rest of the interview here:
http://www.blogcitylights.com/2013/05/29/blog-that-sucker-more-on-tosh-berman-and-sparks-tastic-by-garrett-caples/
When I last wrote I was previewing Tosh Berman’s upcoming appearance at City Lights in support of his brand-new memoir, Sparks-Tastic: Twenty-One Nights with Sparks in London (A Barnacle Book, 2013). Given the exigencies of scheduling—copies wouldn’t arrive from the printer until the night of the reading—I didn’t have the chance to read the book beforehand, so I took the opportunity to quiz Tosh on its contents based on my own recently acquired knowledge of the band, combined with the experience of having caught the opening night of the US leg of their Two Hands, One Mouth tour only a week or so earlier. Anyway, Tosh gave his reading and killed it, and I longed to read the entire thing by the end. And I did and holy shit, is this a great book! Berman has done an enviable thing. In the casual guise of a pop cultural meditation—a memoir about attending Sparks’ recreation of their entire catalog, album by album, including bonus tracks as encores, over the course of 21 nights in London in 2008, culminating in the debut of their new album, Exotic Creatures of the Deep—he has written one of those great French memoirs of desire like Breton’s Nadja (1928), and the fact that the object of desire in this case is a pop group in no way diminishes or trivializes Sparks-Tastic as an example of such writing. Certainly I can relate to the intense adolescent identification with one’s favorite music, and the fact that Sparks continually evolves made the group something that carried over into Berman’s adulthood. Because they all live in L.A., Tosh eventually meets both Ron and Russell Mael of Sparks separately, by chance, and becomes their friend. Thus Sparks’ decision to spend the better part of a month in London playing their entire corpus triggers something like a mid-life crisis in Berman; he can’t afford to, but he must go, and he vows to write a book about the experience to give this irrational decision just the slightest sheen of rationality. But too this adds the burden of expectation in order to court the fear of failure, and in this he confronts the essential creative/psychological demon of his existence: being the son of a famous artist, Wallace Berman. Tosh negotiates all this with a light touch, and there’s a passage concerning his failed attempt to learn the hairdressing trade at his worried father’s insistence that’s both poignant and hysterical, and has little overt relation to Sparks; yet Sparks provide a constant parallel across the length of his life, even as other choice bands (The Doors, Them, The NY Dolls) make fleeting cameos.
Only Sparks could have provoked the crisis in him that results in this book.
In honor of Berman’s achievement, I conducted a second interview, where I probe some of his biases about the Sparks oeuvre as revealed by Sparks-Tastic and air some of my own ongoing obsessions with the group.
And you can read the rest of the interview here:
http://www.blogcitylights.com/2013/05/29/blog-that-sucker-more-on-tosh-berman-and-sparks-tastic-by-garrett-caples/
Sunday, 5 May 2013
Saturday, 4 May 2013
For those who want to read an excerpt of my book "Sparks-Tastic" and interview do go here:
http://denniscooper-theweaklings.blogspot.com/2013/05/spotlight-on-tosh-berman-sparks-tastic.html?zx=3b5bc82080685e2c
http://denniscooper-theweaklings.blogspot.com/2013/05/spotlight-on-tosh-berman-sparks-tastic.html?zx=3b5bc82080685e2c
Wednesday, 1 May 2013
ISBN: 9780983925583
$14.00
Published by A Barnacle Book (Distribution by Publishers Group West)
Publication Date: May 14, 2013
In 2008, Tosh Berman--author and publisher of TamTam Books--got on a plane with a single motive: "Sparks Spectacular." It had been announced that the band Sparks would perform all twenty-one of their albums in a succession of twenty-one nights in London...a monumental experience for any Sparks fanatic. Part travel journal, part personal memoir, Berman takes us through the streets of London and Paris, observing both cities' history and culture through the eye of an obsessive Sparks fan's lens. Including album-by-album reviews of all twenty-one albums and beyond, "Sparks-Tastic" defines a place and time in music history that's too defining to be ignored.
And at the moment, Book Soup, Stories, Powell's Books, and City Lights have signed copies in their stock. Do contact them (easily findable on the Internet) and they will mail it out to you.
Sunday, 28 April 2013
Ladies and Gentlemen (and anyone else) of Los Angeles, I will be doing a reading/signing/chit-chat for my book "Sparks-Tastic" at Book Soup on Monday April 29th at 7:00 PM. For those who can't make it to the reading or from some other part of the world, one can contact the store at 310-659-3110 to pre-order a book. Do enjoy.
Thursday, 18 April 2013
ISBN: 9780983925583
$14.00
Published by A Barnacle Book (Distribution by Publishers Group West)
Publication Date: May 14, 2013
In 2008, Tosh Berman--author and publisher of TamTam Books--got on a plane with a single motive: "Sparks Spectacular." It had been announced that the band Sparks would perform all twenty-one of their albums in a succession of twenty-one nights in London...a monumental experience for any Sparks fanatic. Part travel journal, part personal memoir, Berman takes us through the streets of London and Paris, observing both cities' history and culture through the eye of an obsessive Sparks fan's lens. Including album-by-album reviews of all twenty-one albums and beyond, "Sparks-Tastic" defines a place and time in music history that's too defining to be ignored.
2013 Book Tour:
April 21: Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Rare Bird Booth No. 065. Signing books from 12:30 to 1:00 P.M.
April 23: Stories Books in Los Angeles (Echo Park)
April 24: City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco
April 25: Powell's Bookstore in Portland, OR
April 29: Book Soup in West Hollywood (Los Angeles)
More to come.....
Right now due to the reading tour that will soon take place, the book "Sparks-Tastic" is available at the above independent bookstores. Feel free to contact them if you want to pre-order a signed copy of the book by yours truly.
On May 14, "Sparks-Tastic" will be officially released and one can get it on their favorite online shops as well as Independent bookstores through out the U.S.A and the U.K. Also I imagine various music stores will be carrying this title as well. And remember, if you can shop at your favorite neighborhood bookstore or music shop please do so.
- Tosh Berman
Wednesday, 17 April 2013
Tuesday, 16 April 2013
Sunday, 14 April 2013
Friday, 12 April 2013
Tuesday, 2 April 2013
In 2008, Tosh Berman—author and publisher of TamTam Books—got on a plane with a single motive: “Sparks Spectacular.” It had been announced that the band Sparks would perform all twenty-one of their albums in a succession of twenty-one nights in London…a monumental experience for any Sparks fanatic. Part travel journal, part personal memoir, Berman takes us through the streets of London and Paris, observing both cities’ history and culture through the eye of an obsessive Sparks fan’s lens. Including album-by-album reviews of all twenty-one albums and beyond, Sparks-Tastic defines a place and time in music history that’s too defining to be ignored.
Tosh Berman, author of "Sparks-Tastic: Twenty-One Nights With Sparks in London" (A Barnacle Book) will be doing a small West Coast Reading & Signing Tour in April 2013. The dates so far:
Tuesday April 23rd; 7 PM
Stories Books and Cafe
1716 West Sunset Boulevard
Los Angeles (Echo Park), CA 90026-3225
Phone number 213-3733
http://www.storiesla.com/#home
Wednesday April 24th; 7 PM
City Lights Booksellers
261 Columbus Avenue at Broadway
San Francisco, CA 94133
Phone Number 415-362-4921
http://www.citylights.com/info/?fa=events
Thursday April 25th; 7:30 PM
Powell's City of Books on Burnside
1005 W Burnside
Portland, OR
Phone Number 800-878-7323
http://www.powells.com/calendar.html
Monday April 29; 7 PM
Book Soup
8818 Sunset Blvd
West Hollywood, CA 90069
Phone number 310-659-3110
http://www.booksoup.com/author-events?page=1
Wednesday, 27 March 2013
COMING MAY 14TH FROM RARE BIRD BOOKS!
SPARKS-TASTIC: TWENTY-ONE NIGHTS IN LONDON WITH SPARKS
by Tosh Berman
In 2008, Tosh Berman—author and publisher of TamTam Books—got on a plane with a single motive: "Sparks Spectacular." It had been announced that the band Sparks would perform all twenty-one of their albums in a succession of twenty-one nights in London...a monumental experience for any Sparks fanatic. Part travel journal, part personal memoir, Berman takes us through the streets of London and Paris, observing both cities' history and culture through the eye of an obsessive Sparks fan's lens. Including album-by-album reviews of all twenty-one albums and beyond, Sparks-Tastic defines a place and time in music history that's too defining to be ignored.
(A Barnacle Book)
Wednesday, 16 January 2013
Adding the finishing touches to my book "Sparks-Tastic: Twenty-One Nights With Sparks in London." It is hard to say goodbye to the writing. If I had the choice, I would like to work on this book for the next 20 or so years. But alas, I have a date with destiny by the name of A Barnacle Book - my publisher. The book will come out this Spring 2013.
The cover is a painting by Lun*na Menoh, and it's a portrait of Ron Mael and Russell Mael (Sparks) from the album cover "Big Beat." The painting is one of a series of portraits of rock n' roll figures with dirty white collars. Lun*na collects men's dirty white collars and what she does with them is document the collars by its brand and country. And afterwards she either makes individual sculptures of each shirt collar, or make an oil-paint portrait of them. Lately she has been using her collection of dirty collars and making wearable clothing. For instance she made a formal wedding gown, as well as accessories such as purses, motorcycle helmet, jackets, pants, and so forth. including a bed, tea cups, and furniture - all made my men's dirty white collars.
To see more of her work, go here: www.lunnamenoh.com
The book will have 21 chapters, each one devoted to a specific Sparks' show and album. But keep in mind that this book is not a biography of the band. It is more about my love for their music and culture. Since the shows took place in London, there is a lot of information and commentary on that great city as well as Paris. The book is a journal, but it goes into the world of Sparks as well as my mental state at the time of the shows. More information later!
Ciao,
Tosh
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