The Church’s Starfish
Over the years I’ve loved collecting and reading books in Bloomsbury’s 33 1/3 series. They’re short and unpredictably divergent volumes in which a music writer or academic discusses a pivotal or forgotten classic album. I’m stoked that my own contribution to the series is about to drop: a book dedicated to an album that, more than any other, for me defined the 1980s and the moment ‘alternative rock’ rose to prominence: The Church’s Starfish.
“It is the best well written account and perfectly expresses the character of the band members as well. I can thoroughly recommend it.”
The Guitar: Tracing the Grain Back to the Tree
By Chris Gibson and Andrew Warren
Winner of the 2023 Woody Guthrie Prize
In 2015, I visited the a guitar factory for the first time, in Melbourne, Australia, with my colleague and close friend, Andrew Warren. At the time we were interested in how things are made – surfboards, cars, guitars – and the skilful people who made them. Andrew turned to me and offhandedly suggested “what if we tried to follow these guitars all the way back to the trees from which they are made?” Six years later, after visiting more factories, as well as sawmills, forests, plantations, farms and log booms around the world, we brought the story together in a book about guitars, the woods from which they are made, and the people and trees who, behind the scenes, are the real guitar heroes.
