STEVE HACKETT - A Genesis In My Bed - Book discussion

  • Having read this book already, there is some interesting stories within it.


    For us though, it didn't go into song writing, album sessions, tours or anything like that in any great detail.


    Which is a pity, that said its a good book and Steve is fair to all of his former band mates.


    TGA

    • Official Post

    About what and what?

    Tony was quite furious in our interview when I asked him about these books

    https://www.genesis-news.com/c…rd-January-2018-s665.html

    (towards the end of the interview)


    about Steve: just curious about the focus of his book ...

  • Tony was quite furious in our interview when I asked him about these books

    https://www.genesis-news.com/c…rd-January-2018-s665.html

    (towards the end of the interview)


    about Steve: just curious about the focus of his book ...

    Ok thanks.


    Hmmm. I wonder therefore, what would TB's view be of the Revolution In The Head style of Genesis book I was thinking about. Like the Beatles book, it would focus entirely on the songs and in a different, more forensic way than the song-by-song book mentioned before.

    Abandon all reason

  • Ok thanks.


    Hmmm. I wonder therefore, what would TB's view be of the Revolution In The Head style of Genesis book I was thinking about. Like the Beatles book, it would focus entirely on the songs and in a different, more forensic way than the song-by-song book mentioned before.

    Yes although Mark Lewisholm did a similar book on The Beatles, charting every day in a kind of archive/diary style for The Beatles. It gave us at The Genesis Archive the idea for how we approach our website design/strategy. We even took a copy of the book with us when we interviewed Steve Hackett for our sister website, a quick 5 minute discussion gave us the impression it was going to be a good idea. It has since opened up a number of opportunities for us.


    TGA

  • My (signed) copy arrived today, which was a bit of a surprise, as I hadn't ordered it!


    But, as it turns out, my daughter had! :*


    Only had a quick flick through, first impressions are , it seems a tad lightweight, not likely to learn much I don't already know. His ex-wife does crop up, but I don't think there will be much controversy stirred up.

    Ian


    Putting the old-fashioned Staffordshire plate in the dishwasher!

  • Mine arrived too yesterday, started reading and judging from the first few pages it's going to be a little harder to read for me as a non-native speaker since Steve's language seems more elaborate than other autobiographies I read this far. But I'll make my way through it. :)

  • Wow, I am really enjoying this book. Steve paints such a vivid picture of living in post-war London. A lot of details resemble a lot what my parents told me about their childhoods: bombed out house ruins inviting kids to explore them despite the danger, the smog and the careless belief in technical progress with utter ignorance of any toxic side effects of factory fumes, the dire need of that time for an escape in a sound movie world to forget the horrors of the war, cruel teachers at school who would get violent for no apparent reason (for a kid's mind that is) and the scary kids who had to see too many things they could not cope with in their young age so they developed strange habits, etc. This is living history.

  • Wow, I am really enjoying this book. Steve paints such a vivid picture of living in post-war London. A lot of details resemble a lot what my parents told me about their childhoods: bombed out house ruins inviting kids to explore them despite the danger, the smog and the careless belief in technical progress with utter ignorance of any toxic side effects of factory fumes, the dire need of that time for an escape in a sound movie world to forget the horrors of the war, cruel teachers at school who would get violent for no apparent reason (for a kid's mind that is) and the scary kids who had to see too many things they could not cope with in their young age so they developed strange habits, etc. This is living history.

    I've finished it (only took a couple of sessions). I don't see the need to add a spoiler alert as there are no shocks in it.


    You're right about his descrpition of his childhood, which I found similar to Phil's. His health problems and up & down relationship with his parents were well documented.


    But after that it got to usee Foxfeeder's word, lightweight. There was no new light shed on the Genesis years and it must be said that his attention to Mike Rutherford added up to maybe one page in the entire book. Particularly strange was a passage when he was talking about the band members' favourite music & he says 'Mike loved Joni Mitchell' in a one sentence paragraph which seems to suggest derision. He is very positive about the others.


    His personal life was just skated over. There was quite a bit about an early girlfriend who was a drug addict. I didn't even know he was married to a German woman & had a son called Oliver. The Kim Poor marriage was ignored except for 'legal proceedings' concerning the divorce.


    He's very interesting about his solo work & how he approaches songwriting & playing, but I would have liked to know more about what made him decide to start singing, as he wasn't know for that. The 'spritualism' stuff where he claims to be able to cure headaches & suchlike I found somewhat strange. His feelings about world events & other musicians are well told.


    So I would rate it well behind Phil's & Mike's books overall.

  • I wasn’t expecting any great revelations and so wasn’t disappointed. I thought he wrote well and tried to be positive about everyone. I did think he was open and honest about himself and didn’t feel right about the same levels of revelation about others- which is a credit to him. But I took from it that the greatest tension towards the end of his time with Genesis was with Mike Rutherford- who seemed to support his solo activities and then did an about turn. ( some similarities to Ray’s comments about Mike and the second album from that line up). This is followed up by another comment about Mike regarding his editorial suggestions regarding the documentary. That doesn’t necessarily mean that Rutherford was wrong or did anything wrong- you could argue he was being astute in both cases, but perhaps this was the biggest new insight for me from the book. A gentle and interesting read from a sensitive man I’d say.

  • I can agree with pretty much all of what you said. Mike has already done his share to colour the picture in a similar way: Steve wasn't content with being a guitar player, he had to be a song writer as well, even though his songs were not up to our standards; why does Steve keep performing Genesis material, maybe he should create some original music; etc.. Actually the way Mike always puts it it seemed to me Tony would be on his side every time, having read Steve's book I was surprised about the apparent signs of friendship between Tony and Steve (Tony visiting for lunch etc.). But oh well, at the end of the day, who cares, it's their private business. Other bands had a lot more "tensions" in their histories.

  • Christian

    Changed the title of the thread from “I just pre-ordered Steve's memoir...” to “STEVE HACKETT - A Genesis In My Bed - Book discussion”.
  • Not got the book with me but from memory he’s very warm and positive about Peter, doesn’t say a lot about Phil, very positive about Tony professionally and also positive about him personally. Doesn’t say an awful lot about Mike but maybe the most negative about him. Generally he’s very open about himself and courteous or quiet about the others. No great revelations about any of them.

    • Official Post

    Haven’t read the book myself yet. I started with Mike‘s and never finished it, then unstated with Phil‘s and also didn’t finish it. Probably I just don’t have that much interest in these kinds of books ...

  • I bought it and have started reading. So far it’s interesting, without revealing big things. But then again, Steve’s an open book anyway as he communicates a lot with fans