I'm Not with the Band

This is a three-decade survivor's tale ... a scenic search for elusive human happiness through music, magazines, silly jokes, stupid shoes, useless blokes, hopeless homes, booze, drugs, love, loss, A&E, death, disillusion and hope - while trying to make Prince laugh, startle Beyonce, cheer Eminem up, annoy Madonna, drink with Shaun Ryder and finish off Westlife forever (with varying degrees of success).

In 1986, Sylvia Patterson boarded a train to London armed with a tea-chest full of vinyl records, a peroxide quiff and a dream: to write about music, for ever. She got her wish.

Escaping a troubled home, Sylvia embarks on a lifelong quest to discover The Meaning of It All. The problem is she's mostly hanging out with flaky pop stars, rock 'n' roll heroes and unreliable hip-hop legends. As she encounters music's biggest names, she is confronted by glamour and tragedy; wisdom and lunacy; drink, drugs and disaster. And Bros.

Here is Madonna in her Earth Mother phase, flinging her hands up in horror at one of Sylv's Very Stupid Questions. Prince compliments her shoes while Eminem threatens to kill her. She shares fruit with Johnny Cash, make-up with Amy Winehouse and several pints with the Manics' lost soul-man Richey Edwards. She finds the Beckhams fragrant in LA, a Gallagher madferrit in her living room and Shaun Ryder and Bez as you'd expect, in Jamaica.

From the 80s to the present day, I'M NOT WITH THE BAND is a funny, barmy, utterly gripping chronicle of the last thirty years in music and beyond. It is also the story of one woman's wayward search for love, peace and a wonderful life. And whether, or not, she found them.

Short-listed for Costa Book Awards: Biography category 2016 (UK) Short-listed for NME Book of the Year Award 2017 (UK) Long-listed for Penderyn Music Book Prize 2017 (UK)

“Celebratory and elegiac , the book documents the last three and half decades in pop and gives an honest account of an exhilarating and gruelling life. Top read.”

A roller-coaster memoir, which also works as a paean to a lost era, when pop (and pop journalism) was flush with cash and kudos Sunday Times (Music Book of the Year)
Great journalism, and also written with a clear, unsentimental eye The Times
Patterson hilariously recounts life on Britain's Brightest Pop Magazine (TM). Funny, anecdote-packed, nostalgic but also very touching The Pool
Celebratory and elegiac, I'm Not with the Band documents the last three and half decades in pop and gives an honest account of an exhilarating and grueling life. Top read. Guardian

Sylvia Patterson is one of pop journalism's best-known voices. Born in Perth, Scotland, she moved to London in 1986, aged twenty, to join Smash Hits as Staff Writer, going on to freelance for NME, The Face, Glamour, Q, Sunday Times and many other publications across the UK and US. Her first memoir, I'm Not With the Band (2016), was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award, the Penderyn Music Book Prize, the NME Awards Book of the Year and won BBC Radio 1 DJ Annie Nightingale's Book of the Year.

This is a three-decade survivor's tale ... a scenic search for elusive human happiness through music, magazines, silly jokes, stupid shoes, useless blokes, hopeless homes, booze, drugs, love, loss, A&E, death, disillusion and hope - while trying to make Prince laugh, startle Beyonce, cheer Eminem up, annoy Madonna, drink with Shaun Ryder and finish off Westlife forever (with varying degrees of success). In 1986, Sylvia Patterson boarded a train to London armed with a tea-chest full of vinyl records, a peroxide quiff and a dream: to write about music, for ever. She got her wish.Escaping a troubled home, Sylvia embarks on a lifelong quest to discover The Meaning of It All. The problem is she's mostly hanging out with flaky pop stars, rock 'n' roll heroes and unreliable hip-hop legends. As she encounters music's biggest names, she is confronted by glamour and tragedy; wisdom and lunacy; drink, drugs and disaster. And Bros.Here is Madonna in her Earth Mother phase, flinging her hands up in horror at one of Sylv's Very Stupid Questions. Prince compliments her shoes while Eminem threatens to kill her. She shares fruit with Johnny Cash, make-up with Amy Winehouse and several pints with the Manics' lost soul-man Richey Edwards. She finds the Beckhams fragrant in LA, a Gallagher madferrit in her living room and Shaun Ryder and Bez as you'd expect, in Jamaica.From the 80s to the present day, I'M NOT WITH THE BAND is a funny, barmy, utterly gripping chronicle of the last thirty years in music and beyond. It is also the story of one woman's wayward search for love, peace and a wonderful life. And whether, or not, she found them.

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