Air, The Archies, The Associates, The Association, The Babys, Burt Bacharach, Badfinger, Syd Barrett, The Beta Band, Big Star, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Bee Gees, David Bowie, The Buzzcocks, John Cale, The Carpenters, Johnny Cash, Cheap Trick, Sam Cooke, Chairmen of the Board, The Count Five, Lou Christie, The Delfonics, Neil Diamond, Doris, Bob Dylan, The Electric Prunes, The Flatmates, Fleetwood Mac, The Four Seasons, Bobbie Gentry, Robin Gibb, Philip Glass, The Go-Betweens, Hall and Oates, Francoise Hardy, Lee Hazlewood, Nick Heyward, John Howard, The Human League, Tommy James and the Shondells, Jefferson Airplane, The Kinks, Kraftwerk, The Left Banke, Love, Joe Meek, Mercury Rev, Moby Grape, The Monkees, Pauline Murray and the Invisible Girls, The New York Dolls, Randy Newman, The Nightblooms, Harry Nilsson, The Osmonds, Shuggie Otis, The Osmonds, Plush, Procol Harum, Brian Protheroe, Lou Reed, Minnie Ripperton, The Roches, The Rolling Stones, Todd Rundgren, The Shoes, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra, Joe South, Super Furry Animals, Strawberry Switchblade, Television, This Mortal Coil, T.Rex, Townes Van Zandt, Scott Walker, Jimmy Webb, Stevie Wonder, The Who, The Young Knives
Movies
Adaptation, Aguirre, Wrath of God, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, The Apartment, Being There, Bleak Moments, Blue Velvet, Breathless, Carnival of Souls, Charade, Chinatown, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Days of Heaven, Detour, The Exorcist, Happiness, Heimat, It's a Wonderful Life, King Kong, Koyaanisqatsi, Last Summer, Little Big Man, M, Metropolis, The Night of the Hunter, O' Lucky Man!, Pandora's Box, Paper Moon, Peeping Tom, Persona, The Purple Rose of Cairo, The Realm of the Senses, The Royal Tennenbaums, The Rutles, The Shining, Shock Corridor, Smile, Sweet Smell of Success, The Swimmer, Switchblade Sisters, Taxi Driver, That Man From Rio, The Wicker Man, Vertigo
Television
Peep Show, The Sopranos, Life On Mars, Doctor Who, Modern Toss
Books
F. Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby, James Joyce - Ulysses, William March - The Bad Seed, Nathaniel West - The Day of the Locust, Iris Murdoch - Under the Net, Keith Waterhouse - Billy Liar, Terry Southern and Mason Hoffernberg - Candy, Ken Kesey - Sometimes a Great Notion, Daniel Defoe - Moll Flanders, Herman Melville - Moby Dick, Evelyn Waugh - The Loved One, John Fowles - The Magus, Cervantes - Don Quixote, J.P. Donleavy - The Ginger Man, Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita, Joseph Conrad - The Secret Agent, Jack Kerouac - On the Road, Jack London - John Barleycorn, Jorge Luis Borges - Ficciones, Paul Bowles - The Sheltering Sky, Guy de Maupassant - The Dark Side, Henry Green - Loving, Hubert Selby Jr. - Last Exit to Brooklyn, Margaret Drabble - The Ice Age, Booth Tarkington - The Magnificent Ambersons, Sinclair Lewis - Babbitt, Ian McEwan - First Summer, Last Rites, J.G. Ballard - Crash, Franz Kafka - Amerika, Charles Dickens - Great Expectations, Albert Camus - The Plague, Jean-Paul Sartre - Nausea, Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre, Truman Capote - The Grass Harp, Evan Hunter- Last Summer, Jean Baudrillard - Simulacra and Simulation, Chuck Barris - Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Jose Saramago - Blindness, Dave Hickey - The Invisible Dragon.
It's the dawn of the nineties in suburban Quirely. Chris and Neil go way back, but now, as they enter their teenage years, Chris is no longer sure he wants Neil as his friend. Neil is embarrassing. Neil is odd. Neil talks about strange things that nobody else knows about, or wants to. And Chris just wants to be popular now that it's time to be seen hanging around outside the gates of the local girls' school. Still, Chris has other interests. He's fallen in love with the instrumental rock stylings of Joe Satriani, and is learning guitar at school in order to emulate his hero, if only he can get the hang of Streets of London first. But there's another boy in his guitar class who's miles ahead of everybody. He's a natural at it, if a bit lazy when it comes to anything else.His name is Ben. It's only a matter of time before Chris and Ben find themselves in a band, Animal Magnets. On drums is Jase, sure of himself and easy-going. The bass player is Thomas Depper, ginger and spectacled, bad-tempered and violent. But who can they get to be their frontman? Although they hate to admit it, there's really only one boy for the job...
"
Flying Saucer Rock 'n' Roll" follows Chris and Neil, Ben, Thomas and Jase through the years, into their teenage golden age and out the other side, where between them they face disillusionment and determination, the nine-to-five grind and art college, Britpop and Brighton. It is a tale of those who are alienated and those who belong, their childhoods lost and adulthoods found, and the fine line they walk between belief and madness. Most of all, it defines a generation, its music and mindset, a reminder of a time just gone, a world lost for ever.
Hound Dog -
A novel of redemption and rock’n’roll, masturbation and morality. Out now in Vintage paperback. A Jonathan Cape original.
He’s an Elvis impersonator who hates Elvis. An ex-con who learnt his craft in prison yards to avoid a beating. Now on the outside he gigs at social clubs in the Cambridge area, fuelled by cocaine, shagging anything that moves (though he’d like his conquests a little less … mature) and bullying and belittling his assistant performers who he cruelly calls Gay and Fat Elvis.
After his performances he dreams about Bridget; the sister who hung herself many years ago. And Eddie. Eddie, the Elvis-loving deviant who changed his life forever … and is willing to help him out again.
Hound Dog is a must-read from an exuberant new talent.
"This summer's essential read" Dan Rhodes
"Phoenix Nights meets American Psycho. In Cambridge." Kevin Sampson
"Hound Dog is distressingly, worryingly funny. With skill and sensitivity Blandford keeps the reader laughing, even through the depravity, even through the despair, even, indeed, through the moments of startling ferocity. Blandford does for fat, middle-aged, coke-addled, sex-deviant Elvis impersonators what Peter Guralnick has done for the man himself." Niall Griffiths
Online Now!
