Cider with Roadies (Maconie)

Maconie charts his early life from claims of an early encounter with the Beatles to 70s pop, into prog and discovery of the Northern soul scene before punk blasted everything away ... briefly. He paints the colours of the passing decades in flower power purple, beige polyester, baggy trousers, ripped jeans before returning to beige polyester with the Happy Mondays in Madchester 1989. Love or hate his choice in music, his passion for all music carries you along. The early highlights are avoiding the flying beerpots in a biker club with a band that only knows a handful of songs, massed battles on the dancefloor while discovering Northern Soul and being a punk in South Lancashire 1977. He goes on to drop out of university, take jobs he hates and eventually land the coveted title of music journalist with NME.

He intertwines his own history with tales of minor rock excess, following 80s bands around the world, a slightly more grown up version of 70s rock journalism. Some of the stories are laugh-out-loud funny - best not read on the early morning commuter train. With a cast of characters from his youth, wraggle-taggle teenage bands to the rock celebrities, this is a story charts the course of a generation of forty somethings