Buzzin’ by Bez

Buzzin’
The Nine Lives of a Happy Monday
By Bez
(With Andrew Perry)
White Rabbit / HB / 3 November 2022 / £20
(also available as ebook and audio book)

At the height of his initial, turn-of-the-1990's infamy as the maraca-wielding dancer with 'Madchester' giants Happy Mondays, Mark Berry - forever known to the world as Bez - was visibly a danger to society. He became the so-called Chemical Generation's bug-eyed pied piper, every weekend leading millions out to oblivion and beyond, as they adopted his E-gobbling party lifestyle.

Neither an accomplished musician nor even a very good dancer, Bez was a prime candidate for fleeting celebrity, soon to sink into 'Where Are They Now?' obscurity. That, however, never happened, nor does it show any sign of happening. Through Black Grape, the second band he co-fronted with the Mondays' Shaun Ryder, and his ever-presence in the mass media, Bez's popularity has grown exponentially, his star rocketing ever upwards.

When he bowled into Celebrity Big Brother in 2005, he ended up winning the series, as viewers came to understand his fundamental decency and sunny outlook. His adult life has been extraordinary: unbelievable scrapes with mortality, periods of financial ruin, mindfuck moments like when David Bowie genuflected before him, and enough narcotic-strewn hi-jinx to fill several more volumes of memoir.

Written with the assistance of estimable rock and roll ghostwriter, Andrew Perry (John Lydon, Tricky), this is the story of a bad lad who has turned his life good, tracing his passage from early-thirty-something casualty to middle-aged politician, eco-warrior and bee-aficionado.

‘There is no one like Bez: you could literally throw him out of a helicopter at 60,000 feet and he would land in somebody’s extra-deep swimming pool, get out they would cook him Sunday dinner – and let him stay the night! Shaun Ryder on Bez

Access All Areas by Barbara Charone

Memoir from the writer and music PR legend Barbara Charone, telling the story of a music-obsessed girl from Chicago who falls in love with British counter-culture, destined to re-shape it for multiple generations

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Access All Areas
A Backstage Pass Through 50 Years of Music and Culture
By Barbara Charone
Foreword by Elvis Costello
White Rabbit / HB / 23 June 2022 / £20

Access All Areas: A Backstage Pass Through 50 Years of Music and Culture tells the story of how a music-loving, budding journalist from a Chicago suburb became the defining music publicist of her generation. With an exclusive foreword from Elvis Costello, Barbara Charone’s debut memoir is a time capsule of the last fifty years, told through the lens of music, from the incredible woman who set the cultural agenda in her work with a myriad of stars including Keith Richards, Foo Fighters, REM, Rod Stewart and Madonna.

First as a journalist and then a publicist at Warner Brothers Records for nearly twenty years, Barbara Charone has experienced, first-hand, the changes in the cultural landscape. Access All Areas is a personal, insightful and humorous memoir packed with stories of being on the cultural frontline, from first writing press releases on a typewriter driven by Tip Ex, then as a press officer for heavy metal bands taking the bus up to Donnington Festival with coffee, croissants and the much more popular sulfate. To taking on Madonna, an unknown girl from Detroit, and telling Smash Hits 'you don't have to run the piece if the single doesn't chart', and becoming a true pioneer in music, Charone continues to work with the biggest names in music, including Depeche Mode, Robert Plant, Foo Fighters and Mark Ronson at her agency MBCPR.

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ABOUT Barbara Charone

Born in Chicago, Barbara Charone moved to London after graduating from Northwestern University. The first half of her career was spent as a music journalist working for NME, Sounds, Rolling Stone, Crawdaddy and Cream before writing the authorised biography Keith Richards: Life As A Rolling Stone in 1979.

In November 2000, after almost 20 years at Warner Brothers, Barbara co-founded leading independent music agency MBCPR with Moira Bellas where she still works now. Within six months it became one of the country’s top music PR firms. The current client roster includes: Madonna, Mark Ronson, Foo Fighters, Elvis Costello, Keith Richards, Rod Stewart, Kasabian, Metallica, Depeche Mode, Texas, Rag’n’Bone Man, St Vincent, Pearl Jam, Olly Murs, Ray Davies  and Rufus Wainwright.

Barbara Charone is one of the most respected women working in the music business. In November 2001, Charone and her business partner, Moira Bellas, were honoured as Women of the Year by Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy and The Brit Trust and in 2006 and 2009 won the coveted Music Week PR Award.

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Hey Hi Hello by Annie Nightingale

‘[Annie Nightingale] is completely inspirational . . . The book is a riveting read’ DJ Magazine

‘Absolutely terrific’ David Quantick

‘A marvellous memoir’ Louder Than War

 ‘A joy to read’ Guardian

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Hey Hi Hello
Five Decades of Pop Culture from Britain's broadcasting DJ pioneer
By Annie Nightingale
White Rabbit/ 2nd September 2021/ Paperback/ £9.99

Featuring never exclusive interviews with The Beatles, Bob Marley, David Bowie, Billie Eilish and Primal Scream among others. 

Hey Hi Hello is a greeting we have all become familiar with, as Annie Nightingale cues up another show on BBC Radio 1. Always in tune with the nation's taste, yet effortlessly one step ahead for more than five decades, in this book Annie digs deep into her crate of memories, experiences and encounters to deliver an account of a life lived on the frontiers of pop cultural innovation.

Annie Nightingale was the first female DJ on the BBC and has the longest running radio show on BBC Radio 1, celebrating her 50 years in broadcasting in 2020. As a writer, DJ and broadcaster on radio, tv and the live music scene, Annie has been an invigorating and necessarily disruptive force, working within the establishment but never playing by the rules. She walked in the door at Radio 1 as a rebel, its first female broadcaster, in 1970. Fifty years later she became the station's first CBE in the New Year's Honours List; still a vital force in British music, a DJ and tastemaker who commands the respect of artists, listeners and peers across the world.

Hey Hi Hello tells the story of those early, intimidating days at Radio 1, the Ground Zero moment of punk and the epiphanies that arrived in the late 80s with the arrival of acid house and the Second Summer of Love. It includes faithfully reproduced and never before seen encounters with Bob Marley, Marc Bolan, The Beatles and bang-up-to-date interviews with Little Simz and Billie Eilish. 

Funny, warm and candid to a fault, Annie Nightingale's memoir is driven by the righteous energy of discovery and passion for music. It is a portrait of an artist without whom the past fifty years of British culture would have looked very different indeed.

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ABOUT ANNIE NIGHTINGALE

Annie Nightingale CBE began her career as a journalist, columnist and fashion boutique owner. She was the first female DJ on BBC Radio 1 and is now the stations longest serving broadcaster, celebrating 50 years at the BBC last year.

Annie was the first female DJ from Radio 1 to be inducted into the Radio Academy Hall of Fame, and she received a special Gold Award at the Sony Radio Academy Awards. She won the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Audio Production Awards in 2020 and was awarded MBE by The Queen in 2000. She is an ambassador of The Princes’ Trust and patron of Sound Women, an organisation to promote women in broadcasting.

As well as touring the world as a live DJ, she has also released music compilation collections, including Annie On One (Heavenly) and Masterpiece (Ministry of Sound), and two volumes of autobiography, Chase the Fade and Wicked Speed.

In 2020 BBC Four devoted a night's TV to Annie, including two new documentaries about punk and post punk music. This reflected Annie's tenure as the only ever female anchor of the legendary BBC TV music series, The Old Grey Whistle Test. Annie was interviewed on Desert Island Discs in 2020.

Note:
The photography section includes photographs from Annie's personal collection. Featuring Mick Jagger, Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys, Little Simz, Billie Eilish, and a series of recently discovered backstage pictures from the height of Beatlemania with The Fab Four.  

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‘Annie was important to me back when I was a teenager, when not only was she one of the few people playing records I liked, she was a WOMAN doing it, which was inspirational to me. I wrote about her in my book Another Planet, where I quote a diary entry from 1978 which listed things I was loving in between watching Bowie on tv and taping a Bruce Springsteen album, the entry simply says, ‘Listened to Annie Nightingale’.’  - Tracey Thorn
 

‘I can’t imagine what growing up without Annie Nightingale would have been like. I don’t want to contemplate the limitations that would have been imposed on my cultural life and my own ambitions in that sphere without her presence. Thank god I don’t have to and she was there every step of the way from a voice on the radio to an enthusiastic comrade in the chill out zone and post-rave party.’ - Irvine Welsh

‘It wasn’t until I heard Annie Nightingale on Sunday evenings after the chart rundown that I understood what music radio could be. Nightingale had a broader music taste than, say, John Peel, but was alternative enough to introduce me to songs I never would otherwise have heard. She’s still on Radio 1 now, at the very Nightingale time of 1am. She still plays tracks I hate, tracks I love. She’s still the best.’
Miranda Sawyer - ‘Top 50 inspiring cultural icons’, Observer

‘Full of brilliant anecdotes, this autobiography offers a rare insight into a woman who has lived at the forefront of pop culture’ - The Sun 

‘Jam-packed with stories and events that span decades of music and culture, from the Beatles via Marc Bolan to Primal Scream and Little Simz . . . very hard to put down’ - Buzz Magazine

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Hey Hi Hello by Annie Nightingale

Hey Hi Hello
Five Decades of Pop Culture from Britain's First Female DJ
By Annie Nightingale
White Rabibit / 3 September 2020 / hardback, e-book and audio / £18.99

50 stories and encounters in the inimitable voice of Annie Nightingale, celebrating 50 years of broadcasting and presenting at the BBC.

Featuring never before seen exclusive interview with The Beatles, Billie Eilish, Bob Marley and Primal Scream among others

Hey Hi Hello is a greeting we have all become familiar with, as Annie Nightingale cues up another show on BBC Radio 1. Always in tune with the nation's taste, yet effortlessly one step ahead for more than five decades, in this book Annie digs deep into her crate of memories, experiences and encounters to deliver an account of a life lived on the frontiers of pop cultural innovation.

Annie Nightingale was the first female DJ on the BBC and the Guinness World Record holder for the longest running radio show on BBC Radio 1. As a DJ and broadcaster on radio, tv and the live music scene, Annie has been an invigorating and necessarily disruptive force, working within the establishment but never playing by the rules. She walked in the door at Radio 1 as a rebel, its first female broadcaster, in 1970. Fifty years later she became the station's first CBE in the New Year's Honours List; still a vital force in British music, a DJ and tastemaker who commands the respect of artists, listeners and peers across the world.

Hey Hi Hello tells the story of those early, intimidating days at Radio 1, the Ground Zero moment of punk and the epiphanies that arrived in the late 80s with the arrival of acid house and the Second Summer of Love. It includes faithfully reproduced and never before seen encounters with Bob Marley, Marc Bolan, The Beatles and bang-up-to-date interviews with Little Simz and Billie Eilish.

Funny, warm and candid to a fault, Annie Nightingale's memoir is driven by the righteous energy of discovery and passion for music. It is a portrait of an artist without whom the past fifty years of British culture would have looked very different indeed.

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About the author

Annie Nightingale CBE began her career as a journalist, columnist and fashion boutique owner. She was the first female DJ on BBC Radio 1 and is now the stations longest serving broadcaster, celebrating 50 years at the BBC this year.

Annie was the first female DJ from Radio 1 to be inducted into the Radio Academy Hall of Fame, and she received a special Gold Award at the Sony Radio Academy Awards. She was awarded MBE by The Queen in 2000, was made an honorary Doctor of Letters at the University of Westminster in December 2012. She is an ambassador of The Princes’ Trust and patron of Sound Women, an organisation to promote women in broadcasting.

As well as touring the world as a live DJ, she has also released music compilation collections, including Annie On One (Heavenly) and Masterpiece (Ministry of Sound), and two volumes of autobiography, Chase the Fade and Wicked Speed.

Annie’s 50th anniversary at Radio 1 in 2020 will be marked by two documentaries on BBC TV, a series of events on Radio 1.

Annie lives in West London.

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“Annie was important to me back when I was a teenager, when not only was she one of the few people playing records I liked, she was a WOMAN doing it, which was inspirational to me. I wrote about her in my book Another Planet, where I quote a diary entry from 1978 which listed things I was loving in between watching Bowie on tv and taping a Bruce Springsteen album, the entry simply says, ‘Listened to Annie Nightingale’.”

— Tracey Thorn

“I can’t imagine what growing up without Annie Nightingale would have been like. I don’t want to contemplate the limitations that would have been imposed on my cultural life and my own ambitions in that sphere without her presence. Thank god I don’t have to and she was there every step of the way from a voice on the radio to an enthusiastic comrade in the chill out zone and post-rave party.”

— Irvine Welsh

“It wasn’t until I heard Annie Nightingale on Sunday evenings after the chart rundown that I understood what music radio could be. Nightingale had a broader music taste than, say, John Peel, but was alternative enough to introduce me to songs I never would otherwise have heard. She’s still on Radio 1 now, at the very Nightingale time of 1am. She still plays tracks I hate, tracks I love. She’s still the best.”

— Miranda Sawyer - ‘Top 50 inspiring cultural icons’, Observer