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March 28, 2024, 09:38:14 PM

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Essential LAD books of the 90's

Started by Blue Jam, August 28, 2021, 08:15:52 PM

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BJBMK2

Quote from: Chollis on September 01, 2021, 05:22:46 PM


Certainly, although Playstation Magazine skirted the edges of LADishness, in the 90's. Case in point, ole Crash there beating out Lara Croft for the cover.

They wouldn't go full on LADS LADS LADS until the PS2 era, when it literally became unreadable. It was if a 15 year old had been told what Loaded magazine was, without actually being given a copy.

Kankurette

Tangent, but I will never understand the point of football hooliganism.

Blue Jam

Quote from: Chollis on September 01, 2021, 05:22:46 PM


Meh, I was all about Digitiser. And I didn't even own a console then.

I wonder how big the Tokyo Game Show was, and if anyone present could have begun to imagine an event on the sheer scale of E3.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: Kankurette on September 01, 2021, 07:23:43 PM
Tangent, but I will never understand the point of football hooliganism.

I read The Football Factory in the 90s after a friend lent it to me, and the general sentiment appeared to be "If you worked in a factory job you hated all week you'd end up wanting to smash someone's face in at the weekend", but little more than that, and I've no idea why the book was so highly regarded.



sevendaughters



Blue Jam

Oh good one. I remember that although I haven't read it and still can't name a single Motley Crue song. I just remember them as that band whose singer was married to Pamela Anderson (a thread on 90's power couples anyone?) and how Tommy Saxondale dismissed his neighbour's recommendation of a documentary on them with "Motley Crue? Does he think I'm 15?"

See also:



Actually read this one myself a few years back. Sorely disappointing. For a book written by two quite intelligent chaps and which details a load of debauchery and is probably about 95% pure fiction it isn't half boring and Ol' Brian just comes across as a deeply unpleasant arsehole. Needless to say I wasn't remotely surprised when he was #CANCELLED shortly afterwards. And I guess it was written when Neil Strauss spat out the red pill.

Blue Jam

#39
Quote from: sevendaughters on September 02, 2021, 05:18:53 PM
HE'S NOT JUST A BASS PLAYER



Robin Friday. The man on the cover of the Super Furries' The Man Don't Give A Fuck, no less. None more 90's. Even as a big SFA and Oasis fan I was never tempted to get Guigsy's book on the V-flicking footballer. I guess I learned from my experience of Mr. Nice.

Every other book by Paolo Hewitt probably counts too. I trudged through both of his Oasis biogs and even as a fan of the band I didn't like his writing style, or that cringe-inducing poem he wrote for the sleeve of What's The Story?. The second one was actually quite fascinating in hindsight though, as it was written while the band seemed to be getting on well but published about a week after both Bonehead and Guigsy had quit the band. It gave a few clues as to why, mainly that Liam was being an insufferable aggressive twat.

This was the only Oasis biog that was ever worth reading. Written by an ex-Elite Forces toff (who declared dealing with Liam Gallagher to have been infinitely more stressful than military service), also 90's AF:


Famous Mortimer


Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: Blue Jam on August 28, 2021, 11:42:58 PM
On the subject of Partridge, how could I have forgotten this classic from 1993?



Come on, own up, who here has actually read this?

I haven't, but I wonder if it actually does improve with every read?


The Culture Bunker

The thread has made me wonder if all those football hooligan memoir type books (of which I've read none) were a reaction against the success of 'Fever Pitch' (which I have read) and the gentrification of the game through the 90s? The whole myth-making around a bunch of sad, confused men battering each other in and around crumbling football grounds, then trashing the train home, always struck me as pathetic but I can see how it appealed to lad culture - all the beer, gang spirit/mentality, even importance of fashion to some degree.

Quote from: Blue Jam on September 02, 2021, 09:37:24 PM
Robin Friday. The man on the cover of the Super Furries' The Man Don't Give A Fuck, no less. None more 90's. Even as a big SFA and Oasis fan I was never tempted to get Guigsy's book on the V-flicking footballer. I guess I learned from my experience of Mr. Nice.


There is possibly a good book to be written about Robin Friday.

A collection of Evening Standard snippets and the odd interview, with very little coherent thread or take, is not it.

Chedney Honks

Vernon God Little? Can't remember when it came out but had a lot of stuff about sweaty tangs.

Keebleman

Quote from: mr. logic on September 02, 2021, 12:10:27 PM
The Brimson brothers.

In the late 90s I worked in the sadly departed Books Etc chain, and many of these covers are familiar to me.  One day I was in the Fenchurch Street branch when a lady from a publisher came in with the Brimsons.  "This is Dougie and Eddy," she said.  "They've written a book."  I was impressed.  From the look of them, I'd have been impressed if she'd told me they'd read a book.

Magnum Valentino

Quote from: Chedney Honks on September 16, 2021, 05:40:59 AM
Vernon God Little? Can't remember when it came out but had a lot of stuff about sweaty tangs.

Oh yeah, forgot I'd ever read this. He said "fucken" instead of "fucking" which when I was about 15 I thought was pretentious. This was about 2001 or so I reckon.

AnOrdinaryBoy

Quote from: Blue Jam on September 01, 2021, 07:42:42 PM
I wonder how big the Tokyo Game Show was, and if anyone present could have begun to imagine an event on the sheer scale of E3.

TGS is very big - in the 90s it was held twice a year but became annual in the early 00s.  The 1998 E3 got 41,000; TGS got over 100,000 for both summer and Autumn shows. As a comparison in more recent times, E3 in 2018 was attended by 69,000 people, TGS 2018 was attended by 298,000 though it must be noted that TGS is much more open to the public than E3 is so it's a bit oranges for apples as a comparison.

E3 carries the bigger cultural footprint in Europe/America for obvious reason , but TGS is just as big a deal if you're Japan based.

dissolute ocelot

Quote from: Chedney Honks on September 16, 2021, 05:40:59 AM
Vernon God Little? Can't remember when it came out but had a lot of stuff about sweaty tangs.
2003, which is a lot longer ago than I thought. The Booker loves novels about naughty boys.

Fever Pitch was mentioned but

And the biggest "lad lit" cunt

The Culture Bunker

We've discussed High Fidelity a couple of times, and I stand by my view that Hornby is far too much of a drip for it to count as a 'lad' book, as well as the music tastes being too retro (references aplenty to Springsteen, Costello etc) for the time.

Kankurette

And Rob is too pathetic. Way too much like one of my exes. Also, I listened to Got to Get You Off My Mind because of that book and...yeah. It was a bit of a letdown.

chveik

looking back a this thread, that sort of trendy 90s literature really hasn't held up one bit.

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: Kankurette on October 07, 2021, 01:23:12 AM
And Rob is too pathetic. Way too much like one of my exes. Also, I listened to Got to Get You Off My Mind because of that book and...yeah. It was a bit of a letdown.
As I said on other threads - Rob Fleming is basically an insight into Hornby's mind. He wants to be the guy who's had loads of girlfriends, who can treat his partner like shit (cheats on her, loans a load of money from her with no intention of repayment, gets her pregnant so she has an abortion etc) and she comes back to him by the end. The only reason it even slightly works in the film is because John Cusack has charisma and is a very good looking chap.

pigamus

Quote from: Blue Jam on August 28, 2021, 11:42:58 PM
On the subject of Partridge, how could I have forgotten this classic from 1993?



Come on, own up, who here has actually read this?

I haven't read it either, but fair play, a woman running a police station in the 1980s can't have been easy

Kankurette

#55
Quote from: The Culture Bunker on October 07, 2021, 08:38:20 AM
As I said on other threads - Rob Fleming is basically an insight into Hornby's mind. He wants to be the guy who's had loads of girlfriends, who can treat his partner like shit (cheats on her, loans a load of money from her with no intention of repayment, gets her pregnant so she has an abortion etc) and she comes back to him by the end. The only reason it even slightly works in the film is because John Cusack has charisma and is a very good looking chap.
And the guy in About a Boy is even worse, though I think there we're supposed to think he's a tool.

ETA: found this old thread by Madhair re the film and yes, the comment about Hornby's Rob's music taste is bang on. I mean, he hates Kate Bush (Laura takes him to meet this couple as a test, to see if he'll like them despite their supposedly crap taste) and some of the stuff she's done is far more inventive than half of the songs High Fidelity raves about.