<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: HOLY GRAIL,VOLUME ONE !
Review: I'm a french TR fan and i'm just finishing the reading of the first customer review on A DREAM GOES ON...I must say i do not share his opinion at all.Yes, it's true :this book is not perfect (i did notice some redundances for example )and he may be true when he says there are also vocabulary errors (i can't have any opinion about that:my english speaking,reading and writing are very poor).BUT THAT'S NOT IMPORTANT!The main thing is the bunch of unknown informations, details, interviews,and opinions we discover .THANK YOU BILLY JAMES!
Rating: 
Summary: Yep --- Docked A Star For "The SoundofBad Editing"
Review: James's concept and the amount of research he did is to be commended. The execution, however, just isn't quite there. I'm a writer myself (TURN ME ON, DEAD MAN: The Beatles And The "Paul-Is-Dead" Hoax, which will be available soon in a brand-new 2004 edition), and I proofread with a fine-toothed comb. Not only for typos and other errors, but for redundancy of information, which this book is LOADED with. James will start to tell you something in one paragraph, then tell you in the next one, then reiterate what he just said in the NEXT paragraph. I understand that once in a while, things get away from a writer, or the info is so damn good that it's worth repeating. However, this repeats too often. Hey, Billy -- you should've called me. I would've proofread your manuscript FOR FREE. When you get Volume Two ready to go, send it my way. P.S. I still enjoyed the book and I recommend it to ALL Todd fans.
Rating:
Summary: Yep --- Docked A Star For "The SoundofBad Editing"
Review: James's concept and the amount of research he did is to be commended. The execution, however, just isn't quite there. I'm a writer myself (TURN ME ON, DEAD MAN: The Beatles And The "Paul-Is-Dead" Hoax, which will be available soon in a brand-new 2004 edition), and I proofread with a fine-toothed comb. Not only for typos and other errors, but for redundancy of information, which this book is LOADED with. James will start to tell you something in one paragraph, then tell you in the next one, then reiterate what he just said in the NEXT paragraph. I understand that once in a while, things get away from a writer, or the info is so damn good that it's worth repeating. However, this repeats too often. Hey, Billy -- you should've called me. I would've proofread your manuscript FOR FREE. When you get Volume Two ready to go, send it my way. P.S. I still enjoyed the book and I recommend it to ALL Todd fans.
Rating:
Summary: HOLY GRAIL,VOLUME ONE !
Review: Thank goodness an effort has been made to compile a book on someone who time will identify as one of the most important composers and producers of the 20th century. If you've even looked this book up on Amazon, you recognize the brilliance of Todd Rundgren.I'd really like to say this was a great book, but I can't. The story it tells is fascinating, but the execution, I'm sorry Billy James, is quite weak. There is no way this book was edited by someone other than James. There are sentences that are not sentences, wrong words all over the place ("there" instead of "their" kind of stuff), misspelled words, mistyped quotes, words that are used in a completely wrong way, redundant information, and very obvious questions that the text raises that are never asked and never answered. The writing style is also uncomfortable. There seem to be many instances where James wanted to use a bigger word, hit the thesaurus button on his computer, and replaced the earlier term with something that is either used inappropriately, or that comes off as being completely goofy. The most disturbing part is when you read things that are just plain wrong. They're generally miniscule things, but just knowing that information in what's supposed to be a biography is inaccurate makes you lose some faith in the other things you read. For example, James talks about Todd's break up with his high school girlfriend, Marlene, as being the inspiration for several songs on "Something/Anything". What we have here is a misinterpretation of something James probably read somewhere. Marlene was Todd's girlfriend while he was recording "Something/Anything", not while he was in high school. At the time they were together she was only 17-years-old. See what I mean? It's a tiny little point that doesn't amount to anything, and you can see how he made the mistake, but it causes you to lose faith in the accuracy of the other things you're reading. This is volume one of what presumably will be at least two volumes. It takes you up through "Faithful" and John Siegler's departure, so it would seem the arrival of Kasim Sultan and the release of "Ra" will kick off the next book. Hopefully this book will spark enough interest to encourage others to write on the topic of Todd. (That's what happened with Syd Barrett. Mike Watkinson wrote a so-so book called "Syd Barrett & the Dawn of Pink Floyd: Crazy Diamond." That book was followed by a brilliant biography of Barrett by Julian Palacios called "Lost in the Woods - Syd Barrett & the Pink Floyd." Highly recommended.) Sorry, but it's not a very good read. At the same time, though, I can't wait to buy and read Volume Two.
Rating: 
Summary: For the want of an editor
Review: Thank goodness an effort has been made to compile a book on someone who time will identify as one of the most important composers and producers of the 20th century. If you've even looked this book up on Amazon, you recognize the brilliance of Todd Rundgren. I'd really like to say this was a great book, but I can't. The story it tells is fascinating, but the execution, I'm sorry Billy James, is quite weak. There is no way this book was edited by someone other than James. There are sentences that are not sentences, wrong words all over the place ("there" instead of "their" kind of stuff), misspelled words, mistyped quotes, words that are used in a completely wrong way, redundant information, and very obvious questions that the text raises that are never asked and never answered. The writing style is also uncomfortable. There seem to be many instances where James wanted to use a bigger word, hit the thesaurus button on his computer, and replaced the earlier term with something that is either used inappropriately, or that comes off as being completely goofy. The most disturbing part is when you read things that are just plain wrong. They're generally miniscule things, but just knowing that information in what's supposed to be a biography is inaccurate makes you lose some faith in the other things you read. For example, James talks about Todd's break up with his high school girlfriend, Marlene, as being the inspiration for several songs on "Something/Anything". What we have here is a misinterpretation of something James probably read somewhere. Marlene was Todd's girlfriend while he was recording "Something/Anything", not while he was in high school. At the time they were together she was only 17-years-old. See what I mean? It's a tiny little point that doesn't amount to anything, and you can see how he made the mistake, but it causes you to lose faith in the accuracy of the other things you're reading. This is volume one of what presumably will be at least two volumes. It takes you up through "Faithful" and John Siegler's departure, so it would seem the arrival of Kasim Sultan and the release of "Ra" will kick off the next book. Hopefully this book will spark enough interest to encourage others to write on the topic of Todd. (That's what happened with Syd Barrett. Mike Watkinson wrote a so-so book called "Syd Barrett & the Dawn of Pink Floyd: Crazy Diamond." That book was followed by a brilliant biography of Barrett by Julian Palacios called "Lost in the Woods - Syd Barrett & the Pink Floyd." Highly recommended.) Sorry, but it's not a very good read. At the same time, though, I can't wait to buy and read Volume Two.
<< 1 >>
|
