Good Pop Bad Pop by Jarvis Cocker
Below is the description of the book from the inside cover.
What if the things we keep hidden say more about us than those we put on display?
We all have a random collection of the things that made us - photos, tickets, clothes, souvenirs, stuffed in a box, packed in a suitcase, crammed into a drawer. When Jarvis Cocker starts clearing out his loft, he finds a jumble of objects that catalogue his story and ask him some awkward questions:
Who do you think you are?
Are clothes important?
Why are there so many pairs of broken glasses up here?
From a Gold Star polycotton shirt to a pack of Wrigley's Extra, from his teenage attempts to write songs to the Sexy Laughs Fantastic Dirty Joke Book, this is the hard evidence of Jarvis's unique life, Pulp, 20th century pop culture, the good times and the mistakes he'd rather forget. And this accumulated debris of a lifetime reveals his creative process - writing and musicianship, performance and ambition, style and stagecraft.
This is not a life story. It's a loft story.
First off I'm a big fan of Jarvis and Pulp but this isn't really an autobiography. It's a book of 2 halves the first being stuff he collected in his younger days so is a bit of a nostalgia trip through the late sixties and seventies. Things associated with space travel and things like marmite jars with a metal top and cussons imperial leather soap with a tiny bit of soap but the label intact. The 2nd half is more his teenage years and the formation of Pulp in school. The manifesto and look of the band and his first brushes with minor fame. Giving Peel a cassette at one of his roadshows which led to a session. They hold the record for the longest gap between sessions as well. 11 years. Plenty of awkwardness and funny stories keep the reader engaged and I don't think you need to be a Pulp fan to enjoy it. I'm sure he has a book in him regarding the fame and fortune years and his struggles to cope. The book ends with some more nostalgia in him finding a small book of tattoo's you used to get in the penny bubblegum machines. He never used the tattoos he just wanted the book as it was the treasure in the machine.
