Product Description

From punk to mod to New Romantic, and eventually to acclaimed poet, Simon Armitage writes about a life where music and poetry have been core. And about a place, the village of Marsden in west Yorkshire, where he can stand and look out across a huge circumference of inspiration and influence: Joy Division, the Smiths and The Fall to the west, the Comsat Angels and Pulp to the south, Andrew Marvell and Larkin way out east, Ted Hughes and Plath just to the north. Gig is a warm, vivid, wonderful book about music, poetry, family and … always … the North.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #137114 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-03
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Review
'I suspect that promoters of literary events ... nurse a secret desire to be organizing Glastonbury rather than the Ledbury Poetry Festival, or chopping out cocaine on a mirror rather than filling a Tupperware bowl with mini-cheddars, or introducing David Bowie at Wembley Arena rather than Simon Armitage in Marsden Church Hall. Because invariably ... they refer to the contemporay poetry reading as a 'gig'.'

Metro
"Dry, deadpan and pant-wettingly funny...Armitage is not capable of writing anything that is not wry, warm, witty and layered with meaning"

The London Paper
"Excellent"

Customer Reviews

Second volume of witty, superbly written memoirs
Simon Armitage occupies a fairly unique cultural position. On one hand he is one of the nation's best-known poets; tipped for the Poet Laureate and known to students across the land from their GCSE anthologies (it speaks highly of his work that he is known and liked by said GCSE students, according to some very rough polling by your reviewer). Simultaneously he is something of a counter-cultural icon; many will have first come across his work in the halcyon days of Mark and Lard's Radio 1 show in the early 1990s and he has a passion for post-punk groups such as the Fall and Young Marble Giants.

Gig is Armitage's second collection of memoirs, alongside 1998's equally excellent All Points North, and as with the previous volume this is a varied collection of recollections, poems, anecdotes and gig reviews. These, in part at least, have a common theme in exploring Armitage's forty-something reflections on his career as a poet and frustrated rock-star, including the formation of the band The Scaremongers (I know, but it's better than Fantastic Gammon; Armitage's father wryly suggests Midlife Crisis), through which he lives out some of his adolescent dreams of rock stardom.

The book is infused with his usual self-deprecating humour, as well as Armitage's genuine passion for rock music, poetry and that corner of West Yorkshire that "begins where the goalpost of the M1 meets the crossbar of the M62". At times, it's also a moving account; Armitage reflects thoughtfully on the condition of the forty-something male, and on the events and individuals who have influenced him in a touching, sensitive way. As a (nearly) forty-something frustrated rock-star myself, I enjoyed every page of this; and if you are contemplating a mid-life crisis, buy this before you spend thousands of pounds on a powerful sports car you don't need!

A Lot of Laughs ...
I am not a rock-star fantasist myself, knowing very little about the bands that Simon Armitage writes about in Gig. I normally read PC magazines and technical books as a way of relaxing. I bought this book for my daughter and decided to read it before giving it to her. I was captivated by it from the first laugh to the last, throughout the book. I like the way Simon opens the door on his early life and his family life in the north of England. I cannot admit to being a dedicated reader of Simon Armitage's poetry but I have very much enjoyed and been moved by hearing him read his work live on the few occasions I have had the chance. Being treated to many laughs, sometimes at Simon's expense, throughout Gig is well worth the four stars in my opinion especially as I get the chance of passing that pleasure on to someone else. I feel I know Simon a little better and I am more able to appreciate his work.

Tyre Rolling Down A Hill
This is not a bad read at all and often funny although I get the feeling that I have read a lot of it before. This might just be beacause I tend to keep an eye out for stuff of his in the papers as I generally like his articles and, definitely, his poems. The tyre rolling down the hill is the one that keeps coming back to haunt me, wasn't it in All Points North as well as in the poem about the tyre rolling down the hill? Also, as an old cynic, I find the nicknames for his wife and daughter a bit, not soppy, not sentimental but just a little 'precious'. Otherwise, I enjoyed it.