Exit Stage Left: The curious afterlife of pop stars

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I was mostly touched by the Natalie Merchant chapter. After she had a child she prioritized being a Mom and has since donated her personal time and money in school programs to promote art and music. She even sews costumes for shows! She has a certain standard in recording and prefers to rent out a proper studio with an engineer, producer, etc. rather than record at home like many musicians now do. I also was intrigued by Police drummer Stewart Copeland who notoriously had both verbal and physical conflicts with lead singer Sting. He says Sting already had everything worked out musically in his mind and didn't welcome input from his fellow band members. Copeland has since found great satisfaction composing music for films. There is a sort of morbid curiosity turning the stone over and seeing where the likes of Hothouse Flowers, Terrance Trent D’arby and Moloko have crawled to. What you end up with, though, is a succession of similar stories: after the flush of fame they either try and keep the creativity up and hit the studio to make albums that few people listen to but keep the juices flowing…or they re-form the band and milk that cow til it bleeds so they can pay the mortgage…go in a totally different direction and start basket weaving or what-have-you. The desire for adulation is a light that never goes out. We live in a culture obsessed by the notion of fame - the heedless pursuit of it; the almost obligatory subsequent fallout. But what's it like to actually achieve it, and what happens when fame abruptly passes, and shifts, as it does, onto someone else?

Every artist finds they are no longer fashionable at some point. There are no exceptions, none. And so all you do is you keep going, and you try to keep writing, a better song than the last one. It’s what I’ve always done. In 1976, I was trying to write a better song than I’d written in 1975. I’m still doing that today.’There were times that it was all a little much. The combo of being a closeted gay (cat)man, probably a necessity in the '50's, and being accused of being a communist for creating subversive art, perhaps things were a bit diluted. Either one of these storylines would probably serve without the other. But it's enjoyable, the art is really good, and like I said, WAY better than it has any business being. For many, the answer appears to be a reliance on illegal substances and for the most part everyone who has ever chased the dream of being a popular musician has found themselves ravaged by emotional scars and serious questions about their self worth. It was this type of thing that really spoke to me and helped me identify how we relate the capitalist side of the business with our own worth. The desire for adulation is a light that never goes out. We live in a culture obsessed by the notion of fame – the heedless pursuit of it; the almost obligatory subsequent fallout. But what’s it like to actually achieve it, and what happens when fame abruptly passes, and shifts, as it does, onto someone else?

It's not often that I buy a book and read it in the same week, but there was something about the blurb that sang to me, and I wanted in. There were stories in here I needed to hear as I wrestle with the want/need to become a commercial writer balancing that with creating things for myself, which maybe don't appeal on the scale they once did, i.e. poems. I loved how Casey and Harrison try to reinvent themselves, in the hopes that they'd be better at something else. The antics that occur made me giggle. And really, isn't that what high school is all about? Trying to find yourself?Exit Stage Left is doing what a lot of music autobiographies do not do - which is tell the story of musicians after the spotlight has passed and fallen onto someone else and the brief illumination of fame is no more. A lot of the time they are bands or individuals who penned one, big hit or had a sustained period of success and this seemingly funds their post fame years. The world’s smallest violin is playing somewhere as they mooch around recording studios, take up painting or become personal tribute bands - it must be great to have the luxury of a fat bank balance and regular royalties to navel gaze, gaff about in a studio and reminisce about the good old days. My heart bleeds. Mark Russell first caught my attention on The Wonder Twins and made me a lifelong fan after his run on The Flintstones. Does Exit Stage Left: The Snagglepuss Chronicles meet this high standard? Yes. Yes, it does.

I remember opening for the Who towards the end of my time in the Ordinary Boys, the band with whom I enjoyed brief fame in the 00s. Roger Daltrey, then in his late 60s, sang, apparently without irony: “I hope I die before I get old.” It made me think: “What’s next? Maybe I could find a nice job in advertising.” It’s a question that almost every performer faces in an industry that fetishises youth: is it better to burn out or just fade away? And then what? Where do you go? What do you do? How do you move on? Some sustain themselves on the nostalgia circuit. Others continue to beaver away in the studio, no longer Abbey Road so much as the garden shed. The desire for adulation is a light that never goes out. We live in a culture obsessed by the notion of fame - the heedless pursuit of it, the almost obligatory subsequent fallout. But what's it like to actually achieve it, and what's it like when fame abruptly passes, and shifts, as it does, onto someone else? Featuring brand new interviews with the likes of: Bob Geldof, Shaun Ryder, Robbie Williams, Roisin Murphy, Stewart Copeland, Billy Bragg, Wendy James, Alex Kapranos, Joan Armatrading, Leo Sayer, Gary Lightbody, Lisa Maffia, Tim Booth, Bill Drummond, Rufus Wainwright, David Gray, and Justin Hawkins.My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Mobius Books, Hachette Book Groups for an advanced copy of this musical study on fame and its after effects. Exit Stage Left” is an occasionally fascinating exploration of how musicians navigate their lives after their fame is over and their dreams of everlasting stardom have died. In a music industry obsessed with novelty and youthfulness – and that has a brutal attitude to artists who have the temerity to grow middle-aged – how can musicians reinvent themselves after their moment in the spotlight has passed, when they’re no longer being recognised in public or fawned over in fancy restaurants. The message is timely: we should stand up for what we believe in, and fight against fear-mongering even if it costs us dearly. We cannot become fear itself - neither in politics, nor in private life. The book also plays with the idea of masks - masks actors wear in theaters to become characters, and masks people wear in public to become who they are expected to be. While this is not just quote after quote from his interviews, each chapter does use a mixture of quotes and paraphrasing to convey the story. I am more than happy with this style since just putting the interviews down as they were would have been far less organized. In other words, I appreciate Duerden helping each artist form a more cohesive whole to their narrative.