{"product_id":"how-to-prepare-for-the-past-travels-in-music-and-time","title":"How To Prepare for the Past: Travels In Music and Time","description":"\u003cp\u003eWriter and musician Brian Cullman's rapturous evocation of life in the bike lane, before the world was digital, when music was everything and magic was everywhere, encompassing friendships with Lester Bangs, Nick Drake, Big Joe Turner, Tim Hardin, and Paul Bowles.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen people asked Brian Cullman his favourite song, he would say the radio.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt was all one sound. It was all one song: the drums and the words, the words without words, the rhythm and the static and the joy and amplified tears.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTV was a clunky box in the corner, nothing but images on a screen telling the same story over and over. The stories were old and small, over before they began. Yesterday's gossip and twice cold toast. They gave him nothing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut Smokey Robinson crying like a flower with a hangover, The Ronettes, so carnivorous \u0026amp; tender, the sound of eternity in bed with the night: this was love and death and a ticket to places the buses don't go. These were the dreams of the dead, the regrets of the living, stolen prayers from the broken church where God \u0026amp; The Devil relax after work and trade places. He went to sleep to it, woke up to it. The idiot announcers and jingles and calls from New Jersey, the news and guitars, all one. He wanted to walk in it, dance in it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e“Brian Cullman always knew where the great music was hidden and writes about it with wit and elegance. His descriptions of close encounters with Nick Drake, Big Joe Turner, the Master Musicians of Jajouka, and so many others are as good as music reportage gets.” Joe Boyd, producer and author of And the Roots of Rhythm Remain\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e“Brian Cullman knows music from the inside out, as performer, scribe, and keen observer of those who make wonder out of soundwaves. His new collection of tales is a candid earwitness account of artisans and their process, personal and revelatory.” Lenny Kaye\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e“It’s like finding a secret diary, with every chapter peeling back a layer of the defining pop years. Seen through the eyes of someone who has lived it and survived. A must-read!” Beat Magazine, April 2026 Book of the Month\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003e“A downtown NYC Almost Famous by a de-facto rock critic godfather, though he was other things, too. Literary, elliptical, electric, hilarious, these are snapshots of a disappeared world, and they’re as good as music journalism gets.” Will Hermes, author of Lou Reed: The King of New York and Love Goes to Buildings On Fire\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ZE Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54804264517900,"sku":"9798988670100","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0718\/4105\/4988\/files\/9798988670100.jpg?v=1779573423","url":"https:\/\/sonicbookshop.co.uk\/products\/how-to-prepare-for-the-past-travels-in-music-and-time","provider":"Sonic Music Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}