VIA PRESS RELEASE | “I have spoken to many journalists in my time: some good, some bad, some terrible. And it is lovely when you meet someone who is just like you…a huge music fan! Jim Sullivan…is friendly, knowledgeable, forthright, and opinionated! An expert in his chosen field. He is no pushover…if you have faults or are resting on your laurels, he is the first to tell you off.” —Peter Hook, Joy Division/New Order
Trouser Press Books is proud to announce Backstage & Beyond Volume 2: 45 Years of Modern Rock Chats & Rants, the second anthology from award-winning music journalist Jim Sullivan, to be published in paperback and e-book on October 19. Pre-orders are available now.
Sullivan—a 2023 inductee into the New England Music Hall of Fame—spent 26 years writing for the Boston Globe and two decades more writing for national publications. He has interviewed and reviewed countless musicians, many of them multiple times. The second volume of his music-writing anthology focuses on artists who came to prominence in the 1970s and ’80s: punk, new wave, post-punk, and beyond. Eleven of them are already in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Over the course of 300 pages, Sullivan shares fascinating profiles of Ramones, Sex Pistols, The Clash, Patti Smith, Buzzcocks, The Damned, The Fall, Joy Division/New Order, The Cure, Stiff Little Fingers, Gang Of Four, The Pogues, The Police, The Cramps, David Byrne/Talking Heads, Beastie Boys, Elvis Costello, Billy Bragg, The Cars, The English Beat, Morrissey, Pixies, Mission Of Burma, The Feelies, Puff Daddy, Spiritualized, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Swans, and U2.
“My hope is that the recollections contained here trigger some memories,” writes Jim Sullivan in the book’s preface, “bring you back to where you wanted to be—backstage and beyond, as it were. And if you weren’t around then, I hope this transports you back to several golden ages of rock and roll.”
