VIA PRESS RELEASE | “A model of excellence for both music writing and memoir . . . I simultaneously learned so much and was deeply moved.” —Anthony DeCurtis, author of Lou Reed: A Life
Popular music was in a creative upheaval in the late 1970s. As the singer-songwriter and producer Chris Stamey remembers, “the old guard had become bloated, cartoonish, and widely co-opted by a search for maximum corporate profits, and we wanted none of it.” In A Spy in the House of Loud, he takes us back to the auteur explosion happening in New York clubs such as the Bowery’s CBGB, as Television, Talking Heads, R.E.M., and other innovative bands were rewriting the rules.
Just 22 years old and newly arrived from North Carolina, Stamey immersed himself in the action, playing a year with Alex Chilton before forming the dB’s and recording the albums Stands for deciBels and Repercussion, which still have an enthusiastic following.
A Spy in the House of Loud vividly captures the energy that drove the music scene as arena rock gave way to punk and other new streams of electric music. There are engrossing backstories about creating in the recording studio, as well as insights into other people’s music and the process of songwriting. Photos, mixer-channel, and track assignment notes, and other inside-the-studio materials illustrate the stories.
A Spy in the House of Loud reads like a Mozart in the Jungle for indie rock, depicting a Southern artist’s coming-of-age in a New York scene that has been stereotyped as all punk rock, safety pins, and provocation. Stamey’s book shows another side of the CBGB era, as he searches for new ways to break the rules and make some noise.
A Spy in the House of Loud is available for sale from your favorite bookseller.
PHOTO: DANIEL COSTON
