A Rockin' Good Read...Or Not? - Part 5

I assume that everyone who stops at this blog has at least one if not more releases by Ace Records(UK) in his/her collection. And if you really don't have Ace releases then Chiswick or Big Beat ones, yes? So you know the importance of the label(s). The book 'Ace Records' by David Stubbs, published 2007, tells the story of Ace. The early days of selling records at a flea market, the legendary Rock On shop in Camden, the founding of Chiswick Records, how that became Ace Records, what all the sub-labels are all about and there even is a chapter on licensing. All those words get spiced up with images of a lot of record sleeves, posters, adverts, promo-material and tons of pictures of bands, the people behind Ace and such. So far so good. But why is a lot of Whirlwind promo material published but the record itself("Blowing Up A Storm") isn't mentioned? I understand that the author can't write the story behind every Chiswick(or Ace or Big Beat) release and rather picks Motorhead over a Teddyboy band, but when you publish a shitload of their promo material you'd expect that the band gets mentioned in the text as well, and if only to explain readers not familiar with them who they are. Next, nothing on Skrewdriver who recorded for Chiswick. Come on, that would have been a topic worth writing about. Next, no complete discography. You write a book about a record label and can't be bothered to publish their output? Who do you think buys a book about a record label? A record nerd. Of course he wants to have a complete discography, if possible with info on how many copies were pressed, how many repressings and all those nice infos. Next, a useless and incomplete list of artists on Ace and the others labels. I really don't understand what that is good for. Next, incorrect information. An example: There is a promo picture of the Sting-Rays and the text next to it says 'The Stingrays pose with Ace consultant Alec Palao, circa 1980s'. Hello? Palao was drummer and songwriter for the Sting-Rays and probably didn't even work for Ace when the picture was taken.

This could have been an awesome book, but the result is far from being awesome. It is nice to have for some of the published promo-material like a Guana Batz poster to promote the band's 'The Cave' single, an Escalators promo-sticker and Whirlwind gig-posters, but decide for yourself if that's worth paying 20 British Pounds.