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*** SPECIAL OFFER ON KINDLE EDITION ***
Carpet Burns is Tom Hingley’s account of his life as lead singer of Inspiral Carpets, one of the big three bands of the Manchester movement who, along with The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, changed music for a generation. Tom’s own words provide an account of what it felt like to be in the eye of a pop hurricane and what happens when the hits end and the arguments kick in.
Tom’s journey starts in rural Oxfordshire before moving to Manchester and being thrust into the limelight as the new singer with a rapidly climbing pop group. With popular anthems like ‘This Is How It Feels’ and ‘She Comes In The Fall’, several appearances on Top of the Pops and headline gigs at festivals, Inspiral Carpets soon rose to be one of the most popular bands in the country.
This is not your usual music memoir, Tom is from a radically different background to his contemporaries – his father translated the complete works of Chekhov for Oxford University Press – and thus brings a new perspective to this cultural era. All the key characters from the Manchester scene are featured, plus there is fresh insight into a youthful Noel Gallagher who learned his trade as a crew member with Inspiral Carpets before joining his brother to form Oasis.
Carpet Burns tells the story typical of any band signed to a five album deal and their battles to keep the hits coming. Tom takes us through the band’s original split, the forging of solo careers, and a series of reformations until a Tweet he sends brings his time with the band to an end.
‘This is a fascinating and unique book about a unique and fascinating life. Memoirs are made of this.’ – David Quantick
‘Oh my God! Every band is the same. I couldn’t put it down.’ – Peter Hook
Carpet Burns is available in Hardback and Kindle editions.
Order a personalised signed copy direct from the Tom’s online shop
Kindle edition: UK : US : FR : ES : IT : DE
Published by Route
Hardback £12.99
ISBN: 978-1-901927-54-2
It really is a strange feeling, to have those people who you have never really had any personal contact with but feel as though you have known for most of your life suddenly laid bare in front of you. It is even stranger that what you discover is obviously quite different to what you expect!
Carpet Burns takes for me the best Madchester band of the era and spills their guts for all to see, warts and all.
The book is a superb insight into the mechanics of a band, the music industry and ultimately friendship. What it delivered for me was a superb insight into the forming of, elevation and slow decline of a band that caught the mood of a nation perfectly. This all taking place in the halcyon years of the Madchester scene. If you are not paticularly an Inspiral Carpets fan there is enough insight in to the Madchester scene to sate most appetites. If you like Manchesters 2nd biggest band you can follow how Noel Gallagher got the required underpinning knowledge to go on be the force that he has become.
Reading the book stripped away many preconceptions of what being thrust into the limelight and ultimately fame was like for me, from money worries to the way the record industry works and how people who appear to be in control of their own destinies are still mismanaged badly.
The book for me was a well written and above all honest account, you are not going to expose yourself emotionally as Hingley does throughout the book without being sincere. I loved this part of my life and this book was written in a way that took me back with such clarity that I felt you could close your eyes and reach out and touch it.
I’m saying no more, so buy it, read it and be COOL AS F@#K!