In Review: "Skinhead Diaries" by Paul Burnley

Pages: 190 and 193
Publisher: Amazon Great Britain
Country: England
ISBN: 9798280537002 and 9798293227235

Well, well, well... Guess who's back after more than 20 years of absence?! Paul Burnley of No Remorse with his two-volume autobiography named "Skinhead Diaries".

The first volume of book starts with a fair encounter of his childhood and teenage years. It wasn't easy for him at all with a far-left liberal mother and a hard-alcoholic father. On the top of that the “joys" of living in a multicultural society were quite stressful even back then and the author was often in trouble just for his skinhead outlook.

The second part of the book is mainly focused on Paul's career with No Remorse and their tours around Europe, USA and Canada. The American tours are described well, including the murder of Joe Rowan after the ISD memorial in Racine Wisconsin in 1994.

The gigs in ex East Bloc countries Poland and Czech Republic are there as well, but not with full details as some really funny and even embarrassing situations occurred during those trips. I hope this part of the history will be included in my future written projects which are on "standby" position at the moment.

The second volume of the book could have been much more detailed in my opinion as every now and then the chronology of the events described by dates "jumps" with several months and even a year. 

In order to make my review fair and honest I must include some critics and negatives which worth to be mentioned. From my personal researches I know that some important facts and details have been deliberately missed or neglect. Such as his personal role and responsibility for the bad organization at the meeting point before the infamous Waterloo concert in London in 1992. This led to violent clashes with police and antifa, causing injuries and arrests for the skinheads from all across Europe. He was widely and openly criticized for that by other leading figures in the English RAC scene.

In addition, in January 1994 the first planned ISD memorial gig failed to happen mainly because of him, which is slightly mentioned in the book. Some other interesting facts such as the pop icon David Bowie was a family friend of the Burnley's and Paul personally knew him are not mentioned at all. After all, "Under the Gods" cover the song which original is a David's Bowie Tin Machine hit is definitely NOT a coincidence.

Despite all the negatives and critics described above we have to admit that Paul B. and No Remorse are a significant part in the RAC history. Their singalong lyrics and catchy music are favorite to tons of listeners around to this day. No matter if you like or not on personal level, Paul Burnley will remain one of the most important and controversial figures in the English RAC scene.

To sum it up, both volumes of the book definitely worth purchasing them, which you can do directly from Amazon. I will highly recommend buying the hardback versions, due to the good quality and better (in my opinion) designs of the front/back covers compared to the softback versions. Inside you can find a lot of rare photos from the Paul’s childhood years and from various gigs with his band.

* Bonus information: Paul has a recent side project with late Nigel Brown (R.I.P. my friend) which you can HERE

In Review: "At the Pulse of time" by Steffen Hammer

Pages: 204
Publisher: Self-published by Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing 
Country: Germany
ISBN: 9798292611264

 

Hurray, hurray... finally something out from the literature front! The front man of the famous German band NOIE WERTE Steffen Hammer just published his autobiography. 

The book appeared simultaneously both in German and English versions I purchased the later one, as my knowledge in German is very limited. What I have instantly noticed (which was confirmed by the author) is that large part of the text was automatically translated by an AI. This was followed by a proofreading by an Englishman as this was the fastest and easiest way this version to be published in a timely manner. For a non-native reader like me the text is easy to read and understand, but for the UK/American readers it will look a bit strange.

As a true autobiography the book starts from his family origins and author's early childhood memories back in the 70's. To be honest for some odd reason I thought that "Hammer" was some fancy nickname of the author Steffen. It appears to be his real surname which comes from Middle High German and it's associated with someone who works with a hammer, a hammersmith. And yes, the Hammersmith district in West London is well-known to all rock fans due to Motorhead's first album "No sleep 'till Hammersmith".

Books goes through the teenage years of the author on the streets of Stuttgart and his first touch with football, music, skinhead cult and often pure street violence. 

In the middle if the book you can find 10 pages with old photographs. Unfortunately, all of them are small-sized 4,5 or 6 per page which is a bit uncomfortable if you like to take a detailed look on every single one of them. I would prefer bigger photos placed inside the chapters they refer to, but this is my personal subjective opinion.

Steffen's personal friendship with Ian Stuart and his frequent visits to the Old Albion are presented as well as author's development as a lawyer up to the present days.

There are 85 chapters in this 200-pages book, as you can guess all of them are just 1,2 or 3 pages long, summarizing the most essential facts and feelings of the author. A true German style of telling the most important to the reader and keeping him focused on the contents.

To sum it up it is a really nice book which I truly enjoyed reading, and I can highly recommend it for all the RAC lovers out there. The both versions of the book can be ordered directly from our friends OPOS records. Unfortunately, the author himself does not have any personal copies so my wish for a signed copy did not materialize.

At last, but not the least I hope this autobiography will inspire other important figures from the German scene to write down their own biographies. Luni, Jens Brandy, Gigi ... I'm pretty sure you have a lot to tell :)