Conville & Walsh

BAD VIBES is the blackly comic memoir of Luke Haines, founder member and acclaimed singer songwriter of the Auteurs, Baader Meinhof and Black Box Recorder and a legendary figure in the music world where he is variously heralded as the pioneer, the godfather or the forgotten man of Britpop.

In BAD VIBES he remembers the early years of non-recognition: living on the dole and taking his kit on a tractortailor to the empty concert halls to the sold-out tours, rivalries with contemporaries such as Suede and Blur, losing the 1993 Mercury Prize award by one vote (and the resultant spell in A&E in the dark hours of the following morning) the fights, the sackings, the press and of course the drugs. Haines has lived it all. Some of the most famous names in the music industry of the 80s and 90s – Alan McGee, Bobby Gillespie, The Go-Betweens, Suede, Sting, St Etienne, New Order, Elastica, Blur, Boo Radleys, The Verve, Oasis, Jarvis Cocker and Pulp, Kurt Cobain, Payul, McCartney, Iggy Pop, Steve Albini and Metallica – appear anecdotally. In the book and Haines is never anything less than acute, observant and witty about his contemporaries.

BAD VIBES takes an even darker turn when Haines throws himself from a wall in Spain, an incident, which leaves him in a wheelchair for six months. Although it inspires him to do some of his finest work, the commercial failure of After Murder Park and Baader Meinhoff prompt his to embark on a surreal period of self-administered medical procedures. The final chapter of the book takes place when Haines, now fully restored, returns from self-imposed exile with a new band Black Box Recorder. They begin recording their new album England Made Me on the same day that New Labour comes into power. The book ends in August of that year with two deaths: those of Diana, Princess of Wales and Britpop.