How Does It Feel?, Mark Kermode
How Does It Feel?, Mark Kermode
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How Does It Feel?
A Life of Musical Misadventures

Author: Mark Kermode

Narrator: Mark Kermode

Unabridged: 6 hr 37 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/20/2018

Includes: Bonus Material Bonus Material Included

Synopsis

Following a formative encounter with the British pop movie Slade in Flame in 1975, Mark Kermode decided that musical superstardom was totally attainable. And so, armed with a homemade electric guitar and very little talent, he embarked on an alternative career - a chaotic journey which would take him from the halls and youth clubs of North London to the stages of Glastonbury, the London Palladium and The Royal Albert Hall.

HOW DOES IT FEEL? follows a lifetime of musical misadventures which have seen Mark striking rockstar poses in the Sixth Form Common Room, striding around a string of TV shows dressed from head to foot in black leather, getting heckled off stage by a bunch of angry septuagenarians on a boat on the Mersey, showing Timmy Mallet how to build a tea-chest bass - and winning the International Street Entertainers of the Year award as part of a new wave of skiffle. Really.

Hilarious, self-deprecating and blissfully nostalgic, this is a riotous account of a bedroom dreamer's attempts to conquer the world armed with nothing more than a chancer's enthusiasm and a simple philosophy: how hard can it be?
Written and Read by Mark Kermode

Music samples from the album 'Drive Train' are reproduced with kind permission from The Dodge Brothers

(P) Orion Publishing Group 2018

About Mark Kermode

Mark Kermode is Chief Film Critic for the OBSERVER and co-host of Kermode and Mayo's Film Review on BBC Radio 5 Live. He is the author of IT'S ONLY A MOVIE; THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE MULTIPLEX; THE MOVIE DOCTORS (with Simon Mayo); HATCHET JOB, hailed by Stephen Fry as 'the finest film critic in Britain at the absolute top of his form' and HOW DOES IT FEEL?, a memoir about his life in music. He plays double bass and harmonica in The Dodge Brothers, the award-winning skiffle-and-blues band, who also accompany silent movies. He has written and presented film and music shows on Channel 4 and across BBC radio and television. He holds two Sony Awards for his radio programmes, and The Dodge Brothers album The Sun Set was voted Blues Album of the Year 2013 by the roots music magazine SPIRAL EARTH.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Mercedes

I am the girl from tiktok🫡 happy to see us united on Goodreads. As I’m sure you already know this book made me feel all the things.......more

Goodreads review by lulu

okay so i read this in one sitting in like 3 hours. and had a good laugh. i first laughed at the 2% mark when i read “I will go back to sleep after I kill you and use you slowly, you human piece of shit.” i was like okay? this is so not terrifying that its laughable. and all the “villains” speak lik......more

Goodreads review by nikki ༗

edit: i have to come back here to add that i unfortunately was super disappointed by book 2. i feel like i need to update this review bc while book 1 was fun, i don't want to mislead y'all for book 2 😅 _______________ OMG YOU GUYS, I UNDERSTAND HOW TIKTOK GIRL FEELS NOW. it was wild GO READ IT. You di......more

Goodreads review by DIVINITY🌙

WTF! This was an insane ride and I'm still shocked by the ending.. I did NOT expect it and I NEED answers NOW.. when is the 2nd book coming 🤣 This is a dark, depraved novel and is NOT for the weak of heart. Read at your own risk. The male character is morally black and wants to kill Callie for more t......more

Quotes

Wonderful - such a terrific read. HOW DOES IT FEEL? hit me right between the eyes. It brilliantly captures the passion, commitment, searing self-knowledge and dizzy happiness that comes with loving music. An enchanting book

Mark Kermode's warmly salubrious memoir reveals, unexpectedly, a teenager who found skiffle as addictive - and sometimes as dangerous - as crack

[A] witty, self-deprecating account . . . at the heart of this entertaining memoir is a little boy in his back garden in Finchley, banging out a rhythm on saucepans with a couple of wooden spoons Daily Mail

Mark Kermode's wonderful and wry book is a compelling combination of heartfelt enthusiasm, merciless self-analysis and a pleasingly full Rolodex of terrible band names. A true fan, he has the rare gift of making you want to discover things from the margins while never looking down on the mainstream. His writing feels like one of those letters you always wish to receive, one whose sole purpose seems to be to increase your zest for life

Mark Kermode deftly and winningly manages to have one foot in knotty film criticism and one in popular entertainment . . . If you enjoyed [Danny] Baker's various volumes of autobiography, Kermode's romp through his own 'back story' will appeal too, since he has much of his mentor's style: breezily anecdotal, big on dialogue and set-pieces New Statesman

Kermode's insistent perfecting of musical failure is madly funny. I loved this book and cringed at every awful stage fail, but his passion shines through. His unrequited desire to be a rock star in a time when every idiot had a band is bum-clenchingly funny and forensically recalled. How life isn't always the movie in your mind

Entertaining . . . wry . . . rendered with self-deprecating humour. Overwhelmingly, what comes through every anecdote is the author's genuine enthusiasm for music Spectator

A delight. If Nick Hornby's HIGH FIDELITY and the Kinks' greatest hits had a baby, and that baby could play skiffle, it would be this book

An entertaining read by anyone's standards, but if you've ever been in a band, if you understand the idea of throwing yourself body and soul into making music with the absolute surety that what you're doing amounts to genius, even - and especially - when it definitely, definitely doesn't, then it's a book you're going to adore Drowned in Sound

Oh boy! A rocking whirlwind of a tale. People get into bands originally for the sheer love of the life and the music. Few manage to retain that dizzying adolescent crush like Mark Kermode

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