Up Above The City, Down Beneath The Stars

Deeply personal memoir from multi-talented bassist and composer.

If Barry Adamson was simply known for his groundbreaking work as a founder member of Magazine, he would have had more than enough material for an autobiography. Yet he is also able to draw here on his time playing bass for Pete Shelley and for Iggy Pop, standing in for Tracey Pew in The Birthday Party and being a key member of The Bad Seeds during their first four albums. It’s such a rich seam that this book finishes in the late ’80s, just before the start of his varied career as a solo artist and movie soundtrack composer. To those achievements, he can add the writing of a compellingly honest and evocative memoir, giving equal weight to childhood experiences alongside subsequent band tensions and rivalries, all illuminated along the way by pin-sharp pop culture references. A nuanced and ultimately very positive meditation on illness, love, race, identity, loss, football, substance abuse and the transformative power of great music.