I'm Not with the Band

DONT MISS SYLVIA PATTERSONS BRAND NEW MEMOIR, SAME OLD GIRL, COMING SPRING 2023

SHORTLISTED FOR THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD 2016

Celebratory and elegiacGuardian

A roller-coaster memoirSunday Times

Funny, anecdote-packed, nostalgic but also very touchingThe Pool

Patterson fillets out the pretentious bones of pop, leaving its glistening meatObserver

This is a three-decade survivors tale . . . a scenic search for elusive human happiness through music, magazines, silly jokes, stupid shoes, useless blokes, hopeless homes, booze, drugs, love, loss, A&E, death, disillusion and hope.

In 1986, Sylvia Patterson boarded a train to London armed with a tea-chest full of vinyl records, a peroxide quiff and a dream: to write about music, for ever. She got her wish.

Escaping a troubled home, Sylvia embarks on a lifelong quest to discover The Meaning of It All. The problem is shes mostly hanging out with flaky pop stars, rock n roll heroes and unreliable hip-hop legends. As she encounters musics biggest names, she is confronted by glamour and tragedy; wisdom and lunacy; drink, drugs and disaster. And Bros.

Here is Madonna in her Earth Mother phase, flinging her hands up in horror at one of Sylvs Very Stupid Questions. Prince compliments her shoes while Eminem threatens to kill her. She shares fruit with Johnny Cash, make-up with Amy Winehouse and several pints with the Manics lost soul-man Richey Edwards. She finds the Beckhams fragrant in LA, a Gallagher madferrit in her living room and Shaun Ryder and Bez as youd expect, in Jamaica.

From the 80s to the present day, Im Not with the Band is a funny, barmy, utterly gripping chronicle of the last thirty years in music and beyond. It is also the story of one womans wayward search for love, peace and a wonderful life. And whether, or not, she found them.