Barbed Wire Kisses

Musically, culturally and in terms of sheer attitude, the Jesus and Mary Chain stand alone. Their seminal debut album Psychocandy would change the course of popular music, and their iconic blend of psychotic white noise and darkly surreal lyrics that presaged the shoegaze movement continues to enchant and confound.This authorized book is the fierce, frank and funny tale of the Jesus and Mary Chain, told by the band members and their associates for the first time. The story begins in the faceless town of East Kilbride, near Glasgow, at the dawn of the 1980s with two intense, chronically shy brothers, Jim and William Reid, listening to music in their shared bedroom. What follows charts their incendiary live performances, their relationship with Alan McGee's Creation Records and those famous fraternal tensions, with plenty of feedback, fighting and, most importantly, perfectly crafting pop music along the way. It is time this vastly influential group and sometime public enemy had their say.