brianEno

Biographies

Biographies on Brian Eno are few, but of surprising depth, given the sainthoods that typically pass for pop music bio's. Of the sources listed, the best place to start is probably the Lester Bangs piece, given both its perspective and brevity. Of course, a complete biography is tough to write for an artist who is still tremendously productive.

Bangs, Lester. “Brian Eno: A Sandbox in Alphaville” Perfect Sound Forever August 2003.
http://www.furious.com/perfect/bangseno.html
Posthumously published piece (planned as part of a larger book) by rock’s most famous writer, this mammoth article may also be the definitive story on who Eno really is, or at any rate who he was in the late 1970s. Fabulously written, too, admiring on the one hand and honestly critical on the other. What’s great about it, as well, is that it gives a contemporary account of Eno’s activities during a time when his influence was really being felt in the emerging punk and “No Wave” scene of New York. Beyond that, Bangs’s interviews with Eno detail most periods of his life, while Bangs also covers the more important albums (as he saw them) of Eno’s discography. Really first rate, and a great place to start reading about Eno.

Tamm, Eric. Brian Eno: His Music and the Vertical Color of Sound. Boston: Faber and Faber, 1989.
ML410
.E58
T3
An acclaimed biography, and the only one going that deals exclusively on the work of Eno. Tamm’s book was his dissertation at UC Berkeley, and works as a critical examination of both Eno and his philosophy in the larger context of electronic music. It goes in and out of print, but here’s a big bonus: Tamm has published the book on his website, and you can download it as a zip file FREE! (http://www.geocities.com/pitkin_family/tammeno.html)

Steichen, Jesse. “Eno in the 70s.” Perfect Sound Forever March 1998.
http://www.furious.com/perfect/eno.html
An excellent, step-by-step account of Eno’s most fertile period as a creator of music, “Eno in the 70s” is also a fan’s careful critique rather than a hagiography – for instance, the author challenges his work with Cluster, which many see as one of Eno’s best collaborations. Well-written but opinionated, this is true rock-style music journalism that gives some insight into why Eno, while a tremendously influential man, is also a controversial figure in music.

Stern, Theresa. “Hans-Joachim Roedelius.” Perfect Sound Forever May 1997.
http://www.furious.com/perfect/roedelius.html
A good article in Perfect Sound Forever on Hans-Joachim Roedelius, of the German band Cluster, who gives insight to Eno’s work in Germany in the mid-70s. While Eno’s ambient work is often overlooked in favor of his staggeringly successful career as a producer, compared to bands like Cluster Eno is a celebrity. And yet it is to artists like Cluster, Neu!, Popol Vuh, Harmonia, and Kraftwerk that Eno is most often compared. Very little literature exists on the German scene of the 1970s (most of it is out of print, and none of it is available at UNC), and Eno’s place within it. This article is therefore a critical resource on Eno in the years following his departure from Roxy Music. If this article leads you to be further interested in what was going on in Germany parallel to Eno’s ascent, see the following website: http://web.ukonline.co.uk/ultimathule-audion/utwebenc.html.

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