Harry Shapiro's \ Waiting for the Man

Ah I sense this book was not what you expected, rather than being bad of itself.

Me, I thought this thread was about Helen Shapiro doing a VU cover.

i dont think this book is what anyone expects. the guy maybe an expert on narcotics or whatever but when talking about music and drugs there's a very intricate and fascinating story about the drugs in the music possible. he doesn't even mention Spacemen 3

Why should he? Hardly very popular were they?

alright, half a sentence about Bowie's Station to Station?

It was written in the eighties, several years before you were born. As you suggest, it covers the relationship of the authorities with musicians who use drugs, and the problems it presented. As Spacemen 3 never sold any records and never impinged on the public consciousness, they aren't mentioned. They aren't mentioned in Simon Napier-Bell's 'White Powder Black Vinyl' (or whatever it was called) either, a history of music which explicitly linked the sounds to drug fashions.
I'd suggest you could write an interesting book yourself on how drugs influence music, but I'd be lying. Someone else might, but how they would deal with Pete Kember-Pete Doherty- Whitney Houston?