'Superstar DJs: The incredible rise of clubland's finest' by Dom Phillips

has anyone read this? lengthy account of the whole 90s superclub scene by ex-mixmag editor. i really enjoyed it, despite not having much interest in all that music. it was fascinating to join the dots between my rock/indie 90s self and all the dance stuff going on at the same time, which i ignored entirely.

i've read a lot about the rise of rave culture in the mid-late 80s but other than this book there seems to be very little about the 90s clubs like cream, gatecrasher, MoS, etc.

badly needs a subeditor though - some really irritating errors have slipped through, and philips tends to get a bit overexcited at points, but that mostly comes across as charming rather than offputting.

shocking depiction of nicky holloway and his downfall (defaulting on VAT payments and losing his home, only to watch his good friend paul oakenfold buy it for himself). top marks for describing the grimness of danny rampling touting his vile pyramid scheme 'success university' to a bunch of 30-something morons in a function room above a pizza express.

some really irritating errors have slipped through

Unless this has been corrected between my advance (not proof) copy and it getting in the shops, it says that 93 people died at Hillsborough which... well.

I wouldn't say this was unreadable by any means and actually gets pretty good circa the millennium (ie describing the financial downfall of a bunch of deluded coked-up crypto-Tories) but I can't believe how bad a writer dude is as an editor, even a Mixmag one. The rest of it didn't really tell me much you can't read in Once In A Lifetime by Jane Bussman or, er, a bunch of articles on club culture over the last several years

"how bad a writer dude is as an editor" - ie considering he was an editor. lol me

yeah i guess you can get most of that out of once in a lifetime, but i didn't like that anywhere as much. that's laid out like a sort of a bitty smash hits annual thing whereas this flows better, proper narrative.

i can forgive a minor stats mistake here and there but i'm talking elementary errors like mixing up 'to' and too'. it's not something to gripe on about but hope they fix it for future editions.

if you've followed articles about 90s clubbing all the way through then yeah it'd doubtful you'll get much from it, same as with any kind of cultural account. can you point me towards any good articles online?

this is the 2004 guardian article by alexis petridis phillips mentions, about the official end of it all: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2004/nov/03/popandrock

this sounds great but it does seem to be a 'thing' with books on music in particular, that no-one fucking reads them before they go to press.

tell a lie, this is the actual article: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2003/aug/21/rock.pop