So exciting! A book of their artwork would be absolutely brilliant... especially if accompanied by the same detailed behind-the-music storytelling we got on the Instagram account during the EP reissues last year.

And very nice to see Truth and Beauty in the collection!

-- Edited by hawalius1 on Monday 22nd of April 2024 04:48:32 PM

www.brownsbfs.co.uk/Product/Webber-Mark/Im-With-Pulp-Are-You/9781955125062

I'm with Pulp, Are You? is a celebration of the iconic British band that draws on over 40 years' worth of archival objects, ephemera and images hoarded and collected by Pulp guitarist Mark Webber.

Mark joined Pulp in 1995, just before the release of 'Common People' and the multi-platinum album Different Class.

Prior to becoming a permanent member of the group, he was first a teenage fan, then worked as tour manager, additional musician, and ran the official Pulp People fan club.

This lavishly illustrated book includes photographs, flyers, record covers, set lists, stickers, posters, press clippings, merchandise, tour itineraries, and masses of promotional material, most of which dates from a pre-digital age.

To augment the visual material that tells the long and storied history of the band and its lead singer Jarvis Cocker, I'm with Pulp, Are You? also includes essays by music writers Simon Reynolds and Luke Turner.

Mark Webber's introduction and numerous anecdotes offer a first-hand account of life inside a band that rose to prominence in the 1990s and continues to be much-loved today.

Release date is 03/10/24 and the cost is £53.99

Everyone knows how much of a Mark fan I am, but this is very disappointing news.


£54?! and it's not even available commercially?! Only available to business and educational accounts. So apparently it's off limits to us lot. Mark, if you are reading this, you literally could have self published through The Visible Press for £25 and everyone would have appreciated it.

And apparently, from the looks of it, it's not even a proper autobiography like "So it started there".

I was looking forward to reading about Mark's childhood in Chesterfield, how he was influenced by David Bowie and The Velvet Underground, how in his teenage years he went from fanzine writer, to somewhat of a musical entrepreneur, playing in his own bands (ie how Siegfried's Magick Box came into being) and booking bands at venues he was too young to drink at. I want to read about The Groovy Fishtank, and behind the scenes at "The Day that Never Happened". I want to find out what he was doing when Jarvis went off to St Martins and find out about the bands he was in before hooking up with Pulp in 1991 - as mentioned by Sturdy in Truth and Beauty (Higher Elevation, The Violet Purple Squish, and most intriguingly his solo stint in Uranium 235). I want to know what happened to him after Magna, and how he became an internationally renowned film curator. I want to know what his thoughts and feeling were when the call came in 2010 (remember, Mark was the last member of the band to come round to touring again, even saying that he had "come to terms" with Pulp. I want to know why and how it was, that he suddenly reemerged in 2020 to be the Twitter narrator for the Tim Burgess listen-a-thon for "Different Class". I want to know why, when so many of his contemporaries were working on music related projects (or making cheese!) he went down the unusual route of being a writer and publisher of books about semi-obscure but influential filmmakers. I want to know what drew him back to touring with the band, and with Hymn of the North and Background Noise, potentially making new music, and finally, how profoundly the death of Steve Mackey affected him, and made him think of his own mortality and the mark (haha) he has made in this world.

THAT is the book I'd want to read.

Sorry for the rant.

-- Edited by SarahAWilson on Thursday 30th of May 2024 07:31:05 PM

In fairness, it was never touted as a memoir.

Where does it say it's not available commercially?

Damn Mark and his pink scarf in Barcelona in late May...

Yeah, I was thinking the same. Surely the publisher involved will want as many sales as possible and they'll have agreed to put this out knowing that Pulp have a sizeable audience.

Think we should be grateful that he has taken the time out to make this book

Sarah

Ive read, re-read and read your posts again - and I think you are being incredibly harsh regarding the whole Mark Webber book thing, and not only this - you are being rather shitty towards the Bar Italia community.

I totally get it - you are a dedicated fan of Pulp, and sometimes I think that you are more of a fan of Mark as an individual rather than Pulp as a collective. Mark has taken the time to publish a book - and as fans of the band, itll get bought regardless of the cost. Pulp are a HUGE HUGE HUGE band, they are well respected in the land of music, and each member is respected in their own rights too towards their own commitments. You know a great deal about Mark - to the extent that there is alot of things that you know about him, that others (myself included here) wont. The amount of posts and comments you have made about him in the past indicates a rather unhealthy obcession about him.

Mark has as far as I know, always been a rather private and reserved kinda guy. He isnt very outspoken. The fact that he has included this that and whatever in his book, is purely down to his choice, and that has to be respected. Ive still not read Freak Out The Squares yet, so I dont know what this chapter is that you refer to, however you seem awfully defensive about whatever was written - and I get that, as you are a fan of Mark. Whatever Russell has written (whether its truth, or massively exhagerated), it is what it is - move on. Its hardly worth losing sleep over.

Your video (that is now deleted I notice) - I DID actually watch, and being honest - I cant remember too much about it, I have had a lot of personal trauma going on in my life - so I cant be sure of its entire content, however I have a feeling that I know what a good chunk of it might have been :) . Yes it takes a lot of courage and bottle to release something that might have caused you personal feelings and emotions (I suffer with depression, and take Setraline so I know too well about personal demons) - but to have a go at people on here for either not watching, or making comments about the video - maybe people didnt want to as it could have triggered off some of their own personal thoughts etc, or maybe the fact that people just didnt want to make a comment?

Myself personally, im a Pulp fan - and a BIG fan at that. I have had issues myself in the past due to drink, drugs and lifestyle situations - as im sure others will have done too. I made a few mistakes on here, of which I massively regretted and still do to this day - however I made errands and right those wrongs that I created. Whilst doing so, ive also brought ALOT to the table - this doesnt make me "boss" or anything like that, I have done alot for not just myself, but other fans too.

Ive gone to great expense in making purchases from my own pocket of which people contributed, and reaped the rewards. I didnt do this because I wanted people to stand up and give me a pat on the back, I did it because of my passion for the band, and also the community that we are with here. Many of us have been here for a long long long time - some of us are good friends who we meet up with and go to see other bands with, some are just aquaintences where we just get on with it because of the love for the band. I really do think you have been harsh on us, in doubting whether "anyone bothered to see my video". Isnt that down to our personal choice?

The comment about Mark Sturdy "sleeping soundly because a band member has a copy of his book" - is really shitty. That book took years of research, interviews and dedication from Mark, so he should absolutely be proud about it - I dont think he would be too concerned if they did or didnt have a copy of it, however it is a "brucey bonus" that they do.

Regarding Pulp/Nicks retweeting of things, they simply cannot retweet every single thing that people have done. Ive been very fortunate to have built a friendship with Nick personally via the covid-19 lockdowns, and the fact that we traded some Pulp vinyl, and built upon from there. Again, its their choice as to what content they share or not.

Look, im sorry if this is coming across as a dig at you Sarah. I know you are a very emotional and caring person. Try not to wear your heart on your sleeve. You are a big fan, and I hope you continue to be so. To say you are heartbroken by a situation like this - you cannot please everyone, and cannot force everyone to do something that they dont want to.

Keep on singing "with the common people", carry on "partying hard", and lets just all enjoy our love and reasoning for being here.

Pulp.

I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm going through a really bad patch mentally speaking at the moment and I tend to lash out when I don't mean to. I try to bottle it up but everything just triggers me. I don't know if it's my head or if I'm perimenopausal, but I just go from 0-60 in the blink of an eye.  I'm on medication and have been since I was in my late 30's.

I have had a lot of trauma in my life. Too much, and it doesn't seem it ever going to stop. 

 

I'm sorry I'm acting shitty. I didn't mean to lash out especially at Sturdy. I know he worked hard on that book and Ester too. It was just spite, and pettiness and jealousy. It's like, every time I do something, or something happens to me I can be insanely proud of, someone has to come along with a bigger claim or a better achievement and suddenly the spotlight is whisked away and you are standing there is dark feeling very alone and sad.

Imagine you are 16 years old. You've had a very traumatic childhood (parental alcoholism and violence, parental death, poverty, bullying at school) and you get a reply from a fan letter you sent to X pop star. Finally you have something to be proud about. So you take the letter to college and you show your friends, and all is going great until someone pipes up that one of your other classmates is the cousin of someone in the band. How is a letter going to compare with that? I didn't even feel get one day to be happy with myself.

Imagine now you are 35 and standing in your back garden surrounded the burnt out contents of what used to be your bedroom. Everything you have ever owned is now lying around your feet in piles of melted plastic and charred paper all your books, photographs, music collection. Including that letter. Now I have nothing left to feel proud about

Imagine you are 41. You've just made a film, paying tribute to your favourite band, but you are scared, terrified that trouble is going to be headed your way if you finish it. So through various channels you send a message to someone, and a few days later you get a reply via third party, saying everything is cool and go ahead and make your film. It's a fairly innocuous, there is nothing scandalous or too revealing, nothing that we as fans don't already know and it brings you great comfort. So in your naivety you post the message on a forum and wait for every to go "wow". Yes I'm an attention seeker. But if you knew why you would probably understand.

The next day you get a message from a third party DEMANDING that the message be taken down. Or course I complied, had the message taken down, deleted it from my mail app. And then spent the rest of the day in a ball on floor, crying my eyes out, absolutely paralyzed with fear, terrified that the next time you set foot out of your house, you are going to be dragged off to a police station or psychiatric ward. You dread the mail every day in case the next post is a summons to court or a restraining order. You feel like everyone is just poised to strip your freedom from you, shun you, point fingers at you and tell you how much of a bad person you are. 

It takes a long time to recover from this. Every time you go back to edit your film, you feel physically sick with fear and you just want to press the delete button and just forget about it. But you persevere. you get the film done. You post it online. You send messages to all and sundry across social media and you wait. You don't even care if the reaction is negative or positive. You just want a reaction. So you wait. And wait. And wait. Until every morsel of hope and pride just drains out of and you are just left with sadness and anger, blaming yourself for not being better. 

I didn't delete it. I had to take it down to re-edit it because there was some bad tracking on a voice over I did for a photo montage. It's here. 

 

There are captions and voice overs in the film which kind of illustrate the problems I have with my mental health. I know I have a problem, but there is nothing I really can do except take my pills everyday and hope for the best. 

It just wasnt a joke about your mental health though? It was just a joke about contact lenses and didnt even feature a screenshot of what you said personally. No one is saying your mental health is a joke.

Regarding what was said earlier, I dont appreciate being name-dropped for the thesis that I wrote. Im glad Nick retweeted it and happy that other people enjoyed it as well. That was many months ago though and even if no one did read it, I would still be proud of myself for the work I created in the first place, and I enjoyed writing it. So many people create fantastic pieces of pulp related things that are never seen by the band but yet enjoyed by the pulp fan group. Considering your film has been out for nearly a year I think everyone would agree that its time to make peace with that fact.

Sarah, I can promise you that nobody here hates you. I've been either observing or involved in internet drama of some sort since 1998, so I know what I'm talking about here, this of all communities is not going to think any worse of you for this.

Also as someone who also makes things, it's a losing battle trying to get much validation after sharing them, the joy has to be in the creative process. I have never had a retweet or even a like from an official Pulp account, none of them follow me, I have no idea if any of them have even heard of my blog (except Nick, who is only aware because I told him about it at that signing, and he may have already forgotten) but that's ok, they are not really the audience for it anyway. That one-sided relationship where we know everything about them but they know nothing about us, that's always going to be an uncomfortable thing for them to deal with, you know? (I know that none of this is news to you, the introduction to your film is literally a definition of parasocial relationships)

No offense intended but I think you need to step back and think hard about the term parasocial and what that means for the art you create. if you need validation in the form of a members retweet or some official response or endorsement youre missing the point of creating things you love and care about. Youre no less of a person or a fan just because you havent gotten the response you wanted. Find satisfaction and pride in the work you made and enjoy it - dont cry when it doesnt get the response you anticipated and especially dont bring others work into it out of jealousy. This is not the place to cry for help- the obscure pulp forum cannot provide therapy for your past traumas and mental health issues. Best of luck with getting that sorted out