| rockchic65 29.08.2019 21:53 |
Don't think this has already been posted Dear ALL… Finally, I can announce our brand new book on Freddie. My friend and colleague Simon Lupton and I have been working hard on a project this year, which we recently finished and are rather proud of. Rather than me trying to explain what it is, and how it came about, perhaps it’s better if I offer some of the text that will circulate as of Sept 1st.... Freddie Mercury: A Life, In HIs Own Words is the nearest thing to a Freddie autobiography as it is possible to achieve. A collection of moving, witty, and often irreverent quotes and interview transcripts from the man himself, meticulously compiled and edited by official Queen archivist Greg Brooks and Queen visuals producer Simon Lupton. An essential read not just for fans of the band, but anyone intrigued to know more about one of music’s most endearing and enduring performers. Freddie rarely talked about himself to others, and so the interviews he did undertake offered an intriguing insight into a man who outwardly exuded confidence and arrogance, but whom, behind the public perception, spent long periods alone searching for happiness. The truth was that Freddie was painfully shy and uncomfortable of anyone new to his company of close friends and invited guests. He lived an extraordinary life in his 45 years, and as he said himself, he lived life to the full. It is hard to believe he has been gone for nearly 30 years. There will always be more to learn about the little boy Farrokh Bulsara, who became Freddie, and then Mercury, and there will never be a time when we know it all. All we can do in his absence is to gather together the words he left behind in his various conversations and articles and present them in a way that we hope he would have approved of. This comprehensive insight goes some way to endorsing the fact that as well as being ‘a singer with a song’, Freddie Mercury was a very great deal more than that! For a man so generally reticent to talk, he certainly covered a lot of ground in his twenty years of interview encounters. Through 20 chapters over 194 pages, this is Freddie’s life, told in his own words - 70,000 of them no less! - and all from his unique perspective and delivered in his own inimitable, unpredictable, invariably funny, often poignant, and always entertaining way. Some of you may remember we briefly put out a version of this book back in 2006, but there was so much happening at that time, it was only available for a short time and it was largely overlooked. This is a radically updated and restructured edition, with more than 8,000 additional words from Freddie, much of which has never been published before - because they came from unused interview out-takes, as well as from extremely rare interviews from 1975/76 that we only recently found. Simon and I had some crucial help with this book from Adam Unger, Richard Guilbault, and other fans I'll mention soon. There will be much more detail to come about this book, and I’ll keep you fully posted. Freddie Mercury: A Life, In HIs Own Words will be available to pre-order on Amazon and Kindle from Sept 1, and then the worldwide Amazon publication is Sept 5th. I’ll make the details clearer as soon as it goes live. I hope you enjoy it. GB link |
| cmsdrums 29.08.2019 22:02 |
....We briefly put out a version of this book back in 2006, BUT THERE WAS SO MUCH HAPPENING AT THAT TIME, it was only available for a short time and it was largely overlooked.” This stood out to me as a strange explanation as to the book not taking off when it was previously released compared to now....surely there is FAR more going on in the world of Queen now than there was in 2006? |
| Galileo1564 30.08.2019 03:03 |
It’s especially strange given that until recently one could buy a kindle version on amazon.com, at least in the US. There was some discussion a while back of the poor scholarship in this book. I don’t know what else to call it. There are no sources given for any of the quotes. Some of it is from well-known sources such as the Wigg interviews. In some cases sentences are patched together from different sources. Given the complaints about GB on QZ I’m not holding out hope that things have improved. |
| Makka 30.08.2019 04:25 |
Would rather they get back in the archives and look at more releases. |
| badboybez 30.08.2019 04:35 |
As above |
| runner_70 30.08.2019 08:19 |
Lame rehash of an old book which was not too great. No quotes no nothing. |
| dudeofqueen 30.08.2019 08:40 |
Re: >This is a radically updated and restructured edition, with more than 8,000 additional words from Freddie, much of which has never been published before - because they came from unused interview out-takes, as well as from extremely rare interviews from 1975/76 that we only recently found Re-hashing material that is already available. Genius. Keep squeezing that stone you fat bastard........ |
| pittrek 30.08.2019 09:48 |
Boredom, boredom,budum budum |
| Dr Magus 30.08.2019 11:05 |
Greg's efforts with the 2005 War Of The Worlds boxset were admirable. But this is shite. |
| matt z 30.08.2019 13:47 |
Damn, another rehash. Pretty disappointing....but it's old catalogue and sourced from many things they wish to advertise within. Expect a forward with glowing praise for QAL haven't read it- never will. Prob seen/heard/read most of it. ^if the above is true, It's sad to read a book of quotations that doesn't have it's own annotations. |
| Galileo1564 30.08.2019 16:50 |
@ matt z link There are a couple of posts from mika251 about this lack of annotations and other issues. Scroll down to the bottom of the page, they are there. I haven’t seen her post in a while. Maybe she’ll finish the project, but from the way she describes things it seems like way too big a thing to do just for the love of it. I wouldn’t, anyway. |
| Agr123456 30.08.2019 20:09 |
I bought the first release...I read it and I have to say that...The next day i sold it. Useless. |
| SweetCarolina 31.08.2019 09:26 |
Its time to kick out that Greg Brooks.... Annoying person |
| people on streets 31.08.2019 10:19 |
Beatiful picture of Fred. Other than that nothing interesting about this book. |
| matt z 31.08.2019 17:18 |
I guess GB doesn't know annotations and ibid's. What's the point of a thoroughly researched resource book/paper if it doesn't retain documentation on sources? That's trash work and very frustrating. Comparable thing was Steve Lukather's "auto bio" which had no index. Never mind the astonishing omissions (probably for legal reasons) and TECHNICAL omissions (who he admired growing up, why, What influence it had on his playing, why he designed his "LUKES" the way he did, scenarios for practice, insights etc") That's just shitty writing. Go start a petition. CMatt, Chief Mouse and The Real Wizard need reassignment on these projects. They need to be in charge of this archive |
| inu-liger 31.08.2019 17:31 |
Richard here. To attempt to bring something positive to the table here (a difficult task considering such a thing is discouraged on Queenzone! ;) ), I had a blast helping put together the new edition of the book. There were some very insightful quotes and some incredibly funny ones as well. It was very interesting learning even more about Freddie during the research process for the book, which is saying something as a 22 year long fan (and counting), and I hope at least some of you will feel the same way when you read this book :) |
| stevelondon20 31.08.2019 18:03 |
I will give it a go Richard. |
| matt z 31.08.2019 18:15 |
Second the support, knowing OF Inu and diligence. Prob not buying it though tbh. |
| inu-liger 31.08.2019 19:01 |
Diligence is right, Matt, and thank you for pointing that out. I had pages in the quintuple digit range of material to skim through carefully to find anything new and useful which hadn't been used in the original print, and this took months to accomplish in my spare time, since I do work full time and have kids to provide for. But I felt it was a very rewarding experience. I have been seeing a lot of positive reception towards this book on Facebook, so I'm looking forward to see what people think of the book after it comes out. PS. You probably should buy it anyway, it's only ten quid and it would look nice on your coffee table, and at the rate everything is skyrocketing on the second hand market ever since the movie came out, might be a good investment for you ;) (Trust me on this, I've been to Japan five times over the last two years, and on the most recent trip this month, there was a HUGE difference in the availability - or lack of! - of Queen products in the second hand shops this time around!) |
| inu-liger 31.08.2019 19:01 |
stevelondon20 wrote: I will give it a go Richard.Thank you Steve. I hope you will enjoy it :) |
| cmsdrums 01.09.2019 08:59 |
“PS. You probably should buy it anyway, it's only ten quid and it would look nice on your coffee table” And here you see Queen’s kind of thinking on official releases permeating into outside ones!! |
| dudeofqueen 01.09.2019 09:27 |
Richard, re: >There were some very insightful quotes and some incredibly funny ones as well. It was very interesting learning even more about Freddie during the research process for the book, which is saying something as a 22 year long fan (and counting), and I hope at least some of you will feel the same way when you read this book :) Did you work on the original edition of the book? WHAT did **you** learn that was NEW or INTERESTING about Freddie during the research that isn't already widely known and is that directly translated through ANY of the quotes or extracts used in the NEW EDITION of the book ? |
| inu-liger 01.09.2019 14:34 |
cmsdrums, if you knew the tones I actually typically use, you’d have known I was only slightly teasing Matt. But as often, people here misread what I actually mean because tone does not carry over well when it comes to text. Ask anyone here who’s actually met me in person :P I’m not actually trying to force anyone to buy it if they don’t want to. |
| inu-liger 01.09.2019 15:06 |
dudeofqueen, no I did not work on the original print. This revision is my first work through Greg. You will also find photographic contributions in the upcoming I Want It All memorabilia book, and I’m exceptionally excited for the next project coming up. |
| runner_70 01.09.2019 19:20 |
Meanwhile Pink Floyd are releasing Boxset after Boxset with awesome unreleased material. All we get is a reissue of a not so good book from 2006. Sad. |
| inu-liger 01.09.2019 19:28 |
One only costs 10 quid and the other costs 430 quid (AND is partially compromised of re-released material too!), so what do you want? |
| runner_70 01.09.2019 22:03 |
inu-liger wrote: One only costs 10 quid and the other costs 430 quid (AND is partially compromised of re-released material too!), so what do you want?SOme quality product not a rushed re release of a subpar book that went nowhere 13 years ago |
| cmsdrums 02.09.2019 11:39 |
inu-liger wrote: cmsdrums, if you knew the tones I actually typically use, you’d have known I was only slightly teasing Matt. But as often, people here misread what I actually mean because tone does not carry over well when it comes to text. Ask anyone here who’s actually met me in person :P I’m not actually trying to force anyone to buy it if they don’t want to.Nice one - I think I'd appreciated your humour, and my response was also tongue-in-cheek, but I couldn't add an appropriate 'wink/smiley face' emoji to make that clear! |
| dudeofqueen 02.09.2019 11:51 |
inu-liger, re: >dudeofqueen, no I did not work on the original print. This revision is my first work through Greg. You will also find photographic contributions in the upcoming I Want It All memorabilia book, and I’m exceptionally excited for the next project coming up. Great; but is the lack of an answer to the second question deliberate or representative of the book's actual content: What did **you** learn that was NEW or INTERESTING about Freddie during the research that isn't already widely known and is that directly translated through ANY of the quotes or extracts used in the NEW EDITION of the book? |
| Chief Mouse 02.09.2019 18:43 |
It could be interesting to read through it once. As far as I understood, it is a personal project by GB and that's fair enough. I bet he would release the audiovisual material if he could but that's not in his power so why the moaning? Not gonna slam this project. Thanks to Richard for participating :) |
| inu-liger 02.09.2019 21:52 |
You are correct Chief, it is indeed a personal project of Greg’s, he’s been wanting to do this update for at least 10 years, and I came in pretty much at the right time, right place. As far as sharing the anecdotes what I personally learned, that would require me to go back through the thousands of pages of source material I had to skim through to find the specifics, and I haven't touched those documents since I finished my share of the workload around Christmas, and I don’t feel it would be appropriate anyway to potentially leak any of the new text from this print, ethically speaking. Perhaps in the near future I will find time to pick out the specific quotes that caught my attention that way, but right now my own band are about to resume activities after a year long hiatus, so free time is going to be at a bit of a premium for me once again. |
| YourValentine 03.09.2019 09:53 |
Richard, I am sure you remember the discussion we had on this board about the first edition of the book. You find the thread here link Can you please tell me if the new edition contains a list of references where we can learn when and where Freddie said what is quoted in the book and are the "edits" marked off as such in the new edition, so that we know if the quote is really from Freddie or if it was randomly changed by Greg Brooks and/or Simon Lipton without telling us why the specific quotes were "edited". I know that Greg Brooks does not like critical questions, so I hope you give us the answer :-) |
| runner_70 03.09.2019 11:37 |
Exactly - that was the most annoying part of this book. No quotes had any references - most of it seemed self constructed by hearsay. Ich don't think this will have changed so I give it a pass and look to those beatles and Floyd fans who get one or two boxsets a year while we get QAL and lame rehashed books. Queen has to be the band with the worst backcatalogue releases ever. "greg Brooks does not like critical questions" - lol, good one |
| inu-liger 03.09.2019 14:12 |
Barb, I don’t know the answer to that one, you will have to ask Greg. My job (along with Adam, Demitri and Sandwer) was to find any useful quotes that weren’t in the original print, and we certainly did insert notations for every quote where they had been sourced from. |
| cmsdrums 03.09.2019 15:26 |
inu-liger wrote: Barb, I don’t know the answer to that one, you will have to ask Greg. My job (along with Adam, Demitri and Sandwer) was to find any useful quotes that weren’t in the original print, and we certainly did insert notations for every quote where they had been sourced from.Thanks - good to hear you noted the source of the material you added. It will be interesting to see if Greg and Simon have gone back and revisited the original extracts and done the same, and perhaps even 'un-doctored' some of the quotes that others have claimed they amended and changed the first time around. |
| dudeofqueen 04.09.2019 08:19 |
inu-liger, re: >and I don’t feel it would be appropriate anyway to potentially leak any of the new text from this print, ethically speaking Really? This is just reproducing interview comments that are already in the public domain though. Just an exercise in plagiarism, after all....... Ethically speaking? I do believe that's attaching way too much importance to the whole sorry story. |
| runner_70 04.09.2019 08:59 |
dudeofqueen wrote: inu-liger, re: >and I don’t feel it would be appropriate anyway to potentially leak any of the new text from this print, ethically speaking Really? This is just reproducing interview comments that are already in the public domain though. Just an exercise in plagiarism, after all....... Ethically speaking? I do believe that's attaching way too much importance to the whole sorry story.+1 :) |
| inu-liger 09.09.2019 18:30 |
So has anyone here received their copy of the book yet? Would love to hear some feedback from the readers, what do you think of the book? :) |
| dudeofqueen 10.09.2019 08:21 |
inu-liger, re: >So has anyone here received their copy of the book yet? Predictable amounts of tumbleweed.... |
| runner_70 10.09.2019 18:29 |
Seems to be a big seller :) And the promised notations are missing as well. Sad Money grab nothing more. It was crap the first time you cannot polish a turd. |
| inu-liger 11.09.2019 02:18 |
runner_70 wrote: And the promised notations are missing as well.Bite me. |
| inu-liger 11.09.2019 02:18 |
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| inu-liger 11.09.2019 02:18 |
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| runner_70 11.09.2019 04:05 |
I meant notations which quote ist from which year and source.... |
| inu-liger 11.09.2019 04:48 |
runner_70 wrote: I meant notations which quote ist from which year and source....I never "promised" those would be there. |
| runner_70 11.09.2019 05:36 |
You did as most people had this as their Main criticism. It would have been easy to do if rhe quotes were all from reliable sources which they dont seem to be. So it is the same lazy affair like the first Edition in expanded Format. |
| inu-liger 11.09.2019 07:05 |
No, I did not, and I will remind you what I factually said. ALL I said was, the 4 of us who assisted Greg and Simon (myself, Adam, Demitri and Sander) put the name of the article or document next to every individual line that was entered into the internal database used to store our found contributions, where those lines each came from, WHEN we were working on the project. I did NOT say for sure that the book was going to have every line’s source individually annotated. Neither myself or the other 3 were in charge of handling the editing of the book, that was not in our duties. You would have to ask Greg or Simon why those lines weren’t individually annotated they way you would have liked to see them done. |
| cmsdrums 11.09.2019 08:11 |
Just to be really pedantic, a credit is given for reproduction of lyrics to '"Is This the World We Created" The correct title is 'Is This the World We Created...?' Is this that important? No Is this annoying and sloppy? Yes ....though not quite as bad as when 'In the Lap of the Gods' is listed in articles and set lists when it's actually 'In the Lap of the Gods... Revisited'! |
| YourValentine 11.09.2019 12:27 |
Thanks for the info, Richard, it saves me another senseless purchase. It's not your fault, I am sure you and Adam did a meticulous job but the result is the same as the 2006 edition. |
| runner_70 11.09.2019 12:59 |
inu-liger wrote: No, I did not, and I will remind you what I factually said. ALL I said was, the 4 of us who assisted Greg and Simon (myself, Adam, Demitri and Sander) put the name of the article or document next to every individual line that was entered into the internal database used to store our found contributions, where those lines each came from, WHEN we were working on the project. I did NOT say for sure that the book was going to have every line’s source individually annotated. Neither myself or the other 3 were in charge of handling the editing of the book, that was not in our duties. You would have to ask Greg or Simon why those lines weren’t individually annotated they way you would have liked to see them done.So basically you say you worked on the notations where available when in the end there is just a basic notation at the end of the book and no single notation is seen on the individual quotes. I am sure not the only one to have misunderstood as you were clearly saying there are the notations that were missing in the first Edition which was the main gripe about the book?? |
| runner_70 11.09.2019 13:14 |
YourValentine wrote: Thanks for the info, Richard, it saves me another senseless purchase. It's not your fault, I am sure you and Adam did a meticulous job but the result is the same as the 2006 edition.Yup. At least they dont try to sell this as new book as "The Queen treasures" which is "40 years of Queen" plus some BR movie pix with no about this at all. Greedy Bastards |
| runner_70 11.09.2019 16:34 |
cmsdrums wrote:Well thats what you said - I read it as if there were notations for every quote where they had been sourced from. And now it is the same as in the first edition. And it is not your fault. Hmm.inu-liger wrote: Barb, I don’t know the answer to that one, you will have to ask Greg. My job (along with Adam, Demitri and Sandwer) was to find any useful quotes that weren’t in the original print, and we certainly did insert notations for every quote where they had been sourced from.Thanks - good to hear you noted the source of the material you added. It will be interesting to see if Greg and Simon have gone back and revisited the original extracts and done the same, and perhaps even 'un-doctored' some of the quotes that others have claimed they amended and changed the first time around. |
| GB: Queen Archivist 24.09.2019 15:56 |
Hello YourValentine. Long time no speak. It is inaccurate and misleading, emphatically wrong indeed, to say to Richard that the result is the same as the 2006 edition. The 2006 edition contained 61,000 words. This revised edition contains 73,000. There are between 8,000 and 9,000 words from Freddie IN this updated edition that were NOT in the first one. This edition contains comment from Freddie that we did not even know about in 2006. We unearthed several great interview gems from old tapes, with Queen or with just Freddie, including unused out-takes that were never broadcast. Thus, those examples have never ever been available to read until now. The result therefore is NOT the same as the 2006 edition by at least 9,000 words. |
| CourtneyTodd 24.01.2020 17:32 |
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