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With considerable skill, Mueller skids around the globe from failed
state to ravaged war zone to desolate no-man's-land, from Beirut to
Basra via Belfast and Bihac, to try to unpick why we humans seem so
prone to plucking war from the jaws of peace, why so much that can
go wrong does go wrong, over and over again, and how and why some
conflicts suddenly, quietly, inexplicably seem to find themselves
solved. It's a surprisingly sunny book given the mire in which he
finds himself. And it is a notably entertaining and eye-opening
tour of the world's moral basements in the vein of Holidays in Hell
or Emergency Sex.
Spending a night out in the former battlefields of Beirut wouldn't
strike many people as their idea of a good time. But then, neither
would going to see a Def Leppard concert in a Moroccan cave. Yet
Andrew Mueller has willingly done both and somehow managed to see
the humorous side. Rock And Hard Places, his first book, recounts
his experiences in such far-flung places as Kabul and the Woodstock
II festival. Throughout, he seems constantly amazed by people's
ability to survive any hardship, whether they're caused by mines or
mud. Rock And Hard Places is half travel literature, half rock
literature. In the spirit--and style--of American humorist P.J.
O'Rourke, Andrew Mueller seeks out the world's trouble spots (and
Nashville) in order to provide a frank report to the non-political
reader. His common-sense outlook and innocence influence his
observations, so that he is constantly asking "Why?" when faced
with the absurdities of the wider world. He is at his best (and
funniest) when he is able to direct this curiosity towards the
locals. When he's not charming militant fundamentalists, Andrew
Mueller spends his time as a freelance music journalist. This book
also collects a number of his interviews with some of the biggest
bands of the moment, including Radiohead, U2 and The Prodigy. He is
a talented interviewer, with a casualness and a sense of ease that
enables you to see these bands as the collections of individuals
that they are.
Andrew Mueller is Australian by birth, a Londoner by choice, a
wanderer by nature, and a journalist by profession. Unable to
decide between being a rock critic, travel writer, or foreign
correspondent, he hit upon the novel, if time-consuming, solution
of trying to be all three at once. In "Rock and Hard Places,"
published originally in the U.K. in 1999, now re-envisioned and
updated and available for the first time in the United States, he
travels to Lebanon with the Prodigy, comes to America with
Radiohead, and goes all over the place with U2. He ventures to
Bosnia Herzegovina with an aid convoy in the middle of the war,
sees Def Leppard play in a cave in Morocco, and attempts to ask the
Taliban not only what they think they're up to, but who they fancy
for the World Cup. He flings himself head first down the Cresta
Run, sits in Stalin's armchair, chases ambulances through Moscow,
chases some kind of lost tribe in India, wakes up at least once in
a park in Reykjavik, and strongly advises avoiding the seafood
salad in Sapporo Airport. He's funny. Occasionally he makes a
point.
What is a jaded rock journalist doing dodging landmines to talk to
mercenaries and terrorists? And what kind of conversation can a man
who prefers hunting for perfect three-minute pop songs and tubes of
beer have with devotees of fasting and ferocity? Sarajevo.
Jerusalem. Kabul. Belfast. Kosovo. Gaza. Basra. New York City.
Every place where recent history advertises the stubbornness,
intolerance, bloodlust, and cowardice that sully our collective
record, there the intrepid Andrew Mueller goes. With considerable
skill, Mueller skids around the globe from failed state to ravaged
war zone to desolate no-man's-land to try to unpick why we humans
seem so prone to plucking war from the jaws of peace. En route, he
meets various influential panjandrums (Al Gore, Gerry Adams, Bono,
Paddy Ashdown), any number of assorted warlords and
revolutionaries, and a sprinkling of peacemakers and do-gooders. He
also manages to get shot at a couple of times, locked up once, and
taken on a guided tour by one of the world's most infamous
terrorist organizations. It's like a Bond film with much, much less
sex, and might appear for that and other reasons to be
substantially a story of disappointment. Yet it's a surprisingly
sunny book given the mire in which he finds himself. And it is a
notably entertaining and eye-opening tour of the world's moral
basements in the vein of P. J. O'Rourke's Holidays in Hell.
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