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| This storefront was originally set up to focus strictly on my book The Strange Sound of Cthulhu - Music Inspired by the Writings of H. P. Lovecraft. Since then I've begun adding compilations of Music Street Journal articles - but the Lovecraftian music book is still the spotlighted work here. You can scroll down to see all the book offerings (and there is nothing wrong with the MSJ books - it's just that SSoC is a purely original work available on in this format - all the articles in the MSJ book are also available at the website). In any event, what follows is the description of SSoC - but be sure to check out all the books.
Arguably no Author has Influenced More Musicians to Create Music Based Around His Work Than Has Howard Phillips Lovecraft For the First Time There is A Book Documenting The Music with Insights Provided by The Artists Here is an excerpt from Mr. Joshi's Foreward for the book: Now, as Gary Hill's fascinating book attests, Lovecraft has served as the inspiration for a succession of rock musicians over the past forty years or more. Lovecraft himself regretfully admitted that he was not a trained musician and could not appreciate the greatest fruits of Western musical culture-the work of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and others-but instead found innocent pleasure in the barbershop tunes of his boyhood or in such popular songs as "Rule, Britannia" or "It's a Long Way to Tipperary." And yet, Lovecraft did inspire at least one classical musician: his friend Alfred Galpin, who upon Lovecraft's death wrote the poignant piece for solo piano, "Lament for H.P.L." Galpin, starting out as a student of French literature, later turned to music and became a composer and pianist, living for most of his adult life in Italy. During a 1977 conference on Lovecraft in Trieste, Galpin played his own composition for the assembled audience of Lovecraft scholars and devotees. I know of no other instances of Lovecraft inspiring a classical composer or musician, but his influence upon the numerous varieties of rock music-from progressive to heavy metal to punk to Goth-has been well chronicled by Gary Hill. Gary has that rarest of skills among music critics: the ability to describe a song, whether vocal or instrumental, in such a way that readers seem to hear it running through their heads. His coverage-from the 1960s group H. P. Lovecraft to Asmodeus X-is exhaustive and comprehensive, and his sensitivity to the Lovecraftian overtones of songs and albums that do not, at first glance, seem obviously inspired by Lovecraft is impressive. Although my own musical training is largely in the realm of classical music, I gained a real sense of the tremendous impact Lovecraft has had on rock music over the past forty years. Gary has also performed a notable task in interviewing many of the musicians whose work he discusses, so that we have first-hand knowledge of how these artists came upon Lovecraft, what they think of his work, and how their own music is meant to be an homage to the lantern-jawed New England writer.
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