Where do old pop stars go to die? They go to work in self-storage, where they meet interesting people and make new friends. Friends who look like French movie star Juliette Binoche and others who look like weirdly bearded paedophiles and perform horrific surgery procedures on themselves. They meet interesting people like Michael Stipe - not the rock singer from Athens Georgia, just a coincidence - and other assorted bubblewrap fetishists, wooden statues that come to life at night to play arcade games and a homicidal computer named HAL. Storage Stories reads like the autobiography of a man discovering what it's like to be famous and yet no longer successful. A man who finds true friendship and love in the dusty world of a failing self-storage company. A man who is ether a fantastic storyteller or a big fat liar and certainly a not a very good artist. It is a darkly comic fictional autobiographical novel and collection of short stories told in words and pictures. Full of Juliette Binoche look-alikes, self-surgery enthusiasts and bubblewrap fetishists. It will make you laugh and cry and if nothing else finally solves the mystery of what happened to all those missing boybands.
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"(Storage Stories) reads like his songs have come alive and run amok. Its childlike illustrations and magical-realist style summon no less than Kurt Vonnegut carrying his belongings in a supermarket bag-for-life." --Andrew Collins, Word Magazine
Vignettes from the other side of fame Record Collector celebrates the permanence of the musical endeavour, rejoicing that, for each slab of vinyl whether legendary or half-forgotten there s someone who cherishes it. Jim Bob, once of Carter USM, is here to remind us that, despite that permanence of deed, fame and success are essentially fleeting things. The faded pop star narrating Jim s first novel has been there and is back again, finding himself in the dreaded position of having to find a proper job . Managing a self-storage company and enduring the sporadic, It s you, isn t it? and occasional, Didn t you used to be... he wanders through life with a sharp eye for the quirky story hiding behind his customers lives, while renting storage to a Michael Stipe (just not the Michael Stipe) and expounding his theories on where boy bands go when they reach self-awareness. There s something of Nick Hornby in the way that the author infuses his work with the 30- and 40-something pop culture references that makes this book such an engaging read. Really a collection of peculiar snapshots making up an overall narrative; there s a wistfulness of loss at its core but around its edges lies a celebration in the diversity of human nature. --Record Collector magazine
Part Roald Dahl, part Spike Milligan, part (actually, a lot) smutty schoolboy, which suggest that even in a dull world of dog-t**d strewn alleys you can dare to dream. If some TV company ever bought the rights and made a sitcom out of it, we'd have the natural successor to Spaced. --SFX magazine
The list of novels written by pop stars is not a very long one and the list of good novels written by pop stars very much shorter. So it is a pleasure to be able to say that Storage Stories comfortably makes it on to the latter list, being as it is, very good indeed. --Transmitter magazine
Vignettes from the other side of fame Record Collector celebrates the permanence of the musical endeavour, rejoicing that, for each slab of vinyl whether legendary or half-forgotten there s someone who cherishes it. Jim Bob, once of Carter USM, is here to remind us that, despite that permanence of deed, fame and success are essentially fleeting things. The faded pop star narrating Jim s first novel has been there and is back again, finding himself in the dreaded position of having to find a proper job . Managing a self-storage company and enduring the sporadic, It s you, isn t it? and occasional, Didn t you used to be... he wanders through life with a sharp eye for the quirky story hiding behind his customers lives, while renting storage to a Michael Stipe (just not the Michael Stipe) and expounding his theories on where boy bands go when they reach self-awareness. There s something of Nick Hornby in the way that the author infuses his work with the 30- and 40-something pop culture references that makes this book such an engaging read. Really a collection of peculiar snapshots making up an overall narrative; there s a wistfulness of loss at its core but around its edges lies a celebration in the diversity of human nature. --Record Collector magazine
Part Roald Dahl, part Spike Milligan, part (actually, a lot) smutty schoolboy, which suggest that even in a dull world of dog-t**d strewn alleys you can dare to dream. If some TV company ever bought the rights and made a sitcom out of it, we'd have the natural successor to Spaced. --SFX magazine
The list of novels written by pop stars is not a very long one and the list of good novels written by pop stars very much shorter. So it is a pleasure to be able to say that Storage Stories comfortably makes it on to the latter list, being as it is, very good indeed. --Transmitter magazine
About the Author
London musician and author Jim Bob is best known as singer with the London punk pop group Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine. In their ten years together, Carter released 14 top 40 singles and 7 albums, four of which appeared in the top ten of the UK album charts and one that reached number one. With Carter, Jim Bob would become known for his socially aware pop lyrics and in particular his wordplay and use of puns. The band split in 1997 but reformed ten years later for two massive sell out shows: life affirming gigs that would lead to more sell out Carter shows in 2008 and again in November 2009, when the band performed their first four albums in full at two sold out shows at London's HMV Forum & Brixton Academy. Jim Bob' Carter autobiography 'Goodnight Jim Bob - On The Road With Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine' was published by Cherry Red Books in 2004 to critical acclaim. Outside of Carter Jim Bob has had a long and varied solo career. He has released eight albums. He has also written songs for Ian Dury and for the 2006 Barbican production of Mark Ravenhill's Dick Whittington & His Cat, directed by Edward Hall and starring Trigger from Only Fools and Horses. Jim Bob's seventh solo album 'A Humpty Dumpty Thing' came with the mini novel 'Word Count'. 'Word Count' has been optioned by a Hollywood production company and Jim Bob has adapted it for a screenplay. At the end of 2009 Jim performed his epic song 'Angelstrike!' with a full orchestra at Hammersmith Apollo as part of Robin Ince's '9 Lessons & Carols for Godless People - it was filmed for BBC 4 and broadcast in January 2010. Perhaps the pinnacle of Jim Bob's career came in 2008, when he beat Amy Winehouse and Limahl from Kajagoogoo for the title of 'Worst Haircut in the History of Music'. Recognition at last. Storage Stories is Jim Bob's first novel.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Having read Jim Bob's autobiography about his days with Carter I was expecting his debut novel to be similar in tone and style. I was expecting wit, humour and a wicked turn of phrase. Whilst I got all of that I wasn't expecting this tale to be so dark, and at times so emotionally draining. I got drawn into the characters and their lives and genuinely cared for them. In his songs Jim Bob has often observed rather than showed any true emotional involvement. This is not true of Storage Stories.
This is a rollocking story of an ex pop stars new life running an independent storage facility - and at times it becomes something of a magic realist novel as it also touches upon what else happens in the facility (such as where all the boy bands end up).
I should also mention that is comes with pictures. I love Jim Bob's illustrations that are littered throughout the book.
This is a more than accomplished debut novel, and puts Jim Bob right up there with Vonnegut as a master of the quirky and surreal.
This is a rollocking story of an ex pop stars new life running an independent storage facility - and at times it becomes something of a magic realist novel as it also touches upon what else happens in the facility (such as where all the boy bands end up).
I should also mention that is comes with pictures. I love Jim Bob's illustrations that are littered throughout the book.
This is a more than accomplished debut novel, and puts Jim Bob right up there with Vonnegut as a master of the quirky and surreal.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Storage Stories is the tale of a man who used to be a singer in a successful boy band; now he has to face up to "every pop star's nightmare, the most terrifying prospect of all. I might have to get a proper job."
The job is running a storage facility, where he looks after the surplus possessions of Londoners while they move house, travel the world, wait for probate or split up from their partners. Everyone who puts goods into storage has a tale to tell, or one to put on hold: these stories form the substance of the book, alongside the narrator's personal struggle to deal with the emotional and financial implications of not being famous any more.
A singer with Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine, Jim Bob is familiar with the world of contemporary pop; however, Storage Stories is not documentary but finely crafted fiction. His comments on the music industry - sometimes angry, sometimes wistful, always well informed - from time to time suggest a 21st century retake on material in Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, while the book's location in a world of abandoned goods evokes Stella Duffy's The Room of Lost Things. Jim Bob's writing style is informal, direct, observant and emotionally honest, particularly when the narrator recounts his failings and vulnerabilities as a father. It is also, at times, quite beautiful.
Unusually for an adult novel, Storage Stories has illustrations - witty, poignant sketches which are intrinsic to the narrative. The wounds on the face of Janie, the woman whom the narrator loves but who is being abused by her husband, become ever more sinister, but her smile never fades. The Most Miserable Sweetshop In The World is clearly just that.
Self-published, this book is produced to a high professional standard, with clear type, generous spacing and lots of good visual jokes. It is reasonably priced at £9.99 for a moderately fat, hugely satisfying laugh-till-you-cry paperback.
The job is running a storage facility, where he looks after the surplus possessions of Londoners while they move house, travel the world, wait for probate or split up from their partners. Everyone who puts goods into storage has a tale to tell, or one to put on hold: these stories form the substance of the book, alongside the narrator's personal struggle to deal with the emotional and financial implications of not being famous any more.
A singer with Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine, Jim Bob is familiar with the world of contemporary pop; however, Storage Stories is not documentary but finely crafted fiction. His comments on the music industry - sometimes angry, sometimes wistful, always well informed - from time to time suggest a 21st century retake on material in Nick Hornby's High Fidelity, while the book's location in a world of abandoned goods evokes Stella Duffy's The Room of Lost Things. Jim Bob's writing style is informal, direct, observant and emotionally honest, particularly when the narrator recounts his failings and vulnerabilities as a father. It is also, at times, quite beautiful.
Unusually for an adult novel, Storage Stories has illustrations - witty, poignant sketches which are intrinsic to the narrative. The wounds on the face of Janie, the woman whom the narrator loves but who is being abused by her husband, become ever more sinister, but her smile never fades. The Most Miserable Sweetshop In The World is clearly just that.
Self-published, this book is produced to a high professional standard, with clear type, generous spacing and lots of good visual jokes. It is reasonably priced at £9.99 for a moderately fat, hugely satisfying laugh-till-you-cry paperback.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By Jed
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Keep them comeing Jim Bob. This was all you might have expected from the the most undersung(no pun intended) lyricist of the 20th cent. Much enjoyed.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
2.0 out of 5 stars
Snorage Stories.
Lord only knows what a non-Carter fan would make of it.
People familiar with Jim Bob's lyrical shtick (the slippery wordplay and mordant wit, the underdog politics, the... Read more
People familiar with Jim Bob's lyrical shtick (the slippery wordplay and mordant wit, the underdog politics, the... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Ivan Zehdra-Maychayne
5.0 out of 5 stars
Where Are They Now?
A story that actually makes working in a storage facility sound like a whole load of fun. There is a section of this book that you will likely want to read while covering your... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Mr. D. Sweeney
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant
A genuinely brilliant book that always surprises and entertains. Every time you think you have the measure of the book it abruptly, yet gracefully, twists into a parallel reality... Read more
Published on 21 May 2010 by Eccy
5.0 out of 5 stars
Storage Stories, being kept out of storage...
Being an old Carter fan, and following Jim through his solo career, i heard about the book ages back and have been waiting and waiting and waiting for it to be published, when i... Read more
Published on 11 May 2010 by David Parry
5.0 out of 5 stars
Top Storage Story
It usually takes me a good year to finish a book. I tend to get distracted, listen to music, watch TV and the like. Read more
Published on 6 May 2010 by C. A. Siersma
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