Dave Tompkins

What the funk? This is a brilliant concept for a book, turned into an unedited collection of incomprehensible (unless you already know a lot about funk and early hip hop, not to mention a lot about voice synthesis!) vignettes, gonzo recollections, interviews, and histories. There's a lot of great stuff in here, and Tompkins had incredible sources and insights into how the encryption tool turned into a pop music tool. But I think that this would make a vastly better film documentary, or show more interactive web site, than book, particularly for an audience that's not nearly as culture-aware as Tompkins is. show less

Fascinating crossover between conservative WW2 and Cold War history and flaky (even "degenerate" :-) late 20th century music making. It shows the enourmous connectivity inside the electronic music world, though towards the end it starts to feel like the author wanted to include (and thus preserve) *all* of his interview notes, it gets kind of fragmented.

Great fun.