Born in Devon, England, Dave Thompson got his start writing and publishing the TV Times fanzine during the punk explosion at the end of the 1970s.  A regular contributor to the weekly music paper Melody Maker throughout the 1980s, he has also written for the publications Record Collector, Rolling Stone, Mojo, Q, Spin, Alternative Press and many others.  He is currently a columnist in the record collecting magazine Goldmine, and a contributor to the All Music Guide.

Thompson’s first book, the U2 biography Stories For Boys, was published in 1984.   He relocated to the USA in 1989, shortly after being proclaimed the most published English music biographer under the age of 30. Among Thompson’s other titles are biographies of Patti Smith (Dancing Barefoot - 2011), David Bowie (Moonage Daydream – 1987, Hallo Spaceboy – 2006), Deep Purple (Smoke On The Water), the Red Hot Chili Peppers (By The Way), Gothic Rock (In The Reptile House), Genesis (Turn It On Again), Depeche Mode, the Cure, ZZ Top, KISS and many more.  His 1994 biography of Kurt Cobain, Never Fade Away, was an international best seller, while Wheels Out Of Gear, his study of British music and politics at the end of the 1970s, was elected one of Uncut magazine’s Top 25 rock books for 2004.

In 1999, Dave was ranked among the top five foremost rock biographers by the prestigious Mojo magazine, and he received an ARSC “best research” award in 2003 for his encyclopedia Reggae & Caribbean Music.

His first novel, To Major Tom, was published in 2001.

Although he is best known for his musical writings, Thompson is also the author of a number of well-received titles in a variety of other fields, including sport, Hollywood, and various collecting pursuits.  These include the English soccer trilogy Those We Have Loved, biographies of actors John Travolta and Winona Ryder, a groundbreaking history of the development of erotic film, Black and White and Blue (2007), and a playful tribute to the scifi TV show Dr Who, Eclectic Gypsy (2008)

WELCOME!

The purpose of this site is to keep up to date with the books and projects I’m working on right now… to provide a running tally of all the music (and otherwise) books I’ve published over the past thirty years (all one-hundred-and-something-teen of them)… and to retrieve a few of my favorite articles, reviews and interviews from the archive, including some that have nothing whatsoever to do with long-haired pop groups yowling “yeah yeah yeah.”

Such as.  Did you know I once edited a stamp collecting magazine?  That I created psychology quizzes for a woman’s magazine and reviewed books for my local paper… compiled readers letters for an adult publication… created crosswords for one numismatic mag, and won an NLG award for the monthly column that ran in another… that I’ve written about dogs and cowboys and opera and boxing, childrens books and forgotten toys, and that my favorites out of all the books I’ve written include a two volume study of largely-defunct English soccer clubs, a pre-history of erotic movies, a travelogue through the swamps of Louisiana and a whopping great history of GLAM ROCK.  And I have the platforms and loon pants to prove it.

We will meet Iggy Pop and a talking mongoose, George Orwell and Viking hordes, rusty pennies and an Abyssinian Tripehound, wartime satirists and the most haunted house in Britain… and, somewhere in one of those boxes, there’s an interview with Lonely, from Callan.

REVIEW COPIES – anybody requesting review copies of any of my books should please contact the publishers directly.

OTHERWISE, YOU CAN CONTACT DT at…

davethompsonbooks @ yahoo dot com