Love Goes to Buildings on Fire

Five Years in New York That Changed Music Forever

By: Will Hermes

Narrated by: Adam Verner

Punk rock and hip-hop, disco and salsa, the loft jazz scene and the downtown composers known as Minimalists - in the mid-1970s, New York City was a laboratory where all the major styles of modern music were reinvented, all at once, from one block to the next, by musicians who knew, admired, and borrowed from one another. Crime was everywhere, the government was broke, and the city’s infrastructure was collapsing; but rent was cheap, and the possibilities for musical exploration were limitless.

Love Goes to Buildings on Fire is the first book to tell the full story of the era’s music scenes and the phenomenal and surprising ways they intersected. From New Year’s Day 1973 to New Year’s Eve 1977, the book moves panoramically from post-Dylan Greenwich Village, to the arson-scarred South Bronx barrios where salsa and hip-hop were created, to the Lower Manhattan lofts where jazz and classical music were reimagined, to ramshackle clubs like CBGB and the Gallery, where rock and dance music were hot-wired for a new generation.

As they remade the music, the musicians at the center of the book invented themselves: Willie Colón and the Fania All-Stars renting Yankee Stadium to take salsa to the masses, New Jersey locals Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith claiming the jungle land of Manhattan as their own, Grandmaster Flash transforming the turntable into a musical instrument, and David Byrne and Talking Heads proving that rock music “ain’t no foolin’ around”.

Will Hermes was there - venturing from his native Queens to the small, dark rooms where the revolution was taking place - and in Love Goes to Buildings on Fire he captures the creativity, drive, and full-out lust for life of the great New York musicians of those years, who knew that the music they were making would change the world.

©2011 Will Hermes (P)2012 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“ Love Goes to Buildings on Fire is an almost perfect portrait of New York music culture: specific yet comprehensive, enthusiastic yet objective, and as informed as it is personal. The four-page section of what (seemingly) every interesting person in NYC was doing on the night of the ’77 blackout could have been a book unto itself.” (Chuck Klosterman, New York Times best-selling author)

“Meticulously researched and engaging.” ( Wall Street Journal)

“Revelatory.” ( Entertainment Weekly)

Clear Passionate and Informed

This was a selection made on a whim. I’ve been digging through NYC(1978-1989). This is a result of doing research on Jean-Michel Basquiat. Although he is not mentioned, nor is John Lurie, I feel like this book sets up the stage for the period that I’m researching.
I especially love the inclusive nature of the normally disparate range of musical stylings. For example, sure, the Ramones are here, but as a Latin music fan, I WAS SO IMPRESSED WITH THE INCLUSION OF FANIA AND THE STARS OF THE ERA!!!
Clearly Mr. Hermes is well versed and knowledgeable about the period. Yet even mire fantastic is his ability to write with passion about all of the content in this book. I would not go out of my way to select LGBTQ reading/listening material, but Hermes writes so passionately and informed about it, that the topic cannot help but be interesting and 100% necessary for the entire 360* perspective.
Like the aforementioned Ramones, I’m not a bug graffiti/hip-hop guy, but yet again, Hermes presents the material so well that I might just do two things #1. Listen to a Ramones album and #2 watch “Wild Style” (the graffiti flick).
I strongly recommend this book, I even bought a hard copy!!!

BRILLIANT! A MUST READ!

This book is absolutely perfect from beginning to end. It is packed full of names dates and performances that are crucial to the history of music and the culture of America. I cannot recommend this book enough.

Great history of NY music scene

Plenty of really good stories about artists I love, like Talking Heads and Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen. I learned a lot also!

A well written masterclass of NYC music, musicians and culture.

What I love is the authors passion and commitment to the music, musician’s, NYC, and his vast inclusivity in all genres of music and humanity. This is a dense detailed, incredibly well researched study on the time, history and music. I loved it from cover to cover. Well done.

Like feeling my own blood pumping, life, music, breath

The most impressive point, for me, was the depth of music influences Hermès brought together to form this account. His knowledge and passion flowed like a series of mountain streams coming together, heading toward the Hudson. Well read and written. Enjoyed every minute of it. Learned a lot.

Utterly essential.

Yes, there have been numerous books about these days, people, bands, scenes...but this is the absolutely comprehensive account. Every burgeoning style and expression in this fecund city is explored in fascinating detail. This is the new authority.

Great text, fine voice, hilarious mispronunciation

Any additional comments?

If you're interested in the art and culture of 1970s NYC, you'll love the book, but you will also laugh out loud more than once at Verner's mispronunciations.

Ok but....

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Well written / read, but for something claiming to trace groundbreaking years, it is provincial and nearly claustrophic. Imagine a book constructed entirely of footnotes. I expected something larger.

Would you ever listen to anything by Will Hermes again?

Yes. I'd at least go, as I did with this, halfway.

What about Adam Verner???s performance did you like?

Wonderful.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Yes. Movie might be better.

Any additional comments?

Worth a listen if you temper your expectations, and probably wonderful if you grew up in NYC in the early 70's listening to groups this marginal but convinced you were at the center of the universe.

history of new york and the music culture

occasionally, I felt like the story got to rambling and jumping around erratically. But at the same time it felt intimate and had some great details and things I never knew about how well-known artist became woven together and influenced each other in the scene.

Great New York Rhapsody

The paperback caught my eye some years back and I liked it so much I had to get the audiobook. It's a text tht reads like a novel with multiple characters. We follow Philip Glass Steve Reich, Bruce Sspringsteen, Grandmaster Flash, Patti Smith, Lou Reed etc etc, through their development in the time span 1970-75. There is SO much information here I am listening for a third time right now. But I always do this. In my opinion, a good book is only good if it makes you want to re-read. I mean, considering how easy it is with audio.

What's so great about this text is that it covers all styles from punk over minimalism ,DJing, salsa, to jazz. For example the New York loft scene, the Bronx street parties with power tapped from street lights.

I used to live in NYC so there's a special affection there but this will be thrilling for any music fan.

Enjoy!