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Mingering Mike: The Amazing Career of an Imaginary Soul Superstar
by
Dori Hadar
One cold December morning, Dori HadarDJ by night, criminal investigator by daywas digging through crates of records at a flea market in Washington, D.C. There he stumbled into the elaborate world of Mingering Mikea soul superstar of the 1960s and '70s who released an astonishing 50 albums and at least as many singles in just 10 years. But Hadar had never heard of him, and ...more
Paperback, 192 pages
Published
March 29th 2007
by Princeton Architectural Press
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One cold December morning, Dori Hadar—DJ by night, criminal investigator by day—was digging through crates of records at a flea market in Washington, D.C. There he stumbled into the elaborate world of Mingering Mike—a soul superstar of the 1960s and '70s who released an astonishing 50 albums and at least as many singles in just 10 years. But Hadar had never heard of him, and he realized why on closer inspection: every album in the crates was made of cardboard. Each package was intricately crafte...more
What makes this book great, to me, is not the art, although the art is amazing; not the writing because the writing is thumbnaily, magazinic, and not at all an inspiration to anyone, I think; not the words of Mingering Mike himself which are occasionally scatterbrained, almost always naive and shopworn; it is the fantasy itself, the world as strange and mistake-ridden as our own, that Mingering Mike created for himself, for us.
Had Mingering Mike the opportunity, he could have made an...more
Had Mingering Mike the opportunity, he could have made an...more
Elin gave this to me for my birthday. ... Outsider art for obsessive soul fans from a lonely DC teen... I sometimes felt implicated reading this book-- another white man with a fetish for a now-outmoded African-American art form--but in the end, I was still moved by the totality of the world "Mingering Mike" created with the song titles, liner notes, gatefold sleeves, label names, and movies this stands as an engaging imaginary world. I wish someone had recorded a song worthy of the...more
When I was a kid, I was something of a record collector. Still am. I would sit and listen to Destroyers by Kiss or Vol. 4 by Black Sabbath and stare endlessly at the album covers, trying to figure out what it all meant. I wanted to be part of it, whatever it was. I would imagine what it would be like to be in a band and record music and release records. At twelve, I started playing guitar and the idea of being on a record suddenly became a possibility.
Mingering Mike had a lot of...more
Mingering Mike had a lot of...more
I can hardly describe this book. It's the true story of a found crate of made-up album covers by an r&b singer named Mingering Mike. The author compiles all of these intricately designed faux records in this book and hunts down Mingering Mike to find out the real story behing the amazing artwork and its creator.
I’d already read this story online a while back, and the included text here is like a magazine article, but this is still a really worth having. Really interesting.
Fascinating and sad in a driving-past-a-car-accident sort of way.
The creative mind! It can't be contained!
An amazing true story of a frustrated young man who imagined a richly detailed career for himself as a recording artist and musical entrepreneur, making dozens of carefully detailed, hand-drawn album covers chronicling his rise to fame.
Julianne
marked it as to-read
i was going to give this to my boyfriend for christmas and we saw it in a store and i was so excited i told him i was going to give it to him and he loved it and it ruined my gift to him! i still have not read it myself.
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The story of a man who created his own little soul empire with cardboard records, and hand-written liner notes. If you like stories of found art and people making do with what they got, this is it.
Uhhh, could I relate to this book anymore?! Fans of music, of making music, of outsider art. Sometimes it is enough to live in your head. Sometimes, its the only place one has that makes any sense.
Amazing art and the story appeals to my O.C.D. and interest in real vs. fake.
One of the coolest things I've seen in a long time. Wash-ing-ton --DC!
Amazing album cover art found in a flea market. The art is fantastic!
Mingering Mike's records of art are inspiring.
BEST BOOK EVER, THE END.
I almost couldn't believe it was real.
Dave Barresi
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Ignacio Gallup-Diaz
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Shannon
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flannery
marked it as to-read
Amanda
marked it as to-read
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