Name Dave Thompson | Role Writer | |
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Books Black and White and Blue, Smoke on the Water, The Dark Reign of Gothic Ro, Reggae & Caribbean music, The Red Hot Chili Peppers | ||
Dave Thompson (born 4 January 1960) is an English writer who is the author of more than 100 books, largely dealing with rock and pop music, but also covering film, sports, philately, numismatics and erotica.
He was born in Devon, and in the late 1970s wrote and published a punk rock fanzine. In the 1980s he was employed by Richard Desmond's Northern & Shell in London's Docklands. He relocated to the US in 1989. He has written regularly for journals including Melody Maker, Rolling Stone, Mojo, Q, Goldmine and Record Collector, as well as for the All Music Guide.
His first published book, U2: Stories for Boys (Plexus, 1985), was the first biography of the band U2. His other books include ones about Depeche Mode, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Phish, ZZ Top and Simple Minds. He wrote the book The Psychedelic Furs: Beautiful Chaos, and has written biographies of other musicians and bands including Kurt Cobain, Deep Purple and Genesis. Thompson has also written extensively on David Bowie, with the biographies Moonage Daydream in 1987 and Hallo Spaceboy in 2006 and the semi-fictional To Major Tom in 2000. Thompson's book Black and White and Blue: Erotic Cinema from the Victorian Age to the VCR, was published in 2007.