Look and Listen

Biography

Sean McManus has been a professional writer for over ten years. At the height of the dotcom boom, he created the ‘com together’ column for Making Music, about promoting independent bands online. His work has also appeared in Melody Maker, Future Music, Internet Magazine and Business 2.0 among others. His non-fiction books have been published by Prentice Hall and Management Pocketbooks. Sean is a keen retrogamer, and has written for Commodore Format and Amstrad Computer User.

Sean has seen a new band on average every seven weeks over the last 18 years, and is enough of a music geek to have worked that out. As a music journalist, he interviewed Radiohead on the day The Bends was released, and also grilled chart-busting aliens Zig + Zag. His favourite authors include Douglas Adams and Ben Elton.

Sean is the creator of mood surfing website Wild Mood Swings.

Inspiration

Music: All those sweaty gigs, up against the stage, dodging the bass guitar as it flies overhead, and all those late nights hitting 'play' when the CD ends on an album so good that you stay up to hear it again straight away.

My novel takes a slice through the music industry: from the boardroom to the stage; from the studio to the record fair. It explores how fans relate to their favourite bands, how businesses use technology to manipulate consumers, and what would happen if the music industry disappeared overnight.