VICTOR RUST: THE SHADOWS RECORDING CATALOGUE AN EXTENDED REVIEW Malcolm Campbell Victor Rust, The Shadows Recording Catalogue . Lulu Publications, September 2011. ISBN 978-0-9567384-1-7, 572pp. A download is available for purchase. In my review of Victor Rust’s book in Pipeline 88 (Spring 2012) 54–56 I complimented the element of musical analysis, but found practically nothing else to commend it. I decided when I submitted the review that it was better on balance with the space at my disposal to single out the main problem areas and furnish representative examples of each. The purpose of these pages of further personal reflections is to deal more extensively with the rampant plagiarism and the mountain of inadequately researched and poorly digested material that pervades the work. I won’t rehearse here the particulars of the Pipeline review. I am happy however to furnish anyone interested in the fuller picture with a scan of it via email, just contact me direct at
[email protected] I should make it clear at the outset that it is a matter of great regret to me that my judgement of this book has turned out to be so severe. Its outer appearance suggested that we might expect a substantial contribution to our understanding of the group’s rich musical output, something that built constructively upon the foundations laid with immense patience, effort, skill and dedication by various researchers over a number of decades. That such an expectation is far from being met on any reasonable reckoning is the contention of this paper.