Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The name of Frankie Goes To Hollywood still resonates down through the decades. From the band’s early days as the emerging Liverpool act to true world domination and the all too quick days that followed after the five men went their separate ways and the band was no more, every snippet of information is digested by their loyal fans.

Not every story is captured by Brian Nash in his autobiography Nasher Says Relax: Inside The Band And Beyond The Pleasuredome; Brian doesn’t come across as the type of man to vent his spleen in a manner that he no doubt would explain away as rude. However, the story of how the young Liverpool lad became part of the phenomenon is lovingly captured and a well written memoir of British music history.

What is so pleasurable and interesting about this book though is not what you would expect to read in 400 pages of arguably the first real new superstars of the British music scene in the 1980’s. It is isn’t the abundance of drug taking that certain members of the band took, the quarrels with the record label ZTT that would prove to be, along with other damning issues, the destruction of a incredible group nor is it the wonderful peppered anecdotes of live on the road that some of the band obviously enjoyed.

What makes this book such an enjoyable read is the humility that comes across in the writing, the absolute joy of having been part of a band that certain sections of the B.B.C. took offence to, the despair of Brian Nash when he loses his parents and perhaps most telling of all the love he holds for some former members of ‘Frankie’, his forthright admissions of his school days and the love of his wife and family.

There are some musicians, actors, other modern day so called celebrities who are either playing the blame game and making their version of events look whiter than white, the responsibility of their actions played out for an audience in the hope to make an awful lot of money. In Brian Nash, the book is just a very beautiful read, albeit with some parts that will make any fan of the band scowl with frustrated anger and a proper look back of a man who by his admission sees his life through the optimistic “…glass half full”.

Nasher Says Relax doesn’t lift the lid completely on the inside of a band that was famed and feted throughout their all too brief time as music heroes but it opens the door wide and proud on Brian Nash as a human being.  An excellent and enjoyable autobiography, full of humour, pathos and vivid memories!

Ian D. Hall