The ephemeral nature of live music can, from some perspectives, serve to place limitations on its lasting socio-cultural impact. This thesis addresses such claims by analysing the enduring appeal of a ‘legendary’ venue, the Glasgow Apollo (1973-85), where a series of momentous live music moments from several decades ago continue to be celebrated. In order to accomplish this, the study primarily uses semi-structured and focus group interviews to explore the reminiscences of the audience and artists who shared live music experiences at the venue. Through the application of Actor Network Theory, the work focuses on the influence that actors such as locality, technology, industry and music genre held over these encounters, as well as the manner in which the collective memories of the events in question have subsequently shaped their cultural value. The study first establishes the foundation for Glasgow’s cultural traditions, which thereafter helped to shape the concert experiences at the Apollo. It then follows the actors through, and beyond, the period of the venue’s tenure, to argue that the Apollo ‘legend’ lingers due to the manner in which these live experiences have been collectively framed within several of the platforms dedicated to the venue’s legacy.

This thesis discusses the use of pop songs in narrative films, with particular attention paid to their role in characterisation. My argument concerns the potential for pop to retain its specificity as a certain type of music whilst it carries out functions normally attributed to a composed score. Many commentators have assumed that, because a song may be known before it is used in a film, its narrative meanings are "pre-packaged". I combine an appreciation of pop music's propensity to come to a film already 'known' with an attempt to demonstrate how individual narratives ask songs to perform different affective roles. It is my contention that pop music's quality of 'knownness' is fundamental to its narrative affect in films, without, however, pre-determining that affect. I argue my case through close textual analysis, discussing the relationship between real-life pop stars' musical personas and the film characters they are asked to play, as well as offering numerous examples of songs without an on-screen performer becoming involved in processes of filmic narration.

This thesis is about women rock musicians in the U.K. It is based on in-depth interviews with 36 female rock musicians in the 1980s. Firstly, it examines the relative absence of women in rock music-making and explains this in terms of gender socialisation and a number of social constraints operating on women. Secondly, it looks at those women who, despite all the obstacles, do become rock musicians. A number of variables are put forward which, it is suggested, have helped these women overcome gender constraints. These factors are conceptualised as "escape routes" into rock music-making. Thirdly, all-women bands are examined, and the individual careers of the women who constitute them. An ideal-type model is constructed of the stages of a female band's career. It is concluded that, compared to male bands, there are a whole set of factors which make it more difficult for women's bands to be set up and continue along the career path. These factors have the strongest effect in the early career stages. Lastly, some non-typical career patterns are investigated, and particularly the strategies developed by feminist musicians as alternatives to the mainstream commercial path.

The history of the inter-war labour movement in Britain had an endless, eclectic musical accompaniment. There were sentimental and comic ballads at social events, socialist hymns at meetings and services, massed choirs and full orchestras, soloists with voice and with instruments, dance bands, jazz bands, brass bands and serious composers. Alongside the performance and enjoyment of music there was a great deal of theorising on the subject. Why was music important? What was the source of its power? What was the difference between 'good' and 'bad' music? To whom did music belong? Did it have special usefulness for the labour movement or was it just 'a pleasant change from politics'? This thesis concerns itself with the practical use labour activists made of music in entertaining the comrades, propagating the socialist message and raising funds as well as the formation of musical organisations and societies within the movement and the special place given to music and song during times of struggle. In so doing it attempts to sketch both a national picture and a more detailed look at the musicality of selected local areas. It also examines the intellectual development of labour theories of music. As this period was one of great upheaval and change in both the worlds of labour politics and popular music alike, so important changes in labour music and labour approaches to music are identified. The developments in musical thought, fed by changes in international socialist ideas about music on the one hand and the experience of seeing music used as a 'weapon' in specific struggles on the other, led to changes in the form and nature of labour music as well as its intended function. It is the assertion of this thesis that such changes had cultural consequences stretching far beyond the inter-war British labour movement.

The portfolio consists of eight compositions of varying instrumentation and length. The pieces explore a range of aspects, including experimental and graphic notation, instrumental theatre and differing performance practices. Most of the music presented incorporates other forms of expression: mainly movement, but also spoken word, photography and painting. This creates a musical experience, not only for the ear but also for the eye. The commentary to these pieces discusses aspects of the music that are not directly evident in the score and places the body of work into a wider musical and cultural context.

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A PhD by publication comprising two of my books, My Elvis Blackout and Neverland, accompanied by a reflective and critical exegesis, which examines notions of truth, fiction and celebrity in the composite novel through a broadly analytical and practice-based methodology. The exegesis begins by exploring the links between the methodology of the fine artist and the new creative writer. It then demonstrates that My Elvis Blackout and Neverland represent an original contribution to knowledge in the way that they explore and develop literary form (the ‘composite’ novel), and, in their exploration of celebrity, myth-making and fictional hagiography, and that the two books function as performative critiques which probe the boundaries between fiction and the fabricated reality of celebrity culture. My exegesis analyses Linda Boldrini’s term ‘heterobiography’ (2012) with particular reference to Michael Ondaatje’s The Collected Works of Billy The Kid (1981), which as a bricolage relies upon the reader’s pre-conceived recognition of the historicity of its protagonist and continually tests the boundaries between fact and fiction. In this section of the exegesis, I propose that what sets My Elvis Blackout and Neverland apart from Billy The Kid is that whilst Ondaatje’s book certainly does exploit the confusions between fact, fiction, autobiography and history, it remains firmly set within the timeframe that its historical protagonist inhabits. My Elvis Blackout and Neverland remain grounded within their readers’ expectations of American settings contemporary to their nominative protagonists, but both books also feature dilations in both historical and geographical setting. Through analysis I have come to perceive ‘the celebrity persona’ as an identikit image assembled by thousands of witnesses. A photo fit photomontage tiered with impressions of subjective provenance, each layered transparency filtered through the fears and desires of fans and critics. Whereas other historiographic metafictions use historical figures as singular characters, My Elvis Blackout and Neverland can be seen to be utilising an ‘identikit’ concept to present their respective protagonists as manyheaded Hydras, or multiple probability ‘versions’ from parallel universes. By a conflation of terms, Hutcheon’s ‘historiographic metafiction’ (1988) and Boldrini’s ‘heterobiography’ (2012), My Elvis Blackout and Neverland are in fact historiobiographic metafictions. The exegesis concludes by establishing my own works’ live impact on the overarching celebrity metanarratives, and their inevitable organic status.

Theý principal focus of the thesis is Anthony Burgess, a prolific novelist whose first and enduring creative passion was music in general and composition in particular. Burgess criticism is limited and largely out-of-date, showing little recognition of the aural or musical elements in his fiction, and virtually no specialist commentary on the music and its relationships with the literature. The main aim of the thesis, therefore, is to demonstrate the variety and strength of the widespread musical elements in Burgess's literature, including the importance he attaches to the sonic basis of language, and to show that these are supported by the musical sensibility and technical competence evident in his. compositions. It is suggested that in the inevitable reassessmenot f his work following his death in 1993, the effects of his musicianship on his literary work should play a greater part than hitherto, and the thesis makes a contribution to this reassessmenbt oth through its original critical commentaries on his music and through the music-orientated discussion of his literature. After an introduction and literature review, the first chapter examines three examples of Burgess's little-known music. All are associated with verbal texts, though the range is otherwise wide, and through them it is possible to draw conclusions about the competence of his handling of musical language and structure. The second and third chapters examine the more familiar work of Burgess the acclaimed author, but from the unfamiliar viewpoint of its musical content, including not only surface references but also hidden allusions and technical puzzles aimed at the musician reader. Two instances of music serving as a structural template for literature are analysed in detail, and attention is also drawn to Burgess's awareness of musical elements in the content and language of the, work of some. of his predecessors. The final core-chapter,e xamines the fusion of Burgess's literary and,m usical skills in the context of his music and words for stage and radio. What emerges is the clear intermeshing of his parallel careers;, and the production within his distinctive literary output of work which, due to the radical extent of its musicalisation, has to be viewed as musically-aware literature for specialised readers, at times evincing, it is proposed, a logic which springs primarily from music.

This thesis alms to identify and explore the ideas of John Cage, then looks at their impact on and absorption by a variety of American composers. This in turn provides the context for my own compositional work which forms the main substance of this submission and which is presented on compact disc (accompanied by indicative scores). The source material for the second half of the thesis comes largely from my own book of interviews with composers, American Originals (co-authored with Nicola Walker Smith), which is included as an appendix.

This Literature Review contextualises the work I undertook for 'Syd Barrett: A Very Irregular Head', a 140,000 word biography based on the life of the musician Syd Barrett, lead guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter in the original line up of Pink Floyd. The book is based on two and a half years of focussed research, carried out between January 1997 and August 2009. During this time I interviewed family, friends, schoolmates, fellow college students, musicians, artists, and admirers from every stage of Barrett‟s life, from his earliest days growing up in Cambridge, through his period as an active musician and pop star, to his final years as a reclusive and enigmatic figure in his home town. However, these 65 interviews comprise only one element of my research. In addition I utilised an extensive range of primary and secondary source material, and the bibliography for the book runs to some 49 texts. (See appendix.) I also drew upon significant audio and video material including rare and hard to find television transmissions, and archive and bootleg recordings, many of which are not in the public domain.