With Mott just about to make it big with 'All The Young Dudes', Ian Hunter seems to have both feet still firmly on the ground and this is a warm and amusing glimpse of a band on the road.

Follow the fortunes of Ian Hunter's splitting velvet loons, his weight concerns, and the band's insatiable desire to seek out pawn shops in the quest for a vintage Gibson amp or Epiphone guitar.

A fledging rock scene is sketched, hurriedly put together concerts, no soundchecks and a gallery of 1972 rock stars ... Roxy Music, David Bowie, Jethro Tull ... A snapshot of an era when the music did the talking. Read and enjoy.

Hunter's diary was republished recently to rave reviews on both sides of the Atlantic, and it is easy to see why: naive, witty, humble, sussed and in control, he is as concerned for the welfare of his cat as for the future of his tour. On a constant skirmish to buy up every vintage guitar in America for pennies, rubbing shoulders with Bowie and other contemporaries, and keen to stress throughout that he is having nothing to do with groupies while on tour, this is a fantastic period piece, and at a time that the seventies are under constant review and re-review, it is as essential a read as any for someone looking to find what the period was all about.

They say that if you remember the sixties you weren't there, but if you remember the seventies then you'll remember All The Young Dudes, Honaloochie Boogie, Roll Away The Stone, and this book should be your next stop!