"Time Goes By" - New Peter Gabriel Biographical Trilogy In The Making.

Life-long Peter Gabriel fan, Mic Smith is currently working on a massive biographical study of rock musician Peter Gabriel. The book, called Time Goes By, is to be self-produced and will be issued on three volumes, covering Gabriel’s entire career in chronological order.

The first volume is planned to be released this year and will cover Gabriel’s early years up to the moment where his departure from Genesis was confirmed in August 1975. It is intended to be the most intensive study of the Genesis story up to that point.

The book has been in the making for the past three years but its birth goes back much further than that as Mic explains…

“I have been working on this book, in one form or another, since 1984 and really this is the third attempt at seeing it through. Between 1991 and 2003 I produced a Peter Gabriel magazine called Kontakt and most issues contained a chapter of the book as it stood back then. This covered the period now to be found in the first two volumes. However, this new version is far more detailed so far as the coverage given to the Genesis years and his early solo career is concerned.”

The book will be produced in a limited run of just 100 hardback copies of each volume. There are no plans for a paperback edition nor re-prints. The advice from the author is to order it on publication to avoid disappointment.

Volume Two will cover the first phase of Gabriel’s solo career up to and including the commercial breakthrough of the So album in 1986 and associated world tours culminating in the Human Rights Now Tour of 1988.

Volume Three has yet to be written but will cover the remainder of Gabriel’s career, tentatively aimed for completion in 2011.

“Although there have been plenty of books about Genesis and Peter Gabriel published already I believe there is a place for at least one more and I would say that in terms of the information presented in Time Goes By, this is the definitive written account of his work. I have decided to take control of the production myself to ensure the finished book is the way I want it to be, not some watered down version that a commercial publishing house would produce.”

Information on price and how to order the book will be provided in advance of the arrival of Volume One expected in September 2008.

Given Mic’s expertise in this field, the book will be a must read for Gabriel and Genesis fans and I can’t wait to read it for myself! Details will be available on the TWR site as soon as we have them from Mic.