Tim Burgess 'Telling Stories' book released

In his revealing memoir, not ghosted but written by Burgess himself, he describes how he dealt with his crises, and what's gone right with the band as much as what's gone wrong.

Brought up in a Cheshire village, he went on to front a band that has travelled the world and was at the forefront of the Madchester and Britpop movements. They may have had three UK Number One albums and seventeen Top Thirty singles but they've also had to face the imprisonment and death of keyboard player Rob Collins and an accountant who ran off with all their money. Not to mention the rock'n'roll excesses of front man Tim Burgess.

Telling Stories is a tale of achievement and survival, via a fair bit of heartache, but told with humour. At the centre of it is Tim Burgess's own story: how someone with a passion for music got to fulfil his dreams. He doesn't flinch from the dark stuff – the lure of the rock'n'roll lifestyle, its sweet enticements – and he confesses in vivid details how he had to pull himself back from the brink.

"I long suspected that Tim Burgess, even at the height of his rock God excess, was watching the room, the band, the scene, with Warhol-ian insight and humour. It's all here in this memoir, written with the stylish flow of a novel - light and dark, hilarious and melancholic, never self-serving, utterly self-aware and carried, throughout, with a passionate love affair: music." Emma Forrest

Tim Burgess was born in Salford in 1967 and grew up in Northwich, Cheshire. Aside from his work with The Charlatans, Burgess fills his time DJing around the world, producing bands for his label, O Genesis, and presents for BBC 6 Music from time to time. He is also preparing for the release of his new solo album Oh No I Love You in the Autumn.

21st April is the 15th Anniversary of the release of their number one album, Tellin' Stories.

The Charlatans will be touring the Tellin' Stories album this summer at the HMV Hammersmith Apollo, Glasgow and Manchester.

An evening with Tim Burgess 'Telling Stories'
St James Church, 197, Piccadilly, London, W1J 9LLWednesday, 25 April 2012, 7:30PM
Tickets available Monday-Friday 9am-5pm at £20, includes a signed copy of 'Telling Stories'.