‘Reverb’ is the website of John Scanlan, a spin-off from the book series of the same name published by Reaktion, whose various titles explore the relationship between music and the times and places of its making.
Scanlan is a writer and researcher and the author of seven books including the forthcoming Rock-N-Roll Plays Itself: A Screen History, which will be published by Reaktion Books in early 2022. His other books include Easy Riders, Rolling Stones: On the Road in America from Delta Blues to 70s Rock (2015), described by the Guardian as ‘a wonderfully evocative musical odyssey,’ which was also optioned for film; 2012’s Van Halen: Exuberant California, Zen Rock’n’Roll, a Los Angeles Times-recommended book in history; and the widely-cited On Garbage (2005), described by the American Book Award-winning author Thomas Lynch in his review for the London Times as ‘a small masterpiece.’
He has published academic articles on subjects related to a wide range of cultural phenomena — such as time, creativity, language, design, sensory experience, visual images, place and waste — in journals including History of the Human Sciences, Places, Time & Society, Techniques & Culture, Space and Culture, as well as in edited volumes such as The Acoustic City and Recycler l’Urbain. Popular essays and articles have appeared in outlets such as the (now defunct) Topic magazine and Classic Rock (a 9,000-word cover story on the making of Van Halen’s ‘1984’ album appeared in April 2011). His work has appeared in Italian, French, Croatian and Arabic translations. He has spoken about his work on national and international media, including BBC Four TV, BBC Radio 3’s ‘Night Waves’, ABC National Radio in Australia, the BBC World Service.
Scanlan taught numerous undergraduate and postgraduate courses and supervised PhD students at the Universities of Glasgow and Bristol and at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) for more than 15 years. At MMU he was the recipient of one of the university’s first ‘Future Leader’ research awards and was also Acting Director of the Centre for Transitions in Society and Space (CTSS) and co-led its cross-faculty submission to the Research Excellence Framework (REF 2014), a UK-wide research impact evaluation that takes place every 7-8 years.
He has a key member of the AHRC Centre for Environmental History at the University of St Andrews (2003 to 2007), where his work formed part of that university’s REF 2014 impact case study, making up part of an institutional submission that was ranked 7 out of 83 universities for ‘impact’ (attaining a GPA of 3.58, where ‘3’ is classed as ‘internationally excellent’ and the maximum of ‘4’ is ‘world leading’).
Scanlan is also the co-founder and series editor of Reaktion’s ‘Reverb’ series of books, established in 2010, which has to date commissioned some two dozen titles and whose recent successes include Seth Bovey’s acclaimed Five Years Ahead of My Time: Garage Rock from the 1950s to the Present (Shindig! magazine’s book of the year, 2019) and Mark Doyle’s widely-praised The Kinks: Songs of the Semi-Detached.
He holds degrees in Philosophy (MA Hons, 1994), Social Science Research (MPhil, 1998) and Cultural Sociology (PhD, 2001), all from the University of Glasgow.