Eamon Nacarrow, the author of a ‘’side-splitting” new book is offering a 100% money-back guarantee – to readers who don’t laugh. He has promised to refund anyone who fails to see the funny side of his autobiography, ‘Holywood Star: the life and time of a rock and roll misadventurer’.

Those who keep a straight face and don’t chuckle ”at least once” will receive a cheque for the book’s £9.99 cover price. He will also send ”miserable critics” a handwritten letter as an apology.

According to experts, the offer is a publishing first and could prompt hundreds of other authors to follow suit.
But despite the guarantee, Mr Nancarrow insists only ”one-in-a-million” readers will ask for their money back.

The book, which went on sale this week, tells the story of his failed attempts to make it as a rock star during the 80s. It has already attracted a string of rave reviews since its official release.

Amazing Radio, which is serialising the book on air from January, described it as ”brilliant” and ”hilarious”.

The station’s founder, Paul Campbell, said: ”We try to reflect the realities of life for musicians, and help them overcome some of the difficulties of writing, recording and gigging.

”Eamon’s taken that simple idea and made it hilarious. We’re delighted to be able to broadcast extracts from his brilliant book on Amazing Radio. We’re certain it will raise lots of rueful smiles from listening musos, as well as tons of laughs.”

Billed as a ”crazy rock n’ roll tour of calamity”, Holywood Star tells of the author’s futile attempts to secure a record deal. Having grown up on a rough council estate in Holywood, a village near Belfast, Northern Ireland, he dreams of performing with his band on the world’s biggest stages.

But his grand aspirations fall flat time after time, and his plan to reach the ‘’sleazy heights” of super-stardom repeatedly fail. Mr Nancarrow, who lives in Belfast, penned Holywood Star – his first book – in less than 24 months.

Following a number of ‘’superb” reviews, he is now offering a money-back guarantee to those who fail to find the memoirs funny. The father-of-two will contact and question critics individually in a bid to prevent the offer being exploited.

Refunds will only be made to those he is convinced are telling the truth.

Mr Nancarrow, 44, who still performs with his band Strictly No Ballroom, said: ”The offer might sound a little crazy, but I think it’s fair. ”The book is billed as a ’side-splitting’ autobiography, so if people don’t find it funny then I’ve not done what I set out to do. As a result, I’ll contact and question anyone who claims not to have laughed at least once and, if they can prove that they’ve read the book from cover to cover without doing so, I’ll return their money.”

Miles Bailey has run The Choir Press, an independent publishers based in Gloucester, since 1982. He said the offer could be the first of its kind in the publishing world.  ”This is the first time that I’ve heard about an author offering a money-back guarantee,” he said.

”Depending on its success, the offer has the potential of being copied by other authors in a number of genres.” But he added: ”I can’t imagine that the offer will be taken up by many people, though. I’ve read the book and haven’t laughed so much in years.”

Holywood Star is available in paperback priced £9.99 (Showcase UK) from Amazon, WH Smith and www.showcaseuk.tv

SHOWCASE UK is delighted to announce that they have signed EAMON NANCARROW to a three book deal with the first instalment of his memoires ‘HOLYWOOD STAR‘ to be published on 18th November 2009

Eamon Nancarrow grew up in Holywood, County Down with a passion for rock and roll. He dreamt of striding across the world’s stages, singing his heart out as a rock God and lapping up all the trimmings that success would naturally deliver. As you are well aware he didn’t make it but by the end of his autobiography ‘Holywood Star’ you’ll wish he had.

With a keen eye for observational humour and a knack of getting it down on paper, Eamon Nancarrow will have you convulsing with laughter as he takes you through almost every calamity that befell him, every moment that fate turned against him and every support band that tried to upstage him…

As the final note of the crescendo was being held by his bandmates Thunderchild’s guitarist proceeded to try and smash his instrument up. Unfortunately the flexibility of the floorboards meant that instead of the Gibson SG shattering into a million pieces it just bounced around the stage like a basketball.

His embarrassment was quite palpable. In an attempt save face, he put even more effort into his swings, which only caused the six-string to bounce higher and higher, smashing some of the lights on the lip of the stage and sending shards of red-hot coloured glass into the crowd. Shoulders slumped, drenched in sweat and sporting a reddner like a flasher’s giblets in July, he was just about to give up when he spotted the hatchet that Rollo had used to secure the now demolished lighting board.

A heavily perspiring guitarist ran off stage and returned brandishing the axe above his head like a mad Comanche on the hunt for a fresh paleface scalp. He grabbed the guitar by the neck, knelt down and took a swing. The hatchet made contact, forcing the SG into the trampoline-like stage. The elasticity of the floorboards caused the poor instrument to catapult past the rabbit-in-the-headlights eyes of its ungrateful owner. I couldn’t help but think that for a guitar player with two fingers of his hand already missing this was quite frankly a ludicrously risky thing to do.

And it doesn’t stop there. Eamon’s life is full of moments that not only give you a great insight into how funny trying to make can be, he also draws you into his world and the characters around him. Like the moment he decided to get his first perm…

The girl on the other end of the phone felt the need to remind me that it was a woman’s hairdressers that I was calling, not a barbers. Holywood still hadn’t really taken to the idea of male grooming as such. Men only went to the barbers when absolutely necessary or in Specky Beard MaCaffery’s case when his nasal and ear hairs became the talking point of the kids in the street. The thought of a male asking for a cut and blow dry nearly had the local priest visiting the family home with a little pamphlet about the birds and the bees and the benefits of the Rhythm Method.

Eamon’s failure is his success and even though fame alluded him, once you’ve finished ‘Holywood Star’ you’ll feel like a life long fan.

ABOUT THE BOOK
‘Holywood Star’ is divided up using Eamon’s bands as the chapters: Guilt Edge, No Hot Ashes, Nellie Dean, Social Idiot, Strictly No Ballroom. The book is a paperback and 356 pages long. It’s cover price is £9.99 although Amazon currently have it discounted to £7.99. It is a print-on-demand book that was edited and produced by Miles Bailey and his team at The Choir Press.

SHOWCASE UK was created by broadcaster and journalist Xan Phillips as a vehicle to promote unsigned musicians. Based in Southampton it’s first release was the CD ‘Showcase Sett’ a 16 track compilation album of acts from the south coast. However back in 1987, Xan was an aspiring bass player who accidentally joined Eamon Nancarrow’s band ‘Nellie Dean’. Since then they’ve remained close friends and in July 2007 Eamon began sending a stream stories about his days as a musician and growing up in Holywood. From the beginning it was obvious that Eamon had a knack for comic writing and observational humour. The idea for putting these gems into a book followed soon after which is why ‘Showcase UK’ is proud to have ‘Holywood Star’ as it’s first publication.

EAMON NANCARROW was born at an early age, but grew up fast, so fast; in fact, that he outgrew his hair. He always considered himself to be a bit of a rock star with a fine singing voice, however it wasn’t until the GP presented an ill-fitting truss that he developed his astonishing vocal range. Sounding like a cross between Donald Duck and Tiny Tim made him an attractive catch for bands desperately seeking a singer.

From the age of fifteen he has assaulted the eardrums of the general public without a concern for the damage he was causing. He has used music to achieve his goal of living in abject poverty and boy was he good at it. His life can be mapped out in chapters of the bands he has been in and funny enough that’s just what his book has done. After failing miserably in the music business he decided that a new career was necessary, unfortunately for the sanity of his poor family this didn’t happen until he was thirty.

Eamon resides in Belfast with his partner Donna and his two kids Teelin and Tara. He still screams rock and roll at the weekends but makes a living as a specialist Infection Control Nurse (God help us all).

Holywood Star: The Life and Times of a Rock and Roll Misadventurer
ISBN-10: 0956390005
ISBN-13: 978-0956390004

One day you hear an idea; the next you almost have an album!

And it was 23^rd June that Julian Aplin from ‘Angry Badger Records‘ suggested we put together a compilation album.

Julian had become a regular at the Showcase UK nights in the Soul Cellar and decided to put on a few gigs at the venue  to showcase some of his own acts. He asked me to perform a DJ set between the bands following that sent an email with the immortal words: “How do you fancy a Showcase UK/Angry Badger compilation CD?”

There was no need for persuading as I had been thinking for the past two years we needed a follow-up to the previous South Coast collection “The Coming of The Railways” which introduced me to Birdpen and many others.

I would have loved Birdpen to have been on this collection but as they are now signed to a French label this excellent trio are beyond our reach. However we both know many great acts and could easily find 15 for a compilation which we’ve called ‘Showcase Sett’.

Where Julian and I agreed immediately was that it had to be quality through and through, at a very reasonable price.

So we enlisted the wonderful painter and graphic designer Peter Jaques to create the cover (left). For the design and layout of the inner sleeves Oliver Taylor was recommended by the Soul Cellar.

The music had to have a flow, and each song sound it’s best, so we visited Peter J Croissant at Grand Master Audio to master our first pick of the South Coast’s talent.

We’re expecting this to be the first of many. This area is rich in quality musicians and, as I have been saying in the Daily Echo, there is a ’scene’ on the South Coast and scene is quality song writing.

And here we are, almost a month later and we are sending the elements to be turned into ‘Showcase Sett – Propeller’, a limited edition album (400 commercial copies) which is already receiving pre-orders.

You can see the full track listing and place your order at Iconic Culture. It is released August 1^st 2009 priced £4.99 online and £5 in the flesh.

Order: Showcase Sett – Propeller