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Book Club - by Suhaili

Music - Book Club

Maximum Rock And Roll - The Story of ACDC

October 26th 2006 11:23

I think it's fair to say that the Motley Crue autobiography, 'The Dirt', opened a lot of doors for band-based biographies. Previously, music biographies were things reserved for long-dead bands and highly revered singer-songwriters. Walk into the music section of your local bookstore and you'd find about a dozen Beatles books, five or so Elvis books,a book or two on Bob Dylan, maybe a book on Johnny Cash, and about ten large format picture books about the Rolling Stones. And that was it.

Motley Crue's 'The Dirt' was a sensational tale of sin, debauchery and rock 'n' roll flavoured adventure and it was a smash hit. People who didn't normally read were interested in it, just to read about the infamous hi-jinks that the Crue got up to in their glory days. People who didn't even like the band's music were reading it for the same reason. All of a sudden the publishers realised they had a bigger market for this stuff than they had previously thought, and all manner of pending submitted biographies were given the greenlight, and previously out-of-print books were given a second life as well.

And so, finally, thanks to books like 'The Dirt', we have a proper biography of AC/DC - the worldwide kings of hard rock. The life of the band AC/DC could probably fill several books, and it's amazing that a proper biography about them has never been written before. I'm very happy and was very excited when this book turned up in bookstores this week... I had no idea it was even coming!

I'm also excited because Murray Engleheart (along with some chap named Arnaud Duriex) has written it. Engleheart is probably Sydney's foremost writer and journalist when it comes to home-grown hard rock... he lives and breathes it and can often be found behind the hard rock column in the Drum Media (Sydney's music street-press), amongst other things. I read the introduction of this book today and I'm feeling very enthusiastic about it... there's nothing better than reading an in-depth biography written by someone who is passionate about their subject. Good shit.

I'm hoping this biography helps keep the doors open for future biographical accounts of other big rock bands too. Recently we got a Midnight Oil biography with 'Beds Are Burning'... but I'd love to see a proper 'Guns n Roses' biography, that would be really ace, and I'm sure an in-depth account of Metallica's glory days would be a good story too.

Expect to see a review of 'Maximum Rock and Roll' sometime in the nearish future.

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The PR Strikes Back

August 25th 2006 04:51

'The PR Strikes Back' is a tell-all book by publicist extraordinaire Keith Altham - an ex-journalist and well-renowned spin doctor who hobnobbed with the cream of the British music industry for around three or four decades.

Keith has many an anecdote to share with his reader, and he does this in the rather clever form of mock letters. He writes a letter to each celebrity he wants to talk about and 'relives' old times with them... sometimes blasting them for their rampant and out of control egos, sometimes expressing confusion at their eccentricity, and sometimes lamenting the way they were treated by a world that wasn't ready for them.

Altham isn't afraid to let us know what he really thinks... he attacks Mick Jagger (half in jest) and Rod Stewart (not so much in jest) in much detail, laying out their egos blow by blow for us to see in all their petty, small-minded glory. It's all done in good humour and Altham makes some very witty, tongue-in-cheek and astute observations of the crazy world of music showbiz. It's very entertaining.

He has some terribly nice things to say about Jimi Hendrix and Eddy Grant, and also talks about Sting (single-minded but straight-up), Eric Burdon (a real survivor), Van Morrison (what the fuck?!), Joan Armatrading (he tried to hug her once but she dyked off at him), Donovan, Phil Collins, Spandau Ballet, Status Quo and Leo Sayer, as well as a whole range of other forgotten one-hit wonders and forgotten artists that he had the 'pleasure' of working for. He has a very wry and amusing style of writing, especially when he talks about no-hit bands like Uriah Heap.

Anyway, it's all a good bunch of fun and it'd be great to see more insiders write up their anecdotes in this fashion. Good one Keith.

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Willie's Bar and Grill

August 7th 2006 03:23

At first glance, 'Willie's Bar and Grill' looks rather nondescript... there's a bus rushing past on the front and the front cover blurb simply says 'a rock 'n' roll tour of North America in the age of terror'. I'd walk past this book all the time in the bookstore and would just glance over it, not really giving it a thought. Eventually, one day, I read the back cover and realised it that the author, Rob Hirst, was Midnight Oil's drummer and that this was a tour journal of their last tour of America. Well why didn't you say so!

Capricornia, Midnight Oil's last studio album

Firstly, I love Midnight Oil. They're a great band. They've been around for 25 odd years so I'm sure they've got a few good stories up their sleeves. Unfortunately, hardly any of said good stories are to be found here - I guess you'd be better off reading the Midnight Oil biography 'Beds are Burning' for that. This autobiographical book solely concerns their recent American tour and is as much travel literature as it is musical biography. As it says on the cover, it's also about America's post-9/11 age. Allegedly.

I didn't really enjoy this book. I was kind of disappointed. It doesn't really know where it's going, it's neither here nor there... it's too freewheeling and all-encompassing for my tastes. I think I was hoping for something a bit more, I don't know, coherent? If this was simply a tour journal complete with diary entries then I'd probably be a bit more forgiving and open to random observations of America, but Hirst has had a good go at re-writing his notes into something a bit more high-brow - arranging various subjects into themed chapters. Sure, there are a few funny and interesting anecdotes and well-reproduced band conversations but it's all tied up and hidden amongst reams of eclectic observations and over-egged prose.

The book's back cover assures me that 'the twist in this tale is when, after more than twenty-five years together, the band's charismatic lead vocalist, Peter Garrett, calls it a day'. Sounds dramatic doesn't it? Well, three entire pages at the book's end concern this, and for the rest of the book Garrett might as well not be even there, so focused is Hirst on recounting what food he ate where and why it's tough to sleep in a wide range of hotels. See? Even the book's publisher didn't know what to do with it - they had to talk up something that's tacked onto the end of the book in order to make it sound more interesting then it really is. And as for that blurb on the front cover... don't pick this book up expecting an interesting take on Americans dealing with 9/11, I don't know what the deal with that is or why Hirst even bothers to mention it every now and again, it all just amounts to worthless observation and very little substance.

Look, Rob Hirst isn't a bum. He can write... the book is probably a little too verbose for it's own good at times but no one could really say it's written poorly. I guess I just didn't get the point of this book. It should've been more focused - and I think the publishers would probably agree, 'Willie's Bar and Grill' has ended up in a lot of bargain book piles since it's release, I picked it up for less than 20% of it's original price.

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Motley Crue's 'The Dirt'

May 9th 2006 09:41

'The Dirt' by Motley Crue

Whilst I don't for one second believe that anyone in Motley Crue was physically or mentally capable of actually writing any of this book it still goes down as one of the biggest works of genius in the musical autobiography genre ever. 'The Dirt' is an infamous warts-and-all retelling of Motley Crue's heady rise from rags to riches and their gleeful wallowing in a combination of said rags and riches from thereafter. I imagine they all sat down with a ghost writer of some sort (in the spirit of Motley Crue I can't be FUCKED going to check my book. Yeah, take that!) and regaled him or her with hours upon hours of sordid misadventures and endless debauchery.

You see, there are bands that talk about being 'rock n rol'l and there are bands who live the exhalted (and dirty) lifestyle that has become myth. If even half of what goes down in this book is true then I dare say Motley Crue live the myth.

The band

The book starts with their early days as shitkicker musos and how the band came together... from there we see the squalid life of sex and drugs that befalls them in their sharehouse and their gradual rise to notoriety and fame. There are all sorts of tangents that leap off from here... group sex, overdoses, members leaving, debilitating diseases and half-remembered one-man heroin tours of south-east asia. All four members of Motley Crue tell their parts of the story, even parts where they directly contradict each other, plus a few other key characters chip in when neccessary. My favourite anecdote would have to be Nikki Sixx's meeting with Ozzy Osbourne... Ozzy is the only person that Sixx admits to be less fucked up then.

You don't have to be a Crue fan to enjoy this book, you don't even have to be an immoral junkie bassplayer like Nikki Sixx - just let it go and let them take you on their ride of ups and downs and flat out crashes. You won't be bored.

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