R&R Biographies

Discussion regarding other bands, movies, etc.
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Artemis
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Re: R&R Biographies

#26 Post by Artemis » Mon Sep 17, 2012 6:23 pm

The latest bio on Leonard Cohen looks like a winner - I'm buying it!

Good Review here:
http://www.pastemagazine.com/articles/2 ... ie-si.html


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Essence_Smith
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Re: R&R Biographies

#27 Post by Essence_Smith » Mon Sep 17, 2012 9:16 pm

That dude looks like mike d from the Beasties... :lol:

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SR
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Re: R&R Biographies

#28 Post by SR » Fri Sep 30, 2016 8:47 am

In the last 6 months, I read Reckless by Chrissie. Real disappointment. She's really rough on Farndon....ebullient on JHS. Martin Chambers had a thread going on PledgeMusic recently where he was selling his yet unwritten bio, and I asked him what the BS was there on Farndon. He agreed and said more would come out later, but just last week suspended his efforts.

I just started the new Springsteen bio; it reads well into the first 100 pages, if a bit depressing.

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Pandemonium
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Re: R&R Biographies

#29 Post by Pandemonium » Fri Sep 30, 2016 10:26 am

SR wrote:In the last 6 months, I read Reckless by Chrissie. Real disappointment. She's really rough on Farndon....ebullient on JHS. Martin Chambers had a thread going on PledgeMusic recently where he was selling his yet unwritten bio, and I asked him what the BS was there on Farndon. He agreed and said more would come out later, but just last week suspended his efforts.

I just started the new Springsteen bio; it reads well into the first 100 pages, if a bit depressing.
I read the Springsteen bio over the last couple evenings. It's certainly one of the most literate rock bios I've ever read. It's interesting how in the last decade, dealing with depression he's become a big proponent of drugs like Klonopin. The chapter about Clarence's passing at the tail end of the book is heartbreaking.

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Re: R&R Biographies

#30 Post by blackula » Fri Sep 30, 2016 6:57 pm

Reading My Damage by Keith Morris. 80 pages in and it's great! If you're into any of his bands it's well worth the read.

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JOEinPHX
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Re: R&R Biographies

#31 Post by JOEinPHX » Sat Oct 01, 2016 5:33 pm

I did not enjoy Keidis' book

The entire thing was basically:

- Wrote a record
- Toured
- Got off tour, checked into a hotel, did heroin for 3 months till Flea came and took me to rehab
- REPEAT

Scott Weiland's was also a total pile of shit. He basically just picked out all his fuckups and explained why none of them were actually his fault. He is also a terrible storyteller. Every single story that involved other people always included his description of their height and what they were wearing. ("Dean Deleo was 6'2" and wearing a Black flag tshirt with grey curodouray pants"... "Duff McKagen was 6'3" and wearing a grey vest, black pants, and sandals")... it was fucking BRUTAL. Also, it was only about 70 pages long, and he's just randomly have 2-3 blank pages between chapters or he'd fill pages with lyrics from songs he had written. (His ex-wife's book is a thousand times better and gets into the shit they were ACTUALLY going through, and she takes responsibility for her actions unlike her dead ex who just blamed everyone but himself)

Keith Richards book was really great. Zero complaints there. It can kind of drag in places, but once he gets to the exciting stories in between all the "hung out at the house with my dad for 6 months" stuff, it's really great. And he pulls no punches in admitting that he was a fucking junkie and that's why Mick took such control of the band for so long.

Corey Taylor's first book is really great, and somewhat biographical. The second is some bullshit about the paranormal and sucked ass. The third was good though, some bio stuff but mostly the situations he finds himself in, in which he just absolutely hates people. The rage has humor to it though.

Almost anything by Henry Rollins is great, in particular his tour journals. He has more than I can count at this point where he describes his adventures around the world, and the cultures of people he is interacting with. All of them are pretty awesome. "Smile, you're traveling" is probably my favorite, but maybe that's just because it was the first one I read. He's done several more since then.

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SR
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Re: R&R Biographies

#32 Post by SR » Sat Oct 01, 2016 9:22 pm

Pandemonium wrote:
SR wrote:In the last 6 months, I read Reckless by Chrissie. Real disappointment. She's really rough on Farndon....ebullient on JHS. Martin Chambers had a thread going on PledgeMusic recently where he was selling his yet unwritten bio, and I asked him what the BS was there on Farndon. He agreed and said more would come out later, but just last week suspended his efforts.

I just started the new Springsteen bio; it reads well into the first 100 pages, if a bit depressing.
I read the Springsteen bio over the last couple evenings. It's certainly one of the most literate rock bios I've ever read. It's interesting how in the last decade, dealing with depression he's become a big proponent of drugs like Klonopin. The chapter about Clarence's passing at the tail end of the book is heartbreaking.
The storyteller isn't limited to songs I appears. No co-writer is listed, which I don't believe but I can see this guy writing most of this.

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Pandemonium
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Re: R&R Biographies

#33 Post by Pandemonium » Sun Oct 02, 2016 9:03 am

SR wrote:
Pandemonium wrote: I read the Springsteen bio over the last couple evenings. It's certainly one of the most literate rock bios I've ever read. It's interesting how in the last decade, dealing with depression he's become a big proponent of drugs like Klonopin. The chapter about Clarence's passing at the tail end of the book is heartbreaking.
The storyteller isn't limited to songs I appears. No co-writer is listed, which I don't believe but I can see this guy writing most of this.
He didn't have any help, no ghost writer. From what I understand, he wrote it in shorthand over the course of the last 7 years in fits and starts, drop it for a few months at a time, go back and re-read and edit and eventually turned in a mountain of hand written pages to the publisher. He's doing a book signing at a Barnes and Nobel in LA Monday which I expect to be insane. Not for me, thank you.

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Re: R&R Biographies

#34 Post by Pandemonium » Sun Oct 02, 2016 9:11 am

I've read a fair number of rock bios, and surprisingly, probably the best and certainly most entertaining is the Motley Crue bio "The Dirt." You get a good picture of what scumbags pretty much everyone in the band except Mick Marrs is.

I also liked U2's "U2byU2" which is really more of a huge coffee table photo book because everyone in the band contributes to the nuts and bolts of putting together their music and live shows in a pretty straightforward way. The funniest thing I got out of that book was they saw The Cramps live around 1979 and the show freaked them out, lol!

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SR
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Re: R&R Biographies

#35 Post by SR » Sun Oct 02, 2016 3:14 pm

Pandemonium wrote:
SR wrote:
Pandemonium wrote: I read the Springsteen bio over the last couple evenings. It's certainly one of the most literate rock bios I've ever read. It's interesting how in the last decade, dealing with depression he's become a big proponent of drugs like Klonopin. The chapter about Clarence's passing at the tail end of the book is heartbreaking.
The storyteller isn't limited to songs I appears. No co-writer is listed, which I don't believe but I can see this guy writing most of this.
He didn't have any help, no ghost writer. From what I understand, he wrote it in shorthand over the course of the last 7 years in fits and starts, drop it for a few months at a time, go back and re-read and edit and eventually turned in a mountain of hand written pages to the publisher. He's doing a book signing at a Barnes and Nobel in LA Monday which I expect to be insane. Not for me, thank you.
Most impressive

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Artemis
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Re: R&R Biographies

#36 Post by Artemis » Mon Oct 03, 2016 4:17 pm

I want to read the Curtis Mayfield bio written by his son, Todd Mayfield and Travis Atria.

In the Rolling Stone link is an excerpt from the book.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/ ... is-w442580

I had no idea that he was paralyzed from a freak accident. :sad:


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Re: R&R Biographies

#37 Post by SR » Thu Oct 06, 2016 8:05 am

Pandemonium wrote:
SR wrote:
Pandemonium wrote: I read the Springsteen bio over the last couple evenings. It's certainly one of the most literate rock bios I've ever read. It's interesting how in the last decade, dealing with depression he's become a big proponent of drugs like Klonopin. The chapter about Clarence's passing at the tail end of the book is heartbreaking.
The storyteller isn't limited to songs I appears. No co-writer is listed, which I don't believe but I can see this guy writing most of this.
He didn't have any help, no ghost writer. From what I understand, he wrote it in shorthand over the course of the last 7 years in fits and starts, drop it for a few months at a time, go back and re-read and edit and eventually turned in a mountain of hand written pages to the publisher. He's doing a book signing at a Barnes and Nobel in LA Monday which I expect to be insane. Not for me, thank you.
Jut finished it. By far the best auto bio I have ever read. In the acknowledgements, he expresses gratitude for a great number of people who include some who spent countless hours assisting with the endless rewrites. Ho most certainly had help with framing, toning, editing and language. Still, I think he did far more than most in these regards, far more.....it's just too heartfelt, authentic, and sincere.

I found myself fairly emotional reading it. I haven't dedicated much time to his music in decades, but the narrative brought me back (hard) to the Darkness and River days. 3 plus decades ago I dedicated a lot of energy to those albums, dissecting them in Jack Daniel's fueled marathon's with friends while my parents were out of town. By the time BitUSA came out, I felt like a seasoned 'old' fan. I went to the Coliseum show and loved it, but I wasn't completely sold on the material. So, when in the book he referenced the final mix of BitUSA as a watershed moment, I was surprised. To this day, I think it's a marginal song. The deeper cuts like My Hometown, I'm Going Down, I'm on Fire, Darlington County and Cover Me stood head and shoulders over it.

So many things to reflect on, but his description of Brendan O'Brien resonated with me....describing him as a confident young man of 30 or so. Too, he referenced Pete Townshend so many times; it bothered me. Though during the time I referenced earlier, I was also deeply immersed in Tommy, WN, and Quad I fell off the Who after 81 with it's Hard and it's tour which I was disappointed in. And his vocal neo-con politics and shameless exploitation of his music on tours and commercials has left me feeling ill and resentful. I was surprised that he still admires him so much.

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