Book picks similar to
Pete Doherty: Last of the Rock Romantics by Alex Hannaford
music
non-fiction
memoir-and-biographies
biographies
Glenn Hughes: The Autobiography - From Deep Purple to Black Country Communion
Glenn Hughes - 2010
Starting with the Midlands beat combo Finders Keepers in the 1960s, he formed acclaimed funk-rock band Trapeze in the early 70s before joining Deep Purple at their commercial peak. Flying the world in Starship 1, the band's own Boeing 720 jet, Hughes enthusiastically embraced the rock superstar's lifestyle while playing on three Purple albums, including the classic Burn. When the band split in 1976 Hughes embarked on a breakneck run of solo albums, collaborations and even a brief, chaotic spell fronting Black Sabbath. All of this was accompanied by cocaine psychosis, crack addiction and other excesses, before Hughes survived a clean-up-or-die crisis, and embarked on a reinvigorated solo career enriched by a survivor's wisdom. In his autobiography, Hughes talks us through this whirlwind of a life with unflinching honesty and good humour, taking us right up to date with his triumphant re-emergence in current supergroup Black Country Communion. "I had a constant fascination with the darkside. It is another world, bordering on insanity, and demonic possession, or what I thought was my own Soul Bending personal nirvana. Its good to be back in the middle of the boat, instead of hanging on for dear life in the last life boat." - Glenn Hughes, April 2011
Faithfull
Marianne Faithfull - 1994
She recalls her love and life with Mick Jagger, how Bob Dylan wooed her, the Rolling Stones courted her and finally, how drugs trapped her into a world where nothing else mattered but the next fix. She also reveals the contradictions of life as a "star", first as the pop confection she was packaged as, and later as the hard-edged artist who co-authored "Sister Morphine" and shocked the world with "Broken English".
Porcelain: A Memoir
Moby - 2016
This was the New York of Palladium; of Mars, Limelight, and Twilo; of unchecked, drug-fueled hedonism in pumping clubs where dance music was still largely underground, popular chiefly among working-class African Americans and Latinos. And then there was Moby--not just a poor, skinny white kid from Connecticut, but a devout Christian, a vegan, and a teetotaler. He would learn what it was to be spat on, to live on almost nothing. But it was perhaps the last good time for an artist to live on nothing in New York City: the age of AIDS and crack but also of a defiantly festive cultural underworld. Not without drama, he found his way. But success was not uncomplicated; it led to wretched, if in hindsight sometimes hilarious, excess and proved all too fleeting. And so by the end of the decade, Moby contemplated an end in his career and elsewhere in his life, and put that emotion into what he assumed would be his swan song, his good-bye to all that, the album that would in fact be the beginning of an astonishing new phase: the multimillion-selling Play.At once bighearted and remorseless in its excavation of a lost world, Porcelain is both a chronicle of a city and a time and a deeply intimate exploration of finding one's place during the most gloriously anxious period in life, when you're on your own, betting on yourself, but have no idea how the story ends, and so you live with the honest dread that you're one false step from being thrown out on your face. Moby's voice resonates with honesty, wit, and, above all, an unshakable passion for his music that steered him through some very rough seas.Porcelain is about making it, losing it, loving it, and hating it. It's about finding your people, your place, thinking you've lost them both, and then, somehow, when you think it's over, from a place of well-earned despair, creating a masterpiece. As a portrait of the young artist, Porcelain is a masterpiece in its own right, fit for the short shelf of musicians' memoirs that capture not just a scene but an age, and something timeless about the human condition. Push play.
Sympathy For The Drummer: Why Charlie Watts Matters
Mike Edison - 2019
Across five decades, Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts has had the best seat in the house. Charlie Watts, the anti-rock star--an urbane jazz fan with a dry wit and little taste for the limelight--was witness to the most savage years in rock history, and emerged a hero, a warrior poet. With his easy swing and often loping, uneven fills, he found nuance in a music that often had little room for it, and along with his greatest ally, Keith Richards, he gave the Stones their swaggering beat. While others battled their drums, Charlie played his modest kit with finesse and humility, and yet his relentless grooves on the nastiest hard-rock numbers of the era ("Gimme Shelter," "Street Fighting Man," "Brown Sugar," "Jumpin' Jack Flash," etc.) delivered a dangerous authenticity to a band that on their best nights should have been put in jail. Author Mike Edison, himself a notorious raconteur and accomplished drummer, tells a tale of respect and satisfaction that goes far beyond drums, drumming, and the Rolling Stones, ripping apart the history of rock'n'roll, and celebrating sixty years of cultural upheaval. He tears the sheets off of the myths of music making, shredding the phonies and the frauds, and unifies the frayed edges of disco, punk, blues, country, soul, jazz, and R&B--the soundtrack of our lives. Highly opinionated, fearless, and often hilarious, Sympathy is as an unexpected treat for music fans and pop culture mavens, as edgy and ribald as the Rolling Stones at their finest, never losing sight of the sex and magic that puts the roll in the rock --the beat, that crazy beat!--and the man who drove the band, their true engine, the utterly irreplaceable Charlie Watts.
Working Class Boy
Jimmy Barnes - 2016
But long before Cold Chisel and 'Barnesy', long before the tall tales of success and excess, there was the true story of James Dixon Swan - a working class boy whose family made the journey from Scotland to Australia in search of a better life.Working Class Boy is a powerful reflection on a traumatic and violent childhood, which fuelled the excess and recklessness that would define, but almost destroy, the rock'n'roll legend. This is the story of how James Swan became Jimmy Barnes. It is a memoir burning with the frustration and frenetic energy of teenage sex, drugs, violence and ambition for more than what you have.Raw, gritty, compassionate, surprising and darkly funny, Jimmy Barnes's childhood memoir is at once the story of migrant dreams fulfilled and dashed. After arriving in Australia in the summer of 1962, things went from bad to worse for the Swan family - Dot, Jim and their six kids. The scramble to manage in the tough northern suburbs of Adelaide in the 60s would take its toll on the Swans as dwindling money, too much alcohol and fraying tempers gave way to violence and despair. This is the story of a family's collapse, but also of a young boy's dream to escape the misery of the suburbs with a once-in-a-lifetime chance to join a rock'n'roll band and get out of town for good.
Horror Stories: A Memoir
Liz Phair - 2019
"Girly Sound" was the name of the cassettes she used to pass around in those days, and in 1993 those songs became the landmark album Exile in Guyville, which turned Phair, at twenty-five, into a foul-mouthed feminist icon.Now, like a Gen X Patti Smith, Liz Phair tells the story of her life and career in a memoir about the moments that have haunted her most. Horror is in the eye of the beholder. For Phair, horror is what stays with you—the often unrecognized, universal experiences of daily pain, shame, and fear that make up our common humanity. In Phair's case it means the dangers of falling for "the perfect guy," and the disaster that awaits her; the memory of a stranger passed out on a bathroom floor amid a crowd of girls, forcing her to consider our responsibilities to one another, and the gnawing regret of being a bystander; and the profound sense of emptiness she experienced on the set of her first celebrity photoshoot.Horror Stories reads like the confessions of a friend, a book that gathers up all of our isolated shames, bringing us together in our shared imperfection, our uncertainty and our cowardice, smashing the stigma of not being in control. But most importantly, Horror Stories is a memoir that asks questions of how we feel about the things that have happened to us, how we cope with regret and culpability, and how we break the spell of those things, leeching them of their power over us. This memoir is an immersive experience, taking readers inside the most intimate moments of Phair's life. Her fearless prose, wit, and uncompromising honesty transform those deeply personal moments into tales about each and every one of us—that will appeal to both the serious fan and the serious reader.
Get in the Van: On the Road With Black Flag
Henry Rollins - 1994
Rollins's observations range from the wry to the raucous in this blistering account of a six-year career with the band - a time marked by crazed fans, vicious cops, near-starvation, substance abuse, and mind numbing all-night drives. Rollins decided to revise this edition by adding a wealth of new photographs, a new foreword, and an afterword to include some "where-are-they-now" information on the people featured in the book. This new edition includes 40 previously unpublished black-and-white photographs from Rollins's private collection and show flyers by artist Raymond Pettibon. Called "a soul-frying experience not to be undertaken by lightweights" by Wired magazine, Get in the Van perfectly embodies what one critic called the "secular gospel" of one of punk and post-punk's most respected and controversial figures.
Queen: Album by Album
Martin Popoff - 2018
Formed in 1970, Queen went on to become one of the most popular—and most successful—rock bands of all time. Even following the untimely death of beloved and magnetic frontman Freddie Mercury, and nearly 50 years after their formation, interest in the band has continued, evidenced by scores of reissues, arena tours with surviving members, and a feature-film biopic. In this new installment in Voyageur Press’s Album by Album series, rock journo Martin Popoff convenes a cast of 19 Queen experts and superfans to discuss all 15 of the band’s studio albums (including their soundtrack for the 1980 film Flash Gordon). Panelists include Queen experts, rock journalists, musicians, and record industry figures. The results are freewheeling discussions delving into the individual songs, the circumstances that surrounded the recording of each album, the band and contemporary rock contexts into which they were released, and more. The engaging text of this beautifully designed book is illustrated throughout with rare live performance and candid offstage photography, as well as scads of rare Queen ephemera. The Album by Album series is a unique approach to the rock bio, injecting the varied voices of several contributors. The results have even the most diehard fans rushing back to their MP3 players (or turntables) to confirm the details and opinions expressed!
From the Eye of the Hurricane
Alex Higgins - 2007
In 1972 he became the youngest winner of the World Championship, repeating his victory in emotional style in 1982.Higgins's story is so much more than just snooker. Head-butting tournament officials, threatening to shoot team-mates, getting involved with gangsters, abusing referees, affairs with glamorous women, frequent fines and lengthy bans, all contributed to Higgins slipping down the rankings as he succumbed to drink and lost his fortune. After suffering throat cancer, Alex Higgins now reflects on his turbulent life and career in his first full autobiography. The Hurricane is back - prepare to be caught up in the carnage.
Cowboy Song: The Authorised Biography Of Philip Lynott
Graeme Thomson - 2016
Leading music writer Graeme Thompson explores the fascinating contradictions between Lynott's unbridled rock star excesses and the shy, sensitive 'orphan' raised in working class Dublin. The mixed-race child of a Catholic teenager and a Guyanese stowaway, Lynott rose above daunting obstacles and wounding abandonments to become Ireland's first rock star. Cowboy Song examines his key musical alliances as well as the unique blend of cultural influences which informed Lynott's writing, connecting Ireland's rich reserves of music, myth and poetry to hard rock, progressive folk, punk, soul and New Wave. Published on the thirtieth anniversary of Lynott's death in January 1986, Thompson draws on scores of exclusive interviews with family, friends, band mates and collaborators. Cowboy Song is both the ultimate depiction of a multi-faceted rock icon, and an intimate portrait of a much-loved father, son and husband.
Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life in Music
Ted Templeman - 2020
Along the way, Ted details his late ’60s stint as an unlikely star with the sunshine pop outfit Harpers Bizarre and his grind-it-out days as a Warner Bros. tape listener, including the life-altering moment that launched his career as a producer: his discovery of the Doobie Brothers. Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life in Music takes us into the studio sessions of No. 1 hits like “Black Water” by the Doobie Brothers and “Jump” by Van Halen, as Ted recounts memories and the behind-the-scene dramas that engulfed both massively successful acts. Throughout, Ted also reveals the inner workings of his professional and personal relationships with some of the most talented and successful recording artists in history, including Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, Eric Clapton, Lowell George, Sammy Hagar, Linda Ronstadt, David Lee Roth, and Carly Simon.
Superstar Billy Graham: Tangled Ropes
Billy Graham - 2006
Too sweet to be sour!" Despite years of devastating health issues (a long history of drug abuse led to a liver transplant in 2002), the man regarded as one of the most influential professional wrestlers of the past thirty years still flaunts the same optimism that made his interviews as compelling as his matches. In "Tangled Ropes," his autobiography, Graham remembers his victories -- and his setbacks -- on both the wrestling and the evangelism circuits in vibrant detail.At his core, Graham is still Wayne Coleman, the artistic, curious boy who escaped the wrath of his disabled father in post-war Phoenix through painting, sports, and bodybuilding.When his photo appeared in a bodybuilding magazine, the young man caught the attention of a family in Texas who began praying for his soul. Soon, Wayne found religion at a revival meeting, then mortified his parents as he left home to bend steel, rip phone books in half, and preach the Gospel on the back roads of America.Because of his natural athleticism, Wayne held a series of jobs -- from bouncer to boxer, from repo man to football player. However, it was under the training of the "Mentor of Mayhem," Stu Hart, that the wrestler was revealed. Then the fading headliner Dr. Jerry Graham bleached Wayne's hair blond and transformed him into an in-ring "brother." Still reverent of men of faith, Coleman became "Billy Graham," after the preacher. Graham completed the package with his golden tan and enormous "pythons," a succession of color-coordinated outfits and jive-talking -- a persona imitated by countless wrestlers, including Hulk Hogan and Jesse "The Body" Ventura.The Superstar's greatest wrestling achievement came in 1977, when he took the World Wide Wrestling Federation Championship from Bruno Sammartino. He held the prize for nearly a year -- the first wrestling villain to do so. But after he lost the title to wholesome Bob Backlund, Graham fell into a deep depression. He disappeared from the business, squandering his money and losing himself in a haze of drugs.In "Tangled Ropes" -- co-written with Keith Elliot Greenberg -- Superstar Billy Graham tells a story that transcends his life in the wrestling profession, offering candor, nostalgia, inspiration, and humor. Graham's narrative is supplemented by anecdotes from personalities like Vince McMahon, Jesse Ventura, Ivan Koloff, Ric Flair, Dusty Rhodes, and California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Kids in the Riot: High and Low with The Libertines
Pete Welsh - 2005
Released early and reconciled with Barat, The Libertines confounded the critics by rounding off 2003 with three triumphant sold-out shows at London's Forum and kicking off 2004 with the prestigious Best UK band gong at the NME awards. For the first time, the full, extraordinary story of the most gifted yet nihilistic London band since The Sex Pistols is told. With the complete co-operation of the major players in their gloriously destructive ascent. A documentation of the break-ins, break-ups, punch-ups and make-ups of the first two phenomenal years of The Libertines. Illustrated with many unseen photographs from the authors archive.
Nirvana: The Biography
Everett True - 2006
He is responsible for bringing Hole, Pavement, Soundgarden, and a host of other bands to international attention. He introduced Kurt Cobain to Courtney Love, performed on stage with Nirvana on numerous occasions, and famously pushed Kurt onto the stage of the Reading Festival in 1992 in a wheelchair. Nirvana: The Biography is an honest, moving, incisive, and heartfelt re-evaluation of a band that has been misrepresented time and time again since its tragic demise in April 1994 following Kurt Cobain's suicide. True captures what the band was really like. He also discusses the music scene of the time -- the fellow bands, the scenes, the seminars, the countless live dates, the friends and allies and drug dealers. Drawn from hundreds of original interviews, Nirvana: The Biography is the final word on Nirvana, Cobain, and Seattle grunge.
Here, There and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Music of the Beatles
Geoff Emerick - 2006
He later worked with the Beatles as they recorded their singles “She Loves You” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” the songs that would propel them to international superstardom. In 1964 he would witness the transformation of this young and playful group from Liverpool into professional, polished musicians as they put to tape classic songs such as “Eight Days A Week” and “I Feel Fine.” Then, in 1966, at age nineteen, Geoff Emerick became the Beatles’ chief engineer, the man responsible for their distinctive sound as they recorded the classic album Revolver, in which they pioneered innovative recording techniques that changed the course of rock history. Emerick would also engineer the monumental Sgt. Pepper and Abbey Road albums, considered by many the greatest rock recordings of all time. In Here, There and Everywhere he reveals the creative process of the band in the studio, and describes how he achieved the sounds on their most famous songs. Emerick also brings to light the personal dynamics of the band, from the relentless (and increasingly mean-spirited) competition between Lennon and McCartney to the infighting and frustration that eventually brought a bitter end to the greatest rock band the world has ever known.