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7 hours ago, MetalheadFromBama said:

Duff McKagan's book "It's So Easy (and Other Lies)" is a good book. It talks about his life growing up in the Seattle punk scene, and it talks about him playing with Guns N' Roses. If you want to get it, you can probably find one at Barnes and Noble. If you don't have one in your area, you could just find a copy on eBay.

Yes! This book is really good. I've got a whole heap of Guns n Roses books, because that's another great band story. Duff's partying years are really interesting to get insight into, and I guess his whole accounting/business school thing is healthy and I wish him well, but it's a little less engaging in the book hahaha. I also kind of got the feeling that he was pulling punches on how he felt about Axl in order to keep the door open for a reunion, and it worked. Definitely a great book and well worth reading. 

7 hours ago, GrayscaleDawn said:

Motley Crue - Dirt

One that is considered to be a classic, and for a reason. Extremely entertaining book, that will get you hooked. Even if you have 0 interest on a band, it´s a worthy read. 

 

Agreed, this is a great book. Obviously music books have been around for as long as music has, but this one seemed to kick start a mini-industry in sordid rock 'n' roll tales. I love Motley Crue and the personalities in the band. I have a lot of respect for the ghost writer Neil Strauss for allowing the individual members' personalities to shine through. This would have to be my favourite of the Sunset Strip books that are out there. Amazing time, LA in the 1980s. Every time I go to LA I hang out at the Rainbow, Whisky etc just to get a sense of it. Great stuff. 

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A couple of people early on in this thread have mentioned black metal books. Here's my personal take on some of them. 

 

Metalion - The Slayer Mag Diaries is by far the best book on black metal and metal in general that i've come across.  At 744 pages, it collects every edition of the Slayer zine and each issue is headed with a long and detailed discussion about what was happening in Metalion's life as well as the metal community he was involved in. First hand account of the Norwegian black metal scene is amazing, and the old interviews with pretty much all the great underground bands are fascinating time capsules. 

https://www.bazillionpoints.com/shop/metalion-the-slayer-mag-diaries-by-jon-metalion-kristiansen/

 

Dayal Patterson - Black Metal - Evolution of a Cult is the best secondary source book on black metal that I've read. It's so comprehensive, and Patterson is a very good writer with a real passion. Patterson is/was a Terrorizer journalist. The amount of research he's done is quite staggering and he understands the genre. He wasn't drawn to the scandals, but is an actual lifelong fan of the music. He's subsequently put out some follow-up books, some of which I own, but they are more appendixes to this beast of a tome. 

http://www.cultneverdies.com/p/evolution-of-cult.html

 

Peter Beste - True Norwegian Black Metal is a photography book that is absolutely unrivalled. Beste had unprecedented access to band members of the Norwegian scene (presumably eager to get in his book), and his images are just bang on. 

http://www.peterbeste.com/store/gccmf5me0s1rbmow24mz4b59qyw3le

 

These three books combined form the triumvirate of black metal books and I consider them as complete a picture of the music and scene as anyone is likely to get through the medium of literature. 

 

Lords of Chaos is obviously the most well known book from about 1998, and it gets a lot of criticism, but I actually really like it. It's not about the music, it's about the scene/murders, and it does a pretty good job. I remember ordering it at a bookshop back in 98 and just being fascinated with it. I later bought an updated edition. A movie is being made of it at the moment, which is a real worry. Overall, the book is good, but it's got nothing on the three texts above, however. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_of_Chaos_(book)

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One of the best music books in my collection is 'For Facts Sake' by Bob Daisley

Daisley is the original bassist and songwriter for Ozzy Osbourne's solo band, writing almost all the lyrics for 'Blizzard of Ozz', 'Diary of a Madman', 'Bark at the Moon', 'No Rest of the Wicked', and playing bass on 'No More Tears', despite being initially uncredited for the latter. 

If you know anything about the Ozzy/Sharon saga it's that they are notorious for screwing over (allegedly!) the people who have played and written Ozzy's material, and Bob Daisley is the classic case. He constantly had to fight for royalties and writing credits, temporarily had his bass parts on the first two albums re-recorded by Rob Trujillo at the behest of Sharon before fan disgust reinstated the original performances, and was generally exploited from day one. 

Anyway, the book is about Daisley's life, from growing up in Australia and moving to England where he played with Rainbow (amongst others) before forming the first Ozzy band with Randy Rhoads and Lee Kerslake. 

Daisely kept diaries (real ones, not like Nikki Sixx...) of everything as he's an actual diarist, and he has all the facts with specific dates, events etc recorded meticulously. The Ozzy/Sharon material is the most compelling, and it's just incredible how badly screwed over he was by them, despite being their constant go-to man for lyrics and bass performance. 

I definitely recommend 'For Facts Sake'. Amazing book and an amazing man. 

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4 hours ago, natassja7 said:

Sure ..it's Rollins' tour diaries and journals mostly about his time with Black Flag.  He's a really interesting guy, I've always dug Rollins. 

Twitter generation, huh?

People rave about his spoken word stuff. I'll have to check it out one of these days. I don't think I've heard a Rollins song in nearly 20 years. Pretty confident bloke I gather.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I just read Ace Frehley - No Regrets, because True Belief is a real fan boy and it got me interested. It's a cool book, pretty run of the mill rags to riches rock story with all the trimmings. He's got a great sense of humour and it really comes across in the book. Plus the Kiss story is one of music's all time great tales due to the nature of the empire. Plus those 1970s music stories are fantastic. 

It really amazes me all these books about drug use. I don't know much about the law, but it sort of surprises me that a person can't be arrested for admitting to engaging in a crime, like carrying, dealing and using cocaine and other prohibited drugs. Is it fine to talk about in a book, or is it that the police just can't be bothered to go and arrest  these guys? It always makes me wonder. 

I came out of it really liking Ace Frehley.

Here's how I came out of a couple of books as far as my feelings towards their authors: 

Ace Frehely = cool guy

Bob Daisley = absolute all time champion

Tony Iommi = slightly deluded

Vince Neil = jerk 

If you come out of your own autobiography looking like a jerk, well, I think you have a problem. Stick to Dr Feelgood, Vince. 

 

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  • 9 months later...

The other day I finished reading 'Official Truth 101 Proof: The Inside Story of Pantera' by Rex Brown. 

Like every metal teen in the early/mid 90s, I was pretty impressed with Pantera, and I really love reading these types of expose books, so I went ahead and checked out what old Rex has to say. I knew that Vinnie and Phil have both discounted Rex's version of events, so I thought that was probably a great reason to check it out. 

Overall it's a cool book. Rex seems like a fairly decent guy, but what often happens when people write their autobiographies (with the help of an actual writer because he's Rex Brown, not Rex Shakespeare) is that they end up talking themselves into a corner. The old saying 'give them enough rope and they'll hang themselves' applies here. 

Firstly, Rex is apparently some sort of musical genius and can play everything. He also claims he had a huge impact on Pantera's songwriting and sound, which I dispute. He also annoyingly sits in that grey area that a lot of alcoholics seem to be in where on the one hand they explain the utter carnage they caused but on the other refuse to see value in any help.

The guy nearly died from alcohol but bitches about all the different rehabs that 'weren't for him'. When he wasn't on tour or passing out drunk at home he was playing golf with his buddies all the time. He then has a dig at his ex-wife who he claims deals with things by running away from problems. Rex, you were drinking a couple of bottles of whisky a day while your wife looked after your two kids that you virtually never saw. I'm surprised she didn't kick your selfish ass out on about day three. It's this type of obliviousness that I see in a lot of musical autobiographies. They just don't get it. 

The other frustrating thing about the book is his parochial cliched Texas ignorance. Obviously Texas has heaps of intelligent people etc. But he talks about when the band played a show in Tel Aviv, Israel. He admits that it was nothing like what he expected, and that it was a cool place. I've been there and can definitely vouch for how cool it is. It's a party/beach city. The bars, restaurants and clubs are amazing. Then Rex goes on to say that he found an American restaurant near the American style hotel and he just stayed there the whole time eating American food and drinking American beers. He was in the Middle East!! Eat some goddamn Middle Eastern food and explore the thousands of years old culture. Fuck!!! Made me so angry. And he says it like he's all proud of himself. 

Other than that it was interesting. He hates Vinnie who he constantly mocks and criticises. He speaks fairly kindly of Phil, probably because he's hoping to get back into Down. He was pretty sickened by how he claims Phil used to walk around saying he was the king of metal, which I can believe. What strikes me about the whole thing is that the four guys in Pantera were all pretty dumb guys and way out of their depth. The tour stories are just lamentable follies regarding what not to do as human beings. Some of the stuff they did just defies belief. They basically acted like children everywhere they went. 

I guess the book annoyed me more than I thought. I did enjoy it though, and it was fascinating reading about their beginnings and rise to fame. I recommend it. 

 

 

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3 hours ago, Requiem said:

Firstly, Rex is apparently some sort of musical genius and can play everything.

Even if that's true he sure doesn't seem play it very well or doesn't choose to given the option of full creative control. His solo album was such worthless dross that the marketing copy almost exclusively talked about the man himself and didn't occupy itself very much with praising the music. I heard someone say it was influenced by Tom Waits, which is a little bit like saying a 12-year-old's clumsy rendition of Chopsticks is "influenced" by Jordan Rudess. I wrote a couple reviews for Metal-Temple this year and that album probably got the worst score I ever issued.

I realize this is somewhat off topic but I figured it was a relatively germane response pls don't exile me Mr. Abra Macabra Eterna

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5 hours ago, Iceni said:

Even if that's true he sure doesn't seem play it very well or doesn't choose to given the option of full creative control. His solo album was such worthless dross that the marketing copy almost exclusively talked about the man himself and didn't occupy itself very much with praising the music. I heard someone say it was influenced by Tom Waits, which is a little bit like saying a 12-year-old's clumsy rendition of Chopsticks is "influenced" by Jordan Rudess. I wrote a couple reviews for Metal-Temple this year and that album probably got the worst score I ever issued.

I realize this is somewhat off topic but I figured it was a relatively germane response pls don't exile me Mr. Abra Macabra Eterna

Germane indeed.

The insistence throughout the book that Rex mastered every instrument in school and that his music teacher thought he was a genius seemed to me a little surprising. When you look at the ingredients that make Pantera *cough* great, you don't jump straight to bass. Still, he played with Jerry Cantrell, Down and did do his own stuff, so I guess he must be pretty ok.  

My biggest gripe was how a grown man who must be in his 50s now can demonstrate such little self-knowledge. I guess we're all guilty of that to some extent but most of us don't make it plain in a book about our lives. 

 

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11 minutes ago, Requiem said:

Germane indeed.

The insistence throughout the book that Rex mastered every instrument in school and that his music teacher thought he was a genius seemed to me a little surprising. When you look at the ingredients that make Pantera *cough* great, you don't jump straight to bass. Still, he played with Jerry Cantrell, Down and did do his own stuff, so I guess he must be pretty ok.  

My biggest gripe was how a grown man who must be in his 50s now can demonstrate such little self-knowledge. I guess we're all guilty of that to some extent but most of us don't make it plain in a book about our lives. 

 

Why *cough*?

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7 minutes ago, Requiem said:

Because I don't think they're actually a 'great' band, like I know you do.

Do you have anything to actually say about the book, my review, Rex, or musicians' lifestyles? 

:D 

I don't think you are particularly interested in anything I have to say or my opinion on anything much to be quite honest.  So I won't waste your time.

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2 hours ago, Natassja7 said:

:D 

I don't think you are particularly interested in anything I have to say or my opinion on anything much to be quite honest.  So I won't waste your time.

Come now.

I like your opinions plenty, when you take the time to offer them. Your posts are shorter than Ronnie James Dio. I like a lot of the music you list in the Now Playing thread. I like your Darkthrone style name. Your profile pic is also cool. 

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So anyway, the Rex book was an interesting read.

Another funny fact from it was that apparently Vinnie was always trying to get laid backstage and in the tour bus and was constantly being rebuffed. Basically Rex calls Vinnie fat, desperate, dumb and overly emotional. An incredible lampooning of a former close associate. 

 

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21 hours ago, Requiem said:

Come now.

I like your opinions plenty, when you take the time to offer them. Your posts are shorter than Ronnie James Dio. I like a lot of the music you list in the Now Playing thread. I like your Darkthrone style name. Your profile pic is also cool. 

It's all for you, Req ..all for you..

 

Ahh :D well.. perhaps some of us enjoy listening to the tedious -click-clickety-click- more than others..

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  • 1 month later...

Book Reviews:

Paul Stanley - 'Face the Music' and Bruce Dickinson - 'What Does This Button Do'.

The other day I finished Paul Stanley's 'Face the Music' which I absolutely loved and read cover to cover in about four days (at nearly 500 pages that's a pretty good rate!). 

I was sort of getting into 80s KISS due to @True Belief and had read Ace Frehley's book previously, so I was really interested to hear Paul's version of events. It's a great book. He doesn't pull any punches on his band mates and the narrative flow is really engaging. It's such a compelling story, those guys coming out of New York City in the early 70s and the ups and downs over the next 40 years. The evolution of the band philosophy, the make-up, the songwriting, the tours and the band breakdowns. I also found myself laughing out loud at some of the hilarious moments.

It's really well written too and I'm amazed at some of the wisdom Paul shows. It's like he's come out the other end of all sorts of crazy crazy nights and now has some mature things to say about his experiences. I grew a lot of respect for him. 

So if you're looking for an engaging autobiography about rock n roll and all that goes with it, I highly recommend checking 'Face the Music' out. I bought all these KISS albums as a consequence too, so it had good marketing value....

Bruce Dickinson - 'What Does this Button Do'?

Unfortunately the same can't be said for Bruce Dickinson's recently released autobiography 'What Does this Button Do?'. 

When I heard that this was out I ordered it straight away, because who wouldn't want to read about Bruce's experiences in Samson then joining Maiden and taking over the world?! The huge tours! The marketing goliath! Well, unfortunately most of the book is about goddamn airplanes and, to a lesser but no less annoying extent, fencing (as in sword fighting). 

It's clear that the true passion in Bruce's life is flying aircraft, and that's pretty cool. Many of the anecdotes are interesting and it's interesting to find out about things that pilots go through.... for a while. But when I'm reading a book about the vocalist from Maiden and he spends literally a small paragraph on a huge year-long tour and then the next five pages about a particular flight he went on, it just gets really frustrating really quickly. 

The pilot stuff just goes on and on. By the last quarter of the book I was actually kind of chuckling out loud at how he just won't stop telling us boring flying anecdotes. I reckon the entire writing, rehearsing, recording and touring of albums like 'Number of the Beast' through to 'Seventh Son' gets about 20 pages. The other 320 or so pages are about how he went to this fencing club and that fencing club, then he changed from right hand fencing to left hand. Then he went to this airport and met this flight instructor.... ah god, I can't handle it. He's co-created some of the most interesting and imaginative metal albums of all time and he won't say anything about them. 

Unlike Paul Stanley's book, Bruce tells the story in a kind of detached off-hand British way that always keeps the reader at arm's length. It's all a bit nudge nudge wink wink with these dry jokes throughout and strange turns-of-phrase. It's a very odd book. If you really want 250 pages about Bruce becoming a pilot, you'll love it. If you want to hear about Maiden I guess you should wait for Steve Harris' book. 

Paul Stanley - 'Face the Music' 9/10

Bruce Dickinson - 'What Does This Button Do' (not much it turns out...) 4/10

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  • 7 months later...

Currently reading: 

'Peaceville Life' by Paul 'Hammy' Halmshaw. 

The creator of my favourite record label of all time, Hammy, has written a fantastic autobiography about the label, Peaceville. I'm really only halfway through, but so far it's been brilliant. 

Hammy tells the story of how he first got into music and then the music business, and how Peaceville grew from a small punk label into the doom metal giant that - for me at least - took over the world! 

After the first few chapters it moves into a year by year account of things, including how he signed bands such as Paradise Lost, Anathema, My Dying Bride, At the Gates and Darkthrone, as well as the money problems, rip offs and losses. There are heaps of cool photos of a heap of bands, all looking young and fresh faced. There are also accounts from people like Aaron Stainthorpe (MDB) and Vincent Cavanagh (Anathema) plus many others giving their perspective of their interaction with Peaceville. The Fenriz (Darkthrone) perspective is hilarious, because it covers their release of 'A Blaze in the Northern Sky' when Hammy didn't understand it at the time (quite rightly really when you've just signed what you thought was a death metal band during the death metal craze) and Fenris used to get tipsy at the pub then call him on the phone and berate him. 

Hammy is a true authority, but he writes with humility and with his feet firmly on the ground. There are heaps of funny moments too and the humour makes me laugh out loud regularly.

It's such a great read. I bought mine from Cult Never Dies and it's signed by the author. Get on board. 9/10 so far. 

EDIT: The last part of this book really let me down and was actually quite strange. It all sort of petered out with the deaths of family members signalling the last major events covered, so it ends on a real downer. There's a sort of depressed sense of regret throughout much of this, and I don't feel as wonderful about Peaceville records as I did when I started the book. Too bad. 

6/10.

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