by Member 008

I’m inclined to justify my list.

It makes me very self-conscious.

It’s mostly trash, but that’s not really the issue. I picked up several of these because they were trash.

I could try and pass off 2020’s pervasive state of dread as having inspired a shift from “important books for intellectually serious people” to a need for literary pabulum, but that would be a total lie.  

This list cannot be justified in any satisfying way.

It doesn’t really even make sense. In the last year I read 30+ autobiographies. Many were written by people I actively dislike who were doing things that I truly could not care about less. I read some of those books more than once.

So, fuck it.

This is the list for January 2020 – April 2021. Naked and insecure in the centre of the auditorium to be jeered and judged accordingly.

Music Autobiographies

I consume musician autobiographies like a fiend. Always have. In part it’s because I’m interested in the subject matter, and also because they usually follow a predictable structure, which is comforting.

• Prologue –> salacious excerpt from downfall period;
• Part 1 –> childhood; author was different than the other kids; musically talented misfit period;
• Part 2 –> author meets other musically talented misfits; intro to sex, drugs, and rock n roll;
• Part 3 –> hard times and humble beginnings; author has some sort of “road to Damascus moment” where they decide to fully commit to their dreams; something about how you have to take risks to succeed; sex and drugs and rock n roll are super fun in this period; author works hard despite many initial setbacks;
• Part 4 –> success!; author is at the top! sex and drugs and rock n roll are out of control and awesome; nagging feeling that the author is emotionally alone, even though the author is never physically alone; alleged realization that success doesn’t bring happiness;
• Part 5 –> downfall; band, marriages, friendships fall apart; author now allegedly hates sex and drugs and rock n roll but is in too deep;
• Part 6 –> rock bottom; this part is usually unnecessarily detailed and long;
• Part 7 –> rebuild reputation and relationships; usually a few relapses;
• Part 8 –> recovery/religious awakening/having children (depending on author, this can take forever); return to success, but never as much as much success as in Part 4, but author is cool with that because they have now achieved some sort of balance.
• Epilogue –> This part can vary; 25% are “so that’s the story up to now, still have so much to do!”; 25% are “so, 6 months after this book was drafted, everything fell apart again”; 25% are “maybe you guys don’t understand, GOD IS LOVE”; and 25% are “don’t do what I did… LOVE each other…”

Predictable structure aside, there is considerable variance in the quality of the authors as people and as storytellers.

Judas Priest Books 

Heavy Duty – K.K. Downing

Interesting insight into post war middle England and the origins of heavy metal. KK Downing comes off as a nice guy. Story is well put together if a little bland. Same goes for the author. He gets petty and shitty about his former bandmates – which is a plus – but never becomes fully unhinged – which is a minus.

I Confess – Rob Halford

This book is fucking great. Same good insight into post war middle England also, but with the added twist of the author being gay. To see the same basic story as Heavy Duty but from the perspective of someone wholly preoccupied with being caught out of the closet gives it a fresh perspective. Halford’s personal story is compelling, and the book provides some very interesting insight into underground gay scene in the USA in the 1980’s and 1990’s which was far more technical than I appreciated. My first real in-depth explanation of handkerchief code and the formal etiquette of truck-stop glory holes.

Great book even if you aren’t really all that interested in the band or the genre.

Guns N Roses Books

I’ve read Slash’s book a few times before, but not in 2020. It is more fun than both of these books.

Its So Easy – Duff McKagan

Its fine, I guess. Well written, and actually written by the author himself, which is rare for the genre. Way too much focus on the Parts 5—8 outlined above, particularly in relation to his journey to rebuild his life through cycling.

My Appetite for Destruction – Steven Adler

This is poorly written. It’s supertrashy and horrifying, so it should be fun… but Adler is in so deep for so long that it just gets really really really sad.

Megadeth Books

Mustaine – Dave Mustaine

Dave Mustaine is a shitty man. He is (confusingly) equal parts inferiority complex and out of control ego. The long lament about getting kicked out of Metallica is fun, as are the early years of Megadeth. Lots of insight into the releases, which is a plus. Redemption arc (Parts 7—8) is devastatingly boring, but he’s upset, shitty, and childish again by the end, which helps. Particularly enjoyed all of the unnecessarily horrible allegations Mustaine levels at Megadeth co-founder David Ellefson.    

My Life with Deth – David Effefson

Ugh. What could at least be a partially wild ride through a debauched youth is ruined by the author’s cannonball plunge into Christianity. He is so genuinely remorseful in recounting all of the interesting parts of his life’s story that they cease to interesting. He even forgives Mustaine for calling him a terrible bassist in Mustaine’s book.

Kiss Autobiographies

Kiss autobiographies are the best. They are the best example of a POV series in the genre that I am aware of: they were all there for the same events, but have radically divergent perspectives. These men all thoroughly despise one another, and they each blame all of the others for their respective problems.

The books are not all created equal. Gene’s is absolute garbage. Ace’s isn’t great either, mostly because Ace has no memory of most of his life. Peter’s and Paul’s are both wonderful, and I reread both this year.   

Makeup to Breakup – Peter Criss

Peter Criss is a very angry man. Peter grew up as a hood in Brooklyn, beating the shit out of the other neighbourhood hoods with his trusty blackjack. He is extremely insecure because he is functionally illiterate and because everyone keeps telling him he has no talent. Peter is obsessed with his penis, which he calls the “Spoiler.” Peter ruins every relationship he has ever had, and it his fault in every single instance.  

This book is fucking great regardless of whether you like Kiss. It’s a masterclass in pettiness, insecurity, deflection, and impotent rage. A joy from the first to the last paragraph.

Face the Music – Paul Stanley

Paul Stanley is a very angry man also. Unlike Pete, however, Paul desperately wants everyone to think he is a very happy man.

Paul views himself as having overcome tremendous adversity. His embarrassment over a disfigured ear is the furnace that fuelled his entire career. Paul says that he just wants to be loved and accepted, but as he gets super famous, new and different insecurities begin to emerge.  

Chief among these is that people don’t think people take him seriously. Paul is very upset that people only see the surface, they don’t appreciate how “deep” he really is. What people need to know is that beneath all of the clown makeup, fireworks, chest hair, and lipstick, is a “true artist.” While it might appear that Paul is bragging when he recounts stories about sitting in his penthouse overlooking central park NYC and having his manager summon Playboy Playmates from LA to come keep him company, what you need to understand is that that only demonstrates how profoundly lonely Paul is. While Paul may seem like an asshole for routinely calling Peter Criss (for example) a talentless, illiterate, coke-headed hack of a drummer, it’s really just that Paul is so mature and self-aware that he is able to provide objective and valuable constructive criticism to those around him.

Anyhow, a fantastic read all around.    

Coda

I think the Kiss books are great even if you are not at all interested in Kiss, but it’s impossible for me assess that objectively. If you are even slightly curious, or just looking for something fun to read, I’d recommend that you check out Chuck Klosterman’s article on Grantland (here) to gauge your interest in going any further.

First Wave American Hardcore Punk

Never really been a fan of hardcore punk.

I’d listened to the “important” albums from Bad Brains, Black Flag, Agnostic Front, Circle Jerks, Cro-Mags, Minor Threat, the X, etc., but mostly so I could say I had for when I needed to justify my “I don’t like hardcore punk” stance to anyone who took issue with it when I was younger.

Hard Core (Life Of My Own) – Harley Flanagan

This book is ridiculous. Harley Flanagan has had a very interesting life: From hanging out with Allan Ginsburg, Debbie Harry, and David Bowie when he was a kid, to becoming the drummer in the Stimulators at age 11 or 12, to being on the front lines of the development of the NYHC movement in the 1980s, to jumping trains cross country hobo-style in the 1990’s, to starting a riot in San Francisco, etc…

Flanagan was living in punk squats in NYC (and later across the USA) from ~1980 to 2000. He paints a very detailed and compelling picture of the festering crater that was the Lower East Side in the 1980’s, and the book has cameos from 2/3rds of the interesting characters that ever brushed up against the punk/post-punk/hardcore scenes.

All of that said, Harley Flanagan grew up fast. He was living like he was 17 when he was 8. Problem is that he was still living like he was 17 when he wrote this book at age 50. His perspective is essentially frozen at “very angry young man has something to prove” which gets quite tiresome. Still, quite a fun read for its narrative habitat.

My Riot – Roger Miret

Essentially a different POV on the same situation from the Flanagan Book. If you liked the former and can tolerate more, worth a read. But only if.

Finding Joseph I (An Oral History of Bad Brains) – Howie Abrams and James Lathos

A little strange for an autobiography because its subject H.R. – the driving force behind Bad Brains and the PMA (positive mental attitude) movement – shifted from creative genius to deeply paranoid schizophrenic, kinda without anyone noticing until it was too late.

The result is lopsided. More an autobiography of a community than of a person. The parts about the early DC scene, race issues in punk from the perspective of the first black band that broke through, and the early shows in NYC are all great. Unfortunately, about half of the book is contributions from people who spend their pages just fawning over H.R. for being so important and so cool, which is extremely boring. 

My Damage – Keith Morris

This was a fun book. Was interesting to get the history of the west coast hardcore scene, which was both less up-its-own-ass than the New York scene and crazier. I didn’t really know anything about all of the punk riots in the 1980s in LA. I didn’t realize that for about 5 years, the cops would storm shows in riot gear and actually maim and (occasionally) kill teenagers. I also didn’t know – though it stands to reason – that David lee Roth used to haunt Hollywood in the early 1990’s smoking crack freely with whoever was around. Good times.  

Misc. Music Autobiographies

18 and Life on Skid Row – Sebastian Bach

Hair metal is renowned for being shallow, vapid, style-over-substance party music. Sebastian Bach is renowned for being a shallow, vapid, style-over-substance party guy, with a massive chip on his shoulder.

The result is predictable and fun: Rock n roll fights, cocaine, vodka, cocaine, vodka, girls, girls, cocaine, vodka, rock n roll fights, no one understands that I’m actually a really deep guy, girls, girls, rock n roll fights, cocaine, cocaine, vodka, cocaine, no one understands that I’m actually a talented singer unlike the rest of these clowns I’m lumped in with, cocaine, phantom of the opera, wine, wine, whine, whine, rock n roll fights, cocaine, rock n roll fights, wives, ex-wives, cocaine, wine, vodka, rock n roll fights, cocaine…

Poorly written, but very fun to read.

A Producer’s Life in Music – Ted Templemen

Ted Templeton’s resume is interesting. His life is not.

Heavy Tales – John Zazula

John Zazula considers himself the “business mind” that allowed thrash metal to flourish.

I consider John Zazula’s story as uninteresting and poorly told.

Acid for the Children – Flea

Ugh. Fuck off. I don’t like the Red Hot Chili Peppers to begin with, but Flea always kinda seemed like the least insufferable of the lot. I was incorrect.

A masterpiece in pretentious self-involved abstract horseshit. A boring failure of an art project dressed up to look like a book.

Tranny – Laura Jane Grace

I couldn’t care less about the band Against Me! (punctuation is part of the name, not for emphasis).

That said, I was very interested to hear about Laura’s transition and how that interfaced with her life in punk rock. This book was fucking excellent and provided – for me at least – some much needed and much wanted insight into the experience of being trans in the music industry and the process of transitioning.

It also had some vivid tales about Gainsville in the 1970s and 1980s, which sounds like a truly fucking awful place, but made for some compelling reading.

Highly recommended.     

Sing Backwards and Weep – Mark Lanagan

It was only while reading this book that I picked up on the pattern that it takes 20 years for musicians from an era to start cranking out autobiographies en masse.  

Welcome to Seattle in 1990. It’s always overcast, everyone is addicted to heroin, and that is making everyone very grouchy.

Although he never really broke through with the Screaming Trees (or later with Queens of the Stone Age), all of Lanagan’s closest friends became mega-stars pretty much overnight. He’s got a bit of a junkie Forrest Gump thing going on: he is with Kurt Cobain the day before he overdoses, living with Layne Staley on and off until he overdoses, bumping into Duff McKagan hours before his pancreas explodes, etc… all of which makes for pretty compelling reading if you were addicted to watching Much Music for every waking minute from 1990-1997 like I was.

This book is well written and profoundly enjoyable from start to finish.   

Access All Areas – Scott Ian / I’m the Man – Scott Ian

Scott Ian wrote two books. I read both of them.

Art, Sex, Music – Cosi Fanni Tutti

This book was great. It’s the only insider account of the ultra-confrontational performance art scene in 1970’s England I am aware of (see: COUM Transmissions), and the only insider account of Throbbing Gristle (TG) and early Industrial Records scene that will likely ever be with the death of Peter Christofferson in 2010 and Genesis Bryer P-Orridge in 2020.

COUM and TG have always been so mysterious. On the one hand, this book reinforced that mystery by showing the high degree of philosophy and planning that underpinned the artistic terrorism and media manipulation of those projects.

On the other hand, it demystified the people involved. Sure, Genesis P-Orridge was pretty out there artistically, but he was also just a very insecure man (at least in the 1970s pre-transition) with a penchant for domestic violence and ultra-petty-ultra-entitled emotional abuse. Conversely, Peter Christofferson seems to be the sweetest man ever, and I wasn’t aware that his design work at Hipgnosis had a larger impact on “the culture” than his musical work with TG and Coil. Chris Carter, Cosi’s eventual husband and synthesizer pioneer doesn’t seem to exist at all beyond his inventions. Cosi herself is sort of the best of each of them, confrontational, artistic, and technically innovative.     

This book was great even if you aren’t interested in the art these folks made.

Off the Rails – Rudy Sarzo

This book is like tempeh. 

Gary Numan Tracks (Song By Song, Album by Album) – Paul Goodwin

This book its about something I am extremely interested in, and it still managed to be among the most boring and poorly put together books that I may have ever read. 

Whores (An Oral History of Jane’s Addiction) – Brendan Mullen

This is a great read if you are curious about Jane’s Addiction, but only then. Perry Farrell seems to have lost the capacity for linear thought over the last few years, so I suspect this is about as insightful an offering that there will be on the subject.  

Wrestling Autobiographies

It is apparently very important to me that you know I am not into wrestling.  

I watched as much WWF as anyone did when I was 5-9 years old, but it didn’t take. I didn’t really think about professional wrestling for the next 25-30 years.

At some point in 2019 I was in Regina for a negotiation meeting. After a gruelling 11-hour day of listening to Crown negotiators, my co-counsel and I went to the Diplomat for dinner. This was followed by a bit of a pub crawl. This was followed by several overproof cocktails back at the Hotel Saskatchewan. In this context, a late-night deep dive into Macho Man Randy Savage and Rick Flair promo videos was inevitable, and I ordered Rick Flair’s book the next day. Once I realized that professional wrestling autobiographies follow the same trajectory and structure of musician’s autobiographies – with some slight variation as to which specific vices spur the downfalls – I just rolled with it.

I am still not a “fan” of wrestling, but the kind of people who throw themselves 1000% into becoming professional wrestlers fascinate me.

To Be the Man – Rick Flair

Ghost written by someone who clearly had better things to do, this was the heavily sanitized version of what, by all appearances, was a pretty crazy ride. Not that any of that comes through in the text. Waste of an evening.

Hitman – Brett Hart

This book was awesome. Brett Hart is very upset, pretty much all of the time. King of the sadmen. He’s deadly serious about wrestling. This is all he ever cared about. That’s all his whole family ever cared about. Pretty much everyone in the wrestling world thinks he cares too much about wrestling, and he deeply resents them all for it. Lots of cool insight into Calgary in the 1970s and 1980s. Highly recommend.

Rowdy – Ariel Toombs and Colt Toombs

This was put together by Rowdy Roddy Piper’s kids from his notes as he died before he could write his book. They were not up to the task.

A Lion’s Tale – Chris Jericho

Passable if it was the only book you could find on a long train journey, everyone was asleep, and you had some good booze.

Misc Autobiographies

Too Fat to Fish – Artie Lange / Crash & Burn – Artie Lange

I never listened to Howard Stern. Missed the whole shock jock phenomenon, and it has not aged well at all. Didn’t know anything about Artie Lange other than he was a giant mess. Having read these two books, I can confirm that Artie Lange is a giant mess. Both well written. Interesting insofar as they provide tragicomic insight into this prolonged debauched horror show of a man, and perhaps the most brutal suicide attempt I have heard of. 

This is Not Fame – Doug Stanhope /No Encore for the Donkey – Doug Stanhope

I gather Doug Stanhope is seen by his fans as one of those “tell it like it is comedian oracles” that comes by from time to time. Turns out, I don’t really care for “tell it like it is comedian oracles.” I do, however, have time for relatively articulate misanthropic drunks, which Stanhope most certainly is. I still don’t really care for the man, but he’s had an interesting ride.

Neither are bad reads as long as you are the not type of person who has to like an author to enjoy yourself. 

Golden Girls Forever (An Oral history) – Jim Colucci

The essential guide for the complete story of the golden girls. Not really much to say about this one. Great if you are deeply interested in Golden Girls behind the scenes, which, apparently, I was.

Permanently Suspended – Anthony Cumia

Found myself here because of some mentions in the Stanhope book. Shitty dude. Shitty book. Waste of 4 hours and a bottle of white Burgundy.

Kitchen Confidential – Anthony Bourdain

This book seems like the catalyst of the “Chef as troubled artist” narrative metamorphosis that has been going on for the last 20 years. For some reason, I didn’t really want to read this book. I felt like I had kind of already read it with all of the time I’d spent watching Bourdain on his various shows. This was confirmed when I finally got around to it – it’s essentially the blueprint for everything Bourdain did and its all very familiar. I won’t return to this one, but I am glad I got around to reading it.     

True(ish) Crime

Party Monster – James St. James

Extremely excited to get into this in detail with all of the other Society members!

Last Book on the Left – Ben Kissel, Marcus Parks, Henry Zebrowski

A greatest hits of serial killers from the makers of the great Last Podcast on the Left. Its fine, but doesn’t capture the fun of the podcast version of these tales.

Lords of Chaos – Michael Moynihan and Didrik Soderlind

A story of church burnings, record shops, dead crows, suicide, publicity stunts, one-upmanship, and murders. In other words, the story of the first wave of Norwegian Black Metal.

When I was younger, the Norwegian Black Metal scene was fascinating. It was severe. It was serious. It was real.

There had always been metal bands proclaiming that they were evil, but did they ever actually do anything impressive to substantiate the proclamation? Did they burn down churches? Did they murder people? Did they make necklaces out of the skull fragments of their suicided former members?

Absolutely not.

Those cowards.

Only with the emergence of the Norwegian Black Metal did shit get real. This was seriously evil music being produced by seriously evil people who adopted very serious pseudonyms like Varg, Euronymous, Dead, Necrobutcher, and Fenriz. Terrifying!

Or at least, that’s how it looked to me as a teenager in the 1990s. The whole thing hit very differently on a reread 25 years after the fact.

What used to read like pure evil – pure fucking metal(!) – now reads as a bunch of horribly pretentious kids who essentially “yes and-ed” each other through an escalating series of bad decisions until murder was the only thing left to do. There was no master plan after all!

With hindsight, its all very silly and unnecessary, but its still a fun read.

On a practical level, this book could be shortened by a third. Its objectively far too impressed with itself and how “extremely super evil” everyone is, but its very charming in that earnestness.     

Mr. Nice – Howard Marks

I picked this up because of television, specifically, the UK sitcom Peep Show. In brief, Peep Show focuses on two main characters, Mark and Jez. Mark considers himself an intellectual, Jez is childish philandering burnout. At several junctures it is noted that Jez hates reading and has only ever read one adult book – Mr. Nice.

Apparently, I found that inspirational.

An easy and juvenile read about the notorious Howard Marks, international drug smuggler and conman. You will learn very little from this book, but it is fun. Could easily burn through it on a 4-hour flight over some prosecco and crackers.   

Clubland – Frank Owen

Read this because I couldn’t just keep reading Party Monster over and over. Frank Owen introduces his expose by declaring that he is “the last of the gonzo journalists” (actual quote), and I should have just stopped reading there. The underlying subject matter is interesting, but Owen isn’t, and by insisting that his journey is the actual story, he manages to ruin the whole thing.

A relentless fucking chore. No payoff. No reward.   

Fiction

Wake In Fright – Kenneth Cook

This book is very specific. Its essentially a horror story drenched in liquor set in the Australian Outback circa in 1965. Part dreadful existential romp, part exploration of hyper-masculine/homosexual culture in Australian mining towns. Its bleak, but not nearly as fucking bleak as the film. The film is goddam horrific.

Short, evocative, and well written… but relentless in its horribleness. All of the people, places, and things in this story are absolutely awful, as is the narrative.

Certainly worth a read if the explanation above doesn’t completely turn your stomach.    

South of the Pumphouse – Les Claypool

A reasonably foray into fiction from Les Claypool. Its dark and fun and short. Lots of meth, murder, and fishing. No deeper meaning and no pretense. Would pair well with a couple pilsners on a warm afternoon where you are trying to avoid doing any of the things you promised other people you would do. 

So…?

A bookcase is, in part, a display piece. We buy books, but not every one of them gets a spot on the shelf in the living room.

I began this piece by looking back at my list and then trying to decide what to highlight. In the courese of doing this, it became clear that I was deeply tempted to manipulate the statistics in order to communicate something about myself. Probably something pretentious. So then I said, “fuck it” and it became a confessional. I apologize for nothing other than, perhaps, the striking absence of women authors which I will address in this year’s roster. Other than that, here it is.