best/worst rock biographies

Fong-Torres on Gram Parsons is pretty awful. Bobbie Ann Mason on Elvis isn't too good, and Guralnick on Elvis just makes the whole thing boring.

I still like David Henderson's old Hendrix bio, too.

Revolution in the Head (Ian macdonald) awesome for the song detail if you are a beatles nut.

and for fun Fargo Rock city (biog of a mid west usa teenage metal freak and perfect summation of the hair metal years)

Is there a newer thread I'm missing? I read these three while on vacation and recommend them all:

Patti Smith - Just Kids (2010)
Nick Kent - Apathy For The Devil: A Seventies Memoir (2010)
Andrew Earles - Husker Du: The Story of the Noise-Pop Pioneers Who Launched Modern Rock (2010)

Just finished slogging through Peter Doggett's There's A Riot Going On: Revolutionaries, Rock Stars, and the Rise and Fall of the '60s (2009), which was pretty much a depressing chore. My wife wants me to read the Tina Fey book. In the meantime, what's good from this list? Apparently the Ambrose book on Iggy is crap, but the Trynka book isn't available on Kindle. Hrm.

Jah Wobble - Memoirs Of A Geezer (2009)
Zoe Street Howe - Typical Girls? The Story Of The Slits (2009)
Tony Visconti - The Autobiography: Bowie, Bolan and the Brooklyn Boy (2007)
Paul Trynka - Iggy Pop: Open Up And Bleed (2007)
Joe Ambrose - Gimme Danger: The Story Of Iggy Pop (2009)
Keith Richards/James Fox - Life (2010)
Andrew Loog Oldham - Stoned (2000)
Cherry Vanilla - Lick Me: How I Became Cherry Vanilla (2010)
Legs McNeil - Cheetah Chrome: A Dead Boy's Tale (2010)
Rick Wakeman - Grumpy Old Star (2009)
Rick Wakeman - Further Adventures Of A Grumpy Old Star (2010)
George Berger - The Story Of Crass (2009)

I guess no response cuz I didn't list these?

Sammy Hagar - Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock (2011)
Steven Tyler - Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?: A Rock 'n' Roll Memoir (2011)
Nikki Sixx - This Is Gonna Hurt: Music, Photography and Life Through the Distorted Lens of Nikki Sixx (2011)
Vince Neil & Mike Sager - Tattoos & Tequila: To Hell and Back with One of Rock's Most Notorious Frontmen (2010)

Dean Wareham's memoir is pretty good.

WORST: anything on the Grateful Dead. I'm actually a recent convert to their music, but the hero worship they inspire is pitiful.

As a recent convert myself, while I assume nothing objective has been published about them, is there anything at least not-cringeworthy?

The Keith Richards one starts out interesting, but quickly degenerates into, "and then I passed out here, and then I passed out here, etc." I read it back to back with an Iggy bio (not sure it's the one listed above) and it was kind of weird to see two people basically writing the same book except that one is passing out on a yaht in the Mediterranean and one is passing out in someone's living room.

the last third of Life is pretty bad -- a lot of "i own property in connecticut, i hate mick jagger, i'm an old rich guy" kind of stuff. but there's enough in the 60s-70s to make it worthwhile.

Oh, and The Fallen about all the ex-members of The Fall is pretty good in a few places, but really should have been a blog as there's not enough meat to make a full book...

Dylan's Chronicles

Ribowsky's Spector bio is good, I think.

i read this years ago -- really excellent. there's a newer bio of spector that i think got good reviews, too.

I have the Ribowsky bio, it's great

Just finished the latest Led Zep bio--it's excellent, especially if all you knew before was Hammer of the Gods

The Richards one hits his nadir when he goes off on the guy who stole his shepard's pie ingredients late in the book. I can't imagine why you would want the world knowing you are that much of a fool.

hits "its" nadir

David Keenan's England's Hidden Reverse is wonderful, as is Simon Ford's Wreckers of Civilization. Not sure if those count as biographies exactly though.

I read Hagar's book. I thought it was really entertaining. Don't expect Shakespeare.

The Warren Zevon biography is remarkable for how unflattering it is. He comes off as an absolute monster.

Yeah, that's a good one too.

Feels like I've read dozens of bios of the classic rock/pop types (Stones/Kinks/Who/Beatles/Pink Floyd etc) and yet I can't think of a single one that sticks in my memory. Even the good ones tend to follow the same general model where the savage young upstart early years/first flush of fame part of the story is interesting but the second half is a relatively dull or sometimes depressing catalogue of album releases, collaborations, lawsuits and relationship problems.

The only ones I can think of where I have read them more than once or regularly flick through them:

Julian Cope - Head On (Repossessed suffers from the above issues)
Bill Drummond - 45
Malcolm McLaren - The Wicked Ways of Malcolm McLaren
Ian MacDonald - Revolution in the Head

I'm aware of the issue with the last one but it's a great resource for recording details and so on and reading it is kinda like arguing with a fellow Beatle freak about why they are brilliant.

Best: Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire (whenever I think of Robbie Robertson, I always think of Ronnie Hawkins and Levon making fun of his red scarf in Last Waltz)

Worst: either Albert Goldman's Elvis or A Drink with Shane MacGowan

Fuck. Goldman's book is the worst book/thing ever.

I've had a hold on Greil Marcus's Dead Elvis at the library for a while now, which is in part a rebuttal to that piece of shit. Opinions anyone?

Bowie In Berlin, a really sweet string of moments that begins with Bowie freaking out on Cameron Crowe in L.A. while eating peppers, milk and cocaine (literally checking the closed blinds for any signs of Jimmy Page, who Bowie thought had cursed him) to a more assured Bowie years later, wrapping up Lodger and moving with "Ashes to Ashes".

In between, Iggy Pop serves as a wingman, Bowie rides around in a hovercraft, Marc Bolan and Bing Crosby are both struck dead mere weeks after performing with Bowie and Bowie sees two familiar figures out kissing by the Berlin Wall.

― Pleasant Plains, Sunday, March 6, 2011 6:51 PM Bookmark

Best: Levon Helm, This Wheel's on Fire (whenever I think of Robbie Robertson, I always think of Ronnie Hawkins and Levon making fun of his red scarf in Last Waltz)

And the fact that the mic he sang into was off.

the goldman elvis book is 'bad' definitely but also kind of hysterically entertaining as long as you don't expect it to be an actual biography, but rather 600 pages of unintentional self-expose on goldman's part. there's an entire page in marcus's book where he just lists as many odious goldmanisms as he can find in the book, viz a viz: "the presleys were not normal people, they were hillbillies..."

Andrew Oldham's book is really good. Oral history that allows others to undercut Oldham's own claims. He comes off like such a charismatic asshole. It's supposed to be the first of a series (it ends w/Marianne Faithfull having a hit w/"As Tears Go By"). 2Stoned came out a while back, but not in the US. I think it covers the rest of the 60s. I'm wondering if the rest will ever come out.

I think the biggest revealation I got out of Keef's book (other than Mick's "tiny todger")--and reall is just something I never really thought about--is he never really used effects pedals. The only reason he used a fuzzbox on "Satisfaction" was it was made available to him, and he thought his track would be replaced w/horns. Later, he cites a delay pedal during the Some Girls/Emotional Rescue era.

Actually now that I think of it, Kieth also claims through the magic of overdubs & tape editing he played all the guitars on The Stones 66-67 recordings because Brian Jones couldn't play well any more. Reeks of bullshit to me.

stanley booth's 'true adventures' is definitely the best stones book, but i read any of them i could get my hands on when i was 19. bill wyman's book is dry as dust; he even manages to make banging groupies sound boring. tony sanchez's book is trashy fun. a. e. hotchner's oral history 'blown away' is a pretty half-assed book but it does have some great interviews with ian stewart and marianne faithfull -- worth skipping around in, at least.

Jah Wobble - Memoirs Of A Geezer (2009)

Have tried to start this twice and run aground both times. Needs more of a ghost-writer, maybe, but I'm hoping it'll pick up once he joins some bands.

Andrew Loog Oldham - Stoned (2000)

This is a delight, he has such fun writing in a snotty up-himself persona ahead of accuracy or objectivity, and all for the better. As noted upthread, they allow enough dissenting views from contemporaries to allay the qualms of fact-sticklers and to add to the amusement by undercutting Oldham's grandiosity.

2Stoned feels very different, as he relates a decade or so of trying to let that persona carry him in the real world when he doesn't actually have anything going on to justify it. Still a good read, but there's almost certainly not enough activity in the rest of his life to warrant a third book.

Oh, and The Fallen about all the ex-members of The Fall is pretty good in a few places, but really should have been a blog as there's not enough meat to make a full book...

It was expanded from a weekend newspaper article.

xpost It's a tough call with Keith. On one hand I believe him when he says he uses no effects, etc. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised if he was so far past the point of pawning that stuff off to underlings that he really believes he uses no effects. Like Neil Young and "Old Black," which has been repaired or replaces several times, as best as his tech can manage.

Anyone read Bob Mould's book? Is it out yet?

Steven Tyler's new autobiography sounds kinda lol/kinda amazing:

So it’s oddly touching that despite every­thing, through all the chaos, Tyler’s ego remains unkillable. “I wanted dreamy nubile girls to listen to my voice and cry,” he muses. “A thousand years after my death I fantasized that there’d be people in the outer galaxies listening to ‘Dream On’ and saying in hushed tones, ‘It’s him, the strange Immortal One!’ ” If the love of his life is his own voice, nobody can say the man hasn’t been faithful.

just flipping through it at the boookstore, i could see that steven likes USING CAPS FOR EMPHASIS! which is always a good thing.

http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1282642876l/592741.jpg

that is a great book! what happened to bob greene? did he get horrible?

anyone read the new neil strauss collection of interviews? I need a good long airplane book next week

I need that alice cooper book.

In the interviews in the Bob Greene book, Alice clearly has his sights set well beyond the band, forseeing a future in acting, producing musicals, etc. He, of course, did go Hollywood, but it's odd to think that he's done everything in Tinseltown (hung out with Groucho & Helen Hayes, raised funds for the Hollywood sign, Tonight show/Hollywood Squares appearances, etc.) except appear in films (cameos in Sgt. Pepper and Roadie aside). I always thought he would have been a great Harry Dean Stanton-esque character actor, if nothing else.

that is a great book! what happened to bob greene? did he get horrible?

One of the most famous journalists in the country who turned into a scumbag and was brought down a few years by scandal growing out of his seducing and screwing an underage girl. When it broke, the woman was much older. She had written about the affair to Greene's newspaper because she had contacted him and he had, in return, sicced the FBI on her on unfounded blackmail charges. He resigned from the Chicago Tribune and since then his career has been over.

There's a long story in Chicago Mag here with all the details:

http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/March-2003/The-Sad-Saga-of-Bob-Greene/index.php?cparticle=8&siarticle=7#artanc

He made a small fortune in journalism.

Good dot-connecting!

I'm pretty sure Rogan underlines that connection in his book!

Ha, yes, just found that section.