best/worst rock biographies

James Young's Nico book -- how many different titles has this book been published under? -- variously known as "The End" and "The Last of the Bohemians" -- is yet another tragically hysterical firsthand account.

Ingeborg Schober's Amon Düül II bio, "Tanz der Lemminge" is really underrated. Nice interviews, some incredible anecdotes, and she wonderfully evokes all the socio-political goings-on of late 60s/early 70s West Germany. You'll have to know German in order to read this one, as it's never been translated into English, as far as I know. (I could be wrong.)

Worst bio? The Jim DeRogatis Lester Bangs book is fucking terrible. (Like anything else you'd expect from the pen of Jim DeRo.) Richard Meltzer's chapter on Bangs in "A Whore Just Like the Rest" is far more insightful, more cutting, more affectionate even.

I find the John Szwed Sun Ra bio to be tedious and boringly pedantic. Of course this is what you expect from an uptight academic. There's no humour in the writing whatsoever. Sure, there is a lot of useful info and all that, but Szwed embarrasses himself badly when he reveals himself to know fuck all about rock music. (He calls Can a "space rock" band inspired by the Arkestra. Huh?! Amon Düül II, whom he also laughingly calls "space rock", well, Szwed spells it Amon Dul, etc., etc.)

Just about everything by Diedrich Diedrichson (has any of his writing ever been translated into English?) is always good for something. Sometimes unintentionally funny, though.

Maybe this next one is both the best and the worst. A few years ago I picked up this amazing artifact for nothing at a flea market. It's a thick American magazine titled "John Lennon: 1940-1980", one of the many (certainly) quickie-cash-in "tributes" which immediately followed in the wake of Lennon's death. (This one is dated December 1980; these ghouls wasted NO time getting this piece of crap out on the shelves.) It has the absolute WORST writing I've ever read in my life. I keep it for this reason alone. It's full of mawkish, badly written smug remembrances by aging ex-hippies on the brink of yuppiedom, writing things like "I didn't listen to my beloved Beatles for a six-month period after Lennon said he was more popular than Jesus", and "'Strawberry Fields' sounded too weird to me at first. The Beatles had outdistanced us, thanks to a certain sweet smelling herb, but we caught up." Add badly reproduced color photos, more typos than you can shake a stick at, and we're talking CLASSIC.

Hell yes.

On the unintentional comedy scale, Angie Bowie's first(?) book is right up there.

Shakey knowledge of krautrock aside, I really dug the biography - I didn't find it too tedious, and it was certainly packed with information.

But it's not just krautrock -- Szwed falters horribly whenever he attempts to say anything about Ra's influence on rock. John Szwed obviously knows nothing about the subject. I wouldn't attempt to write anything about, say, jazz from 1920-1950 or C&W from any era, because I am confident that I really wouldn't know what the fuck I'm talking about.

I'd actually give a decent shout to the Billy Bragg one, 'Still Suitable For Miners'. It's a bit too "he's a good bloke", but readable with it.

I think the Tony Bennett one that was bought for me several years is one of the worst I've read, although I've got a Bauhaus one (Dark Entries?) which is so fawning it's incredible.

Is there a decent Scott Walker one? I've only got 'A Deep Shade Of Blue', and feel there must be a better book about Scott out there.

I can't recall him saying that much about rock music when I read it but he's really gd on jazz and relating it to developments in classical avant-garde.

I can see what you mean in respect to the dryness of the writing but the whole thing is so well researched -- he interviews as many associates/musicians as he can, and the story is so damn great and the guy is so fascinating that I found it a real quick and enjoyable read.

But anyway: what was ra's 'influence' on rock? I mean, maybe leading by an example -- as in setting up this commune of ppl to work together on improvisations and group sound; which, as far as i can tell, wz only adopted by some ppl in krautrock and maybe beefheart (but that could also be relaetd to a 60s countercultural mindset). Even his work as a whole is odd in relation to jazz too, i find.

Also, Miles Davis' autobiography is an entertaining and enlightening read. To give a little of the flavor of the book, I always think of a photo caption that read (quoting from memory) "This was our line-up at Birdland in 1949. Standing at left is Symphony Sid, another motherfucker I never could stand."

How's "Hip Priest", by the way?

sorry xpost, back to sun ra's influence on rock

Best (individual) - Chuck Berry: The Autobiography
Best (group) - Hammer Of The Gods: The Led Zeppelin Story (Steven Davis)

Worst - No One Here Gets Out Alive (Jerry Hopkins)

Hopkins' David Bowie & Jimi Hendrix biographies were just as poorly written as his Jim Morrison bio was, but at least those two were fairly compelling subjects, so the books retained some inherent interest. Never read his Elvis bio, and certainly don't intend to.

I liked Shakey for the original interviews with Neil Young, but had a major problem with the author inserting himself into the narrative. It seemed to me that he wanted to sniff Neil Young's armpits and then tell him why they stank.

I call it biographer's disease (it has some resemblance to executor's disease, but that's another thread): thinking you're a genius because you're writing a book about one.

Worst = the lemmy one. A terrible dissapointment. Just crass and stupid and boring.

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.

I started reading the Zeppelin one today. Every time I come across the name "Mickie Most" I want to throw that shit out the window.

Just finished one that's so boring (reviewed under embargo so can't name it) that it makes me wonder if I ever want to read a single-artist bio, as opposed to a memoir, again.

Smoothed: The Epic of Rob Thomas

Puttin' On Duritz: The Counting Crows Story

Okay I can't top that.

Just recently read Buddy Guy's forthcoming When I Left Home which contains a lot of interesting stories - unfortunately, it's written in Negro dialect. I'm not joking. Half the time it reads like a transcript of an old Amos 'n' Andy routine.

kudos tyler. That's killer.

haha, i feel like i stole it from someone, so kudos to that person I've forgotten.

Duff McKagan's memoir on G'N'R is pretty great!

RIP Johnny Rogan

I've never read any of his books, but he's contributed quite a bit to a lot of reissues I still own. Given the nature of those contributions, I get the impression he's one of the best researchers in rock history, performing the grueling, unsung work of compiling complete and accurate sessionographies and discographies while detailing every bit of minutiae that separates one mix or take from another as well as finding out why said recording was left in the vault.

Obituary, the Smiths anecdote is a bit surreal - I guess court proceedings for Joyce's lawsuit was open to the public.

I finished the first volume of the Byrds one a year or two ago. It’s a great work for reference for the reasons you give—it even covers bootlegs—but it was so exhausting in its detail that I won’t ever read it again; I’ll just dip into it when I need to check something or want to read about the period whatever LP I’m spinning came out in. Hard to believe he wrote another huge book on the solo members! I admire it a hell of a lot even if I have little desire to read pages and pages about Firefall or what various members did in the 1980s.

His Ray Davies biography from a few years ago is good, but he gets hung up on certain things - he keeps mentioning (in a smarmy way) how miserly Ray is, because he doesn't buy rounds at the pub or something.

Oh, and the opening post in this thread is correct - Bebe Buell's book is the worst I've ever made myself finish. It was, however, useful as a compendium of the insulting names that Elvis Costello had for Prince.

!

His Ray Davies biography from a few years ago is good, but he gets hung up on certain things - he keeps mentioning (in a smarmy way) how miserly Ray is, because he doesn't buy rounds at the pub or something.

I once worked with a guy who was in a band with one of Ray Davies' daughters and I know for a fact that that is true!

I'm sure it's true, is it worth mentioning over and over in a biography? (I don't go to pubs.)

Not specifically the buying rounds in pubs bit but just him generally being a comically tight-fisted millionaire.

Hard to believe he wrote another huge book on the solo members!

it's only on the members who've died!

Now that he's dead, Rogan will write biographies of the living members of the Byrds.

Not specifically the buying rounds in pubs bit but just him generally being a comically tight-fisted millionaire.

That's more funny when I think about the time he ran after that mugger who robbed his girlfriend - it always struck me as an impressively chivalrous act, but one can joke that he was after a tenner she owed him.

Good dot-connecting!

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

Ha, yes, just found that section.