Good books about music

Bob Gluck's You'll Know When yOu Get There was pretty interesting. Might give the miles Davis Lost Quintet etc a shot at some point. had me wanting to listen to teh band more anyway.

I got Rose from ISB's book through teh mail this week but not read it yet.
Hoping it adds to the Mike Heron one a lot. Hope there are others coming.

Stranded by Clinton Walker on the Australian underground scene since just prior to punk. Very interesting.

Need to get the new Boy On Fire on eo n early Nick cave etc

& must get Richard Thompson's Beeswing.

Got “Nothin But A Good Time: The Uncensored History of the 80’s Hard Rock Explosion” by Tom Beaujour & Richard Bienstock

150 pages in & it’s great.

New to me: the Don Dokken/George Lynch soap opera (it is A Whole Thing™️ that goes back to Xciter & the first Dokken album) I sorta knew they hated each other but no idea it was a whole saga

Max Asher & Josh Lewis from Warrant named the band after Warren De Martini which is the dumbest thing i have ever heard & i love it lmao

Jack Russell from Great White robbed a house while high on pcp and shot a woman (she survived, luckily)- that was fkn crazy to read

Lots of props for Quiet Riot opening the door for hard rock radio play/label interest which is cool

It also supports my dislike for Ratt & confirms their “idiot wannabes” vibe

I dont think I knew that Axl’s first name was Bill?

It's the W. in W. Axl Rose!

I saw Dokken live in the '80s once and George Lynch got pissed off about something and slammed his guitar down and walked offstage in a huff. No idea why, now I wonder if it was something to do with the singer. He certainly projected disgruntlement at the time.

Quiet Riot are one of those groups that had been around much longer than people realized (Twisted Sister was another one). I remember Quiet Riot got big in Japan before anywhere else, but I think with Randy Rhoads? Anyway, the book sounds like a blast.

Don Dokken comes across like a lone wolf who was v opportunistic & hungry, and bc he never really had a band of friends with him, he was willing to do more for the sake of fame at the expense of anyone around him

Lynch seemed more like a super-talented guy who wanted a band that had his back. But he was in need of a gig when Tooth & Nail was happening - he had gotten passed over for Ozzy’s band in kind of a shitty way when they hired Jake Lee so he was in a “better the devil you know” situation w Dokken. It was kinda doomed from the getgo since they ~already~ couldnt stand each other

and yeah, they talk a lot about how the early bands that got over were the guys who had been working for years before - Quiet Riot & Twisted Sister had been working solidly since the 70’s, Motley had Nikki who’d worked w London etc, etc

just going to chime in here to say George Lynch is a sick guitarist

100%

I've never listened to Dokken's popular albums, but I heard a live CD from 1981 that came out in the mid-2000s that was pretty impressive.

VG or anyone else, check out these cheapie Inside Metal documentaries about the roots of the LA metal scene, really cool.

at one point Don Dokken says he used to sell coke to Keith Morris and Black Flag, also that he was someone getting it indirectly from Pablo Escobar

https://www.amazon.com/Inside-Metal-Scene-Explodes/dp/B078TND9ZW?ref_=d6k_applink_bb_dls

Dokken was the first band I ever saw live! my friend's dad took us to see Aerosmith in 87 and they opened

Martin Popoff's The Big Book of Hair Metal has a lot of colourful pictures and talks about a wide range of bands of that era, it's neither academic not especially gossipy.

xposts thanks for the rec ums! i will check those documentaries out!

I love the first 3 Dokken albums, and their live album Beast From The East is pretty great. Don is kind of douchey but he has a great voice & Lynch obv shreds

What I posted about Bowman's book over on the Sweet Soul Music thread:

Really appealing Memphis Commercial Appeal feature by Bob Mehr, reThe Last Soul Company: The Story of Malaco Records, by Rob Bowman, ethnomusicologist and author of Soulsville U.S.A., a study of Stax. He also wrote the notes to Malaco box in the 90s, for the label's 30th Anniversary---for the 50th, a Malaco co-founder pitched him the idea to write "a lavish coffee table book that would tell the company's complete history." (So it's authorized, I take it, but on this piece, Bowman doesn't always agree w co-founder's comments). "It's the longest-running independent record label in American musical history," RB mentions, and and Mehr specifies, "It's existed in various forms: first as a booking agency, then a recording studio, then home to a hot house band, and ultimately a record label that has flirted with and found success across a number of genres from soul-blues to gospel." Mississippi Fred McDowell, King Floyd, Jean Knight, Little Milton, Johnny Taylor, Denise LaSalle, and (I think) ZZ Hill, many more were on there, and the house band also recorded with the Pointer Sisters, Rufus Thomas, and Paul Simon as mentioned here.
https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/entertainment/music/2021/03/23/malaco-records-the-last-soul-company-rob-bowman-music-books/4735772001/

As far as oral histories, testimonies, more in-the-moment than retrospective, that go back and forth between cute, alarming, and sad, leave us not forget each screen doc (Hair Metal->Punk->Leftovers)in The Decline of Western Civilation trilogy (so far): the overall title comes to seem more "you decide" than tongue-in-cheek.

Speaking Aerosmith and so, on from a geezer's POV (but as briefly as possible): the critical and commercial success of Bowie in the States, starting with his first in a long line of radio hits, "Space Oddity,"plus his increasingly popular live presentation, may have helped the theatricality and (initially)good hard pop-rockin' records of Aerosmith and Kiss. And for those of us who followed Creem, in middle school, high school, college, and now-whatta-I-do, this last being the Creem Michigan core's peers there was a pop-rockin' continuity of Grand Funk (late 60s-mid-70s), Stones (up to Exiles, back with Some Girls, in between, the interest was more in their shows) Stooges, Dolls, Bowie, Reed, T. Rex (most visible w "Get It On," but along through late 70s w some faithful LP buyers)
---and yeah okay welcome young Aerosmith and even K*I*S*S*, although they went from gaudy to garish, and settled into grinding albums out every six months (when they needed a new crop of 15 year-olds, as somebody remarked). They may have stayed good longer than I thought, but who could keep up, ballin' on a budget? (Plenty of people caught up later, judging from the twentysomething oollectors I met in 90s CD stores and record shows in nostalgic for the K-men as they were for the hair metal emerging in their own middle school days)( and Gene Simmons eventually admitted to being fazed by for instance fans from ancient times coming up to him after shows on the memory circuit, requesting no more blood, you scared my grandbaby "B-but-we're still K*I*S*S*!")
Aerosmith played it cooler, though Tyler agreed with Simmons that good taste was a bunch of shit, esp. in rock, and their 70s albums filled the aforementioned Stones vinyl gap: nuthin too quirky, just killer--a guy walked into my room during Rocks, and asked, "Is this a new Zep record?" A huge compliment, then and now. Some good live albums too.
They started loosing it with A Night In The Ruts, and never really came back for long, quality-wise, far as I could tell.

Sorry for lack of edits in that, but you get my drift. Oh, again party re the budget, partly through the fairly enthusiastic but unremarkable Creen reviews, Starz just never seemed, to me, all that worth checking out. Cheap Trick quickly became known more as reliable arena rockers, also good on the state fair etc. oldies circuit, maybe to this day, though w/o orig drummer(again, early albs got some good reviews, but unperson prob heard most of the key songs). Shoes never made anything like the big media push, and never got the big promotional backing, of any of these other bands, though certainly Black Vinyl Shoes and several others have stood the test of time.

always interesting to hear how they were perceived at the time

big difference for me is Aerosmith's world class rhythm section vs. Kiss's pathetic chops

I definitely see them having the same audience at that time but to me Kiss isn't even on the same planet as Aerosmith

Cheap Trick are a treasure to me, the first three are perfect and they are still a great live act (my friend saw them jam out "waiting for my man" by vu for a state fair crowd a couple years ago).... they have such a cool vibe, kind of half winking and smart but also arena rockers

I only heard Kiss on the radio and at other people's house parties, may never have heard a whole Cheap Trick album anywhere, so I'm hardly the best judge. Yeah, Cheap Trick flaunted their 2 Nerds x 2 Studs visual hooks, and they could all play, for sure.

I was only a kid but Kiss fully just *poof* disappeared as soon as they took off their makeup - the only thing that hit after that was God Gave Rock & Roll in the early 90’s. But thet were so indefatigable it didnt seem to matter, they seemed to already have nostalgia-touring figured out 20 years before it became a thing for washed-up hair bands. They didnt ever seem to care that no one else cared about them.

I think Lick it Up was pretty big


but in another thread someone pointed out that if you look up their album sales even in the mid/late 70s they didn't sell nearly as many records as you'd expect

I just looked and their biggest album is Destroyer, only 2X platinum

kinda wild, Rocks is 4X, Toys in the Attic is 8X platinum

Cheap Trick studio albums never go more than platinum but Budokan is 3X

I would have guessed Destroyer would have been closer to Aerosmith numbers*

*though in fairness I bet Aerosmith's old albums sold quite a few more copies in the 90s when they were huge

leave us not forget each screen doc (Hair Metal->Punk->Leftovers)in The Decline of Western Civilation trilogy

dow is misrecalling these docos slightly but any recommendation is worthwhile.

(Punk -> Hair Metal -> homeless street kids, each of the three specifically in Hollywood)

xp I have to imagine Double Platinum by Kiss is at least, um, 2X platinum?

oh yeah I was just doing studio albums except Budokan but Alive as well

lol double platinum is only... platinum

alive is only gold, weird

alive ii ties destroyer, double platinum

(Punk -> Hair Metal -> homeless street kids, each of the three specifically in Hollywood){/i] I saw the Hair Metal one first, sorry. Think the kids may not have all been homeless but some homes were squats, right? And certainly, whatever the address, they're all "homeless" as in "at loose ends", in a lot of ways. "My mom is a hoarder," one guy unnecessarily explains, in a living room that surrounds and intrudes upon him and his band, practicing. So maybe he stays out of the house as much as possible/is gradually getting stuffed out, like kids on [i]Hoarders.

Eh? All italics?! Sorry. Better go now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMee_r95Nfs

#OneThread

There's one guy with a house in Decline III, that iirc he may have legitimately but treats like a squat - one of the only music-related scenes in that film is a house party with the other kids passing out and pissing and puking in and breaking his bathroom.

re: the Nothin But A Good Time book

Kip Winger talks about being ridiculed by Metallica & Beavis & Butthead but he also comes across like a huge douchecanoe in this book & therefore i am not convinced that he was treated unfairly lol

i remember being sort of mystified by III

I think he had this whole thing where he's like I'm really a serious composer, he's done "classical" stuff

yeah that came up - he says producers told him to simplify his music & he was like “you mean i could have had hit records playing like i did in high school!?”

eye roll to the skies

but in another thread someone pointed out that if you look up their album sales even in the mid/late 70s they didn't sell nearly as many records as you'd expect

I remember seeing the “Lick It Up” video a lot, and they had a slight makeup-free rebound in the late ‘80s. But yeah, they were never huge sellers: out of 18 albums in the ‘70s and ‘80s, only four hit the top 10 in the US (and two of those were Alive!s).

Similarly, with their singles: only one top 10 (“Beth,” #7) out of 40 (if wikipedia is accurate) singles in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

re perceived vs actual bigness of Kiss vs some others:

I just looked and their biggest album is Destroyer, only 2X platinum

kinda wild, Rocks is 4X, Toys in the Attic is 8X platinum

I assume the album sales you quote are US alone? As a Norwegian born in 1969, I can affirm that around 1980, EVERY KID around me knew who Kiss were, while I doubt any of the other bands mentioned registered much at all. This iconic-ness in (at least some) other parts of the world may play a part.

(are there reliable-ish worldwide album sale numbers? might be interesting to compare those)

(also ties in with VG's "Kiss fully just *poof* disappeared as soon as they took off their makeup", which fits v well with my experience)

I mentioned these things to my partner, born 1976, and even in her childhood memories, the regular Saturday treat was candy assortments that often had small packs of Kiss stickers in them. A classmate of mine somehow managed to get the means to acquire all the four solo albums released on the same day. Nice marketing job, there.

(There were non-Kiss sticker bags in those packs as well; I remember a "Punk" series, from which I can only recall a few Gruppo Sportivo stickers. End of digression.)

In the US the 1980-1982 period was their slump - The Elder (1981) in particular was a stiff. Lick It Up was if anything their comeback album and, as Tarfumes suggests, in the makeup-free side of the '80s they sold consistently well. And Revenge from 1992 is their 2nd highest charting LP ever (!).

Yeah agreed, The Elder thwarted stuff a bit independently of the unmasking thing. Thinking of which, I went to check the Unmasked (1980) wikipage, and quite unusually for an American rock album on English-language Wikipedia, a banner at the top says

This article may be expanded with text translated from the corresponding article in Finnish. (October 2017) Click "show" for important translation instructions.

I did quote U.S. sales only but most Wikipedia entries for albums show sales certifications from around the world

oops not the individual entries but a band's discography page

holy cow! Norway is unique, the highest charting Kiss albums are......

*drumroll*

.... Unmasked (#1) and Music From the Elder (#7)

wild

So I bought Nothin' But a Good Time and read it in a couple of days, bc it's an addicting read. Observations:

1. To get a nitpick out of the way, although they are not of the scene the book is concerned with, I felt Def Leppard got downplayed almost to the point of being erased from the history. Bc while the LA bands were all still working out their record deals Def Lep were selling multi-multii-multi platinum quantities of Pyromania and MTV was playing them to death before they did the same w/ Quiet Riot. The LA bands may have added the element of overt sleaze to the mix, but Def Lep established a hard rock-pop template and production innovations that were widely imitated.

2. I especially liked the first half of the book when they talk about the groundbreaking bands of the Sunset Strip scene and how the scene transitioned from new wave to hard rock. When the more formulaic, dumber bands start to come in the stories get repetitive and it's harder to care about those people.

3. It was not apparent to me from their music that (as VG alluded to) Winger were self-important musos (especially Kip). Does this mean their '80s albums are worth further exploration, ie do they have layers I missed?

4. Did the book make me want to go on Youtube and rewatch old videos from the likes of Faster Pussycat, White Lion, and Britney Fox? Yes it did. Jury's out on whether that's a good thing.

5. I thought a quote from Brad Tolinski, editor of Guitar World magazine was otm, where he says that hair metal guitar shredders made guitar soloing into a sport, and an aspirational pursuit, rather than a mode of personal/emotional expression as per the older generation.

6. Speaking of which, I can't help thinking of the hair metal/grunge divide through a generational lens. It seems to reveal a duality within Gen X, bc many of the musicians of both eras were Gen Xers. For example, Sebastian Bach, Nuno Bettencourt, and Zakk Wylde were all approximately Kurt Cobain's age. It's as if there was a pre-ironic and post-ironic schism within that age cohort, or that one high school clique took over from another one. Sebastian Bach was a fan of Nirvana & wanted to tour with them but Cobain refused bc he couldn't abide the homophobia. The horny hedonism of hair metal seems to vanish when you focus on the grunge scene, even though these people are of overlapping age and share many musical influences. And I wonder if the teens of Gen Z have any time for '80s hair bands, since the genre seems to go against all the attitudes we associate with them. It is impossible to imagine a phenomenon like hair metal arising from Gen Z, as times and mores are so different.

funny a former ilxor was talking about their kid listening to warrant - cherry pie because of a tv show called supernatural that's popular with kids now, apparently they play lots of 80s and 90s music

good post,I want to read it, interesting about Def Lep, they were odd, at once a part of it and not a part of it, but the biggest band on the planet

come to think, were they the only Brits that were really big in that era?

Priest and Maiden were fairly big at the time (not remotely like Def Leppard tho). The book ignores them too. It does give lots of space to Ozzy Osbourne, but that is partly because Ozzy poached three of his guitarists from the LA scene, and also bc they were able to get a lot of pertinent quotes from Ozzy and Sharon.

Def Leppard not being included didnt seem like a slam against them as much as they werent part of the US scene as per the books overall focus. I mean, Whitesnake & The Scorpions barely rate mentions too except a few quotes & they were massive, the Cult & Europe are huge & they arent mentioned at all

for the context of the book i wasnt really losing my shit over it

Also yes, Winger has much deeper layers you should definitely explore the under appreciated subtleties of Seventeen /irony font

ah yeah Whitesnake would be the other one that fit from the UK w/DL. Maiden and Priests are too real metal to me, or basically at least back then no girls liked them.

but from an author's perspective you could really get to writing an enormous book if you tracked down all the different countries, etc

yeah the focus was primarily American hard rock - you need multi volumes for worldwide though that would be awesome