Reading Diary
1. The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band, by Motley Crue with Neil Strauss
I've never been real into the Crue's music, aside from a few Dr. Feelgood singles, but the band's autobio has gotten so many raves over the past few years for its completely unadalterated debauchery that when I was buying reading material for my vacation a few weeks ago, I went ahead and grabbed it for some light reading. Although my jaw didn't drop quite as many times as I expected it to, there are some pretty good yarns in here. I also really like the way it was structured, with band members taking turns writing chapters seperately. The overlap with some of them having extremely different recollections of certain events leads to some of the funniest moments of the book. Also, they don't really get into the upbringing and personal background of each member all at the beginning, but instead kind of spread it out. So Vince Neil, who's always been kind of had the public image of an unsympathetic prick, keeps that image for the first two-thirds of the book, and only then do you learn about his growing up in Compton and later having to watch his 4-year-old daughter die of cancer, and he suddenly becomes a three-dimensional character. Mick Mars is the only one who comes off as completely sympathetic and likable, although half of his chapters are full of insane sci-fi theories about life on other planets and how the dinosaurs became extinct.
2. Dream Brother: The Lives and Music of Jeff and Tim Buckley, by David Browne
As far as rock bios go, this almost the polar opposite of The Dirt; instead of a metal band full of raging maniacs who rarely seem to pay the consequences of their actions, you get two fragile, sensitive singer-songwriters who didn't live on the edge nearly as much, but still died fairly young. I bought this at least 2 or 3 years ago, but didn't finally get around to reading it until I took it on vacation. The parts about Jeff Buckley really fleshed out what I already knew about him and had some pretty interesting details. But a lot of the parts about Tim Buckley were really transparently cribbed from surface-level research, like Browne was much less interested in him and just got enough on him to flesh out a book about Jeff into a book about both of them. Before reading the book I was only really familiar with Jeff's music, but since then I've picked up a 2-disc Tim Buckley best-of. I think my opinion of his music is kind of out of step with the critical consensus, aside from obvious stuff like "Song To The Siren," what's really grabbed me so far is the more MOR post-Starsailor stuff that gets a pretty bad rap.
I've never been real into the Crue's music, aside from a few Dr. Feelgood singles, but the band's autobio has gotten so many raves over the past few years for its completely unadalterated debauchery that when I was buying reading material for my vacation a few weeks ago, I went ahead and grabbed it for some light reading. Although my jaw didn't drop quite as many times as I expected it to, there are some pretty good yarns in here. I also really like the way it was structured, with band members taking turns writing chapters seperately. The overlap with some of them having extremely different recollections of certain events leads to some of the funniest moments of the book. Also, they don't really get into the upbringing and personal background of each member all at the beginning, but instead kind of spread it out. So Vince Neil, who's always been kind of had the public image of an unsympathetic prick, keeps that image for the first two-thirds of the book, and only then do you learn about his growing up in Compton and later having to watch his 4-year-old daughter die of cancer, and he suddenly becomes a three-dimensional character. Mick Mars is the only one who comes off as completely sympathetic and likable, although half of his chapters are full of insane sci-fi theories about life on other planets and how the dinosaurs became extinct.
2. Dream Brother: The Lives and Music of Jeff and Tim Buckley, by David Browne
As far as rock bios go, this almost the polar opposite of The Dirt; instead of a metal band full of raging maniacs who rarely seem to pay the consequences of their actions, you get two fragile, sensitive singer-songwriters who didn't live on the edge nearly as much, but still died fairly young. I bought this at least 2 or 3 years ago, but didn't finally get around to reading it until I took it on vacation. The parts about Jeff Buckley really fleshed out what I already knew about him and had some pretty interesting details. But a lot of the parts about Tim Buckley were really transparently cribbed from surface-level research, like Browne was much less interested in him and just got enough on him to flesh out a book about Jeff into a book about both of them. Before reading the book I was only really familiar with Jeff's music, but since then I've picked up a 2-disc Tim Buckley best-of. I think my opinion of his music is kind of out of step with the critical consensus, aside from obvious stuff like "Song To The Siren," what's really grabbed me so far is the more MOR post-Starsailor stuff that gets a pretty bad rap.
Labels: books, Reading Diary
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