Reading Diary (33 1/3 Edition)
a) Exile On Main Street by Bill Janovitz
I’m still, as I was a few months ago, devouring these 33 1/3 books at a pretty rapid clip. I’m starting to exhaust the supply of ones I’m really interested in reading that are in stock at the Sound Garden (the one store in Baltimore that sells them as far as I know), though, so I should probably start ordering some online. Like, Exile really just is not one of my favorite Rolling Stones records, and I think Sticky Fingers does a lot of the same stuff tons better. I just don’t really get it, although I haven’t had it for very long, so it may grow on me. Still, it has arguably the best backstory of any Stones album, and I hadn’t read up much on it before, so it was interesting to me, even if I feel like the guy kinda oversold it being a great album without really convincing me as to why. It’s a little weird when some of these books are written by a well known musician, because then I feel like maybe I should be a fan of both the album and the author’s music to read it, but I guess that’s silly. I’ve never really heard this guy’s band, Buffalo Tom, I thought I had but then I remembered that was Grant Lee Buffalo I had an album by. And I mean, I do want to read a book on Let It Be by the Replacements, but I don’t know if I can bring myself to buy one written by the guy from the fucking Decemberists.
b) Led Zeppelin IV by Erik Davis
This definitely one of my favorite books in the series so far, although it helps that I’ve been in a big Zep phase lately, thanks largely to the box set of all the albums that my awesome wife got me for Christmas. But Davis really gets into the mythology and mystique of the band without buying into it, and I just really enjoy the whole tone and approach he takes, really readable and fun stuff. Probably more than any 33 1/3 book, there are bits of it that I now think of any time I hear certain songs off the album, which is, of course, pretty often. It’s funny, the recently announced shortlist of possible upcoming 33 1/3 titles prompted a fair amount of bellyaching about the more canonical selection of artists this time around, but obviously I have no problem with the classic rock-leaning stuff, as long as it’s well written. Plus it kinda makes me feel less bummed out about not sending a proposal, since I know now that nothing I was considering would’ve been popular enough to make the cut.
c) Electric Ladyland by John Perry
This was, I think, one of the first albums I bought with my own money, at an age when most of the classic rock I knew was stuff my parents already owned and I was mostly buying CDs by current acts. So this is a big album to me and Hendrix in general has always been huge, not even entirely on the whole romanticized bullshit around him but that nobody ever sounded like him or played like him. So this is really the exact kind of Hendrix book I’d want to read, from the POV of a guitarist who can break down what he did on a technical level, and also someone who was a teenager in England when Hendrix first arrived and actually saw him in a little club before he really blew up. It sometimes drags or gets a little too far over my head as a non-guitarist, but still pretty cool.
I’m still, as I was a few months ago, devouring these 33 1/3 books at a pretty rapid clip. I’m starting to exhaust the supply of ones I’m really interested in reading that are in stock at the Sound Garden (the one store in Baltimore that sells them as far as I know), though, so I should probably start ordering some online. Like, Exile really just is not one of my favorite Rolling Stones records, and I think Sticky Fingers does a lot of the same stuff tons better. I just don’t really get it, although I haven’t had it for very long, so it may grow on me. Still, it has arguably the best backstory of any Stones album, and I hadn’t read up much on it before, so it was interesting to me, even if I feel like the guy kinda oversold it being a great album without really convincing me as to why. It’s a little weird when some of these books are written by a well known musician, because then I feel like maybe I should be a fan of both the album and the author’s music to read it, but I guess that’s silly. I’ve never really heard this guy’s band, Buffalo Tom, I thought I had but then I remembered that was Grant Lee Buffalo I had an album by. And I mean, I do want to read a book on Let It Be by the Replacements, but I don’t know if I can bring myself to buy one written by the guy from the fucking Decemberists.
b) Led Zeppelin IV by Erik Davis
This definitely one of my favorite books in the series so far, although it helps that I’ve been in a big Zep phase lately, thanks largely to the box set of all the albums that my awesome wife got me for Christmas. But Davis really gets into the mythology and mystique of the band without buying into it, and I just really enjoy the whole tone and approach he takes, really readable and fun stuff. Probably more than any 33 1/3 book, there are bits of it that I now think of any time I hear certain songs off the album, which is, of course, pretty often. It’s funny, the recently announced shortlist of possible upcoming 33 1/3 titles prompted a fair amount of bellyaching about the more canonical selection of artists this time around, but obviously I have no problem with the classic rock-leaning stuff, as long as it’s well written. Plus it kinda makes me feel less bummed out about not sending a proposal, since I know now that nothing I was considering would’ve been popular enough to make the cut.
c) Electric Ladyland by John Perry
This was, I think, one of the first albums I bought with my own money, at an age when most of the classic rock I knew was stuff my parents already owned and I was mostly buying CDs by current acts. So this is a big album to me and Hendrix in general has always been huge, not even entirely on the whole romanticized bullshit around him but that nobody ever sounded like him or played like him. So this is really the exact kind of Hendrix book I’d want to read, from the POV of a guitarist who can break down what he did on a technical level, and also someone who was a teenager in England when Hendrix first arrived and actually saw him in a little club before he really blew up. It sometimes drags or gets a little too far over my head as a non-guitarist, but still pretty cool.
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